Awe: The Transformative Power of Everyday Wonder

He outlined how emotions work: they shift our thought and action to enable us to adapt to our present circumstances.

For infants it is the immense warmth provided by parents, and when we die, the enormous expanse of our lives.

like rats, dogs, and humans lean in and coordinate with others when facing peril.29

by Robert Hass, the U.S. poet laureate from 1995 to 1997, in a twelve-minute tour of the role of awe in literature and poetry at a conference in Berkeley in 2016. As he detailed this idea, he embodied literary epiphanies with whoas, our ancient sounds of recognizing the sublime.

Wonder, the mental state of openness, questioning, curiosity, and embracing mystery, arises out of experiences of awe.

Why dying is oceanic and awe-filled for some and horrifying for others.

(Ralph Waldo Emerson), free intellectual exchange (Margaret Fuller), ordinary people in their daily lives (Walt Whitman), and mystical experiences found in religion, visions, and drugs (William James).53

Awe is about our relation to the vast mysteries of life.

wealth undermines everyday awe and our capacity to see the moral beauty in others, the wonders of nature, or the sublime in music or art.

Proximity and tactile contact activate a neurochemistry of connection. This includes the release of oxytocin, a neurochemical that travels through the brain and body promoting openness to others, and activation of the vagus nerve.