Cultivating Awe
Keely Adler and
Cultivating Awe
I think awe is an exercise, both a doing and a being. It is a spiritual muscle of our humanity that we can only keep from atrophying if we exercise it habitually.
Cole Arthur Riley • This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
awe is more than an individual experience. As Keltner suggests, awe can mobilize us toward social progress. It can help us address the systemic shocks that have made our reality so weird. In fact, awe may be the key to solving the polycrisis
🏡 Shock and Awe
The tragedy is that as we distance ourselves from the delight of our youth, we become increasingly prone to disillusionment. Wonder and beauty are not precise cures for disillusionment, but they certainly can stave off the despair of it. To reclaim the awe of our child-selves, to allow ourselves to be taken by the beauty of a thing, allows goodness
... See moreCole Arthur Riley • This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
Children are made of awe. We have much to learn from them, but we seldom aim to. When we encounter the freedom of a child, we can choose to participate in their liberation or we can grow to resent the freedom in them.
Cole Arthur Riley • This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
Laura Francois, founder of the research collective Awe Exchange, who hosted a “Room of Awe” at our recent festival in Tangier, thinks that awe can mobilize and empower social action. She’s specifically interested in what might happen if eco-anxiety were replaced with eco-awe.