Cultivating Awe
Keely Adler and
Cultivating Awe
More than the grand beauties of our lives, wonder is about having the presence to pay attention to the commonplace. It could be said that to find beauty in the ordinary is a deeper exercise than climbing to the mountaintop.
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
When people or groups become too enamored with mountaintops, we should ask ourselves whether their euphoria comes from love or from the experience of supremacy.
Cole Arthur Riley • This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
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
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.