Focused Eyes

I was bored so I decided to center myself and just feel the space of awe as an experiment. I closed my eyes for a moment and when I opened it a butterfly gently flitted around in my balcony. Out came a poem, reflective description and a lesson plan for my classes…

Follow the trail of a butterfly

Trace the path with your eyes

A sigh that holds contentment

A smile to be the only witness

Magic sits, not so veiled

hues sprouting through the gray

A secret at the edge of my vision

A stillness without emergence

Slipping deeper into not knowing

Slowing down to a single breath

Almost feel the earth spinning

Almost numb out in overwhelm

To hold the moment for a second

To brace before being swept away

Where to, I’m not so sure

I may not need to know

A secret that the trees hold

Past a veil, I’m told

But the butterfly exists here

For my eyes to behold

Children are naturally in a space of awe. Existing in a why-centered world. Curious about the world and how it works. Albert Einstein says, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” What does the ‘mysterious’ mean for you? For me it’s the magic behind synchronities. A time when I met a girl who had the same name as me, same age, vegan, a dancer (even the same style- jazz) and dating a man the same age as my boyfriend at the time. The only difference was the country we were from. (How does this even happen?)

A student of mine once said that she saw curiosity seperate from questioning. Curiosity comes from a space of openness and a genuine thirst for knowledge. Where you are grounded in your belief and values but still open to other viewpoints. Where as questionning is the ‘devil’s advocate’ concept. Going into a space of offense just for the sake of it. Curiosity asks you to stay in the space of emergence and find beauty in the not knowing until something lands. This was the musing of a 9 year old child by the way.

This wonder is extremely important for all but we could be experiencing it in different ways. A scientist experiences awe in a very different way from an artist. A scientist follows their curiosity. Going deeper and deeper into exploring a theory, enjoying the hunt for knowledge. On the other hand an artist stays in the space of experience. They just hold the beauty and revel in its magic. They might try to capture the moment with the tools they have. Beauty for the sake of beauty. How does awe unfold within you?

This space of awe has no urgency. Wonder has no time for desperation. It asks you to find beauty in not knowing. We end up slowing down. Maybe that’s why society detests it because our current system thrives on urgency and needs us to keep moving. I find it hard to hold the duality of our world and find myself slipping into urgency before I collect my self again. But again there lies the beauty of duality. Chaos comes after the flow and every time I find the flow, it becomes sweeter.

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I’ve always wondered about awe. When as child I visited my father working in Malaysia, he was eager to show the family a cove he had discovered. I remember how my body filled with awe when we walked along the shore. The clear water lapping on the white sparkling beach. Beaches back home never looked like this. I walked the whole way to the cove completely awestruck. We spent that day playing in the water and then started our way back. To my shock the bay had lost its magic. My whole way back I was baffled that the sight that had taken my breath away had lost its magic! What changed? I imagined my eyes had adjusted to the beauty and had a higher tolerance of wonder! 12 year Sarah found that quite difficult to digest.

I think that’s where addictions come into play. If we stay too still our thoughts and traumas catch up to us. If we don’t do regular therapy and other generative actions then a good doom/hope scroll or drug is a cheap alternative to awe. Midnight Gospel on Netflix used an amazing analogy to explain this- Drugs are like entering a lift which takes you to the penthouse. The doors open revealing a raging party, likes of which you’ve never seen before. But you can never step out of the lift and soon the doors close and you begin your descent. Practicing slowing down and finding ways to increase your wonder helps you get to the penthouse on your own. Practising other coping methods does take you to the same place but its a gamble with where the lift chooses to drop you after. Instead of the ground floor it may take you to the basement of depression and leaves you with no dopamine and in a dysregulated state.

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