Cultivating Awe
Keely Adler and
Cultivating Awe
Maybe what we need is not an object to be known but a cause of wonder.
Substack • Get Inside Your Body
The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline … but rather the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.
– Glenn Gould
– Glenn Gould
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
As we grow older, the “serious” becomes a simulacrum for wisdom and even honor. Impoverished by the honor withheld from us in childhood, we become very willing participants in a kind of spiritual maturation that honors the profound and grave, even at the expense of the simple and beautiful. In fact, the path to wonder is not sophistication or
... See moreCole Arthur Riley • This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
Wonder includes the capacity to be in awe of humanity, even your own. It allows us to jettison the dangerous belief that things worthy of wonder can only be located on nature hikes and scenic overlooks. This can distract us from the beauty flowing through us daily. For every second that our organs and bones sustain us is a miracle. When those bones
... See moreCole Arthur Riley • This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
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.