To wonder is to fully enter the living world

Over cities and towns, just like one "That floats on high o'er vales and hills". 

Delightful originality in the bunching and shading. What can you see in the shapes?

It's time to look upward and to enjoy the gift.

Goethe knew it when he exclaimed: “I am here, that I may wonder!” In the same spirit, Hermann Hesse writes:

Wonder is where it starts, and though wonder is also where it ends, this is no futile path. Whether admiring a patch of moss, a crystal, flower, or golden beetle, a sky full of clouds, a sea with the serene, vast sigh of its swells, or a butterfly wing with its arrangement of crystalline ribs, contours, and the vibrant bezel of its edges, the diverse scripts and ornamentations of its markings, and the infinite, sweet, delightfully inspired transitions and shadings of its colors — whenever I experience part of nature, whether with my eyes or another of the five senses, whenever I feel drawn in, enchanted, opening myself momentarily to its existence and epiphanies, that very moment allows me to forget the avaricious, blind world of human need, and rather than thinking or issuing orders, rather than acquiring or exploiting, fighting or organizing, all I do in that moment is “wonder,” like Goethe, and not only does this wonderment establish my brotherhood with him, other poets, and sages, it also makes me a brother to those wondrous things I behold and experience as the living world: butterflies and moths, beetles, clouds, rivers and mountains, because while wandering down the path of wonder, I briefly escape the world of separation and enter the world of unity.

This is how the natural religion  and the “responsibility to awe” which spring from opening our hearts to all that the world is are stepping stones to a deeper understanding of creation as a gift from God, who in it declares a loving presence as part of an eternal relationship. 

One thing more:

Ω My thanks to Maria Popova for inspiring this reflection. Read her piece in full here.  Sign up to enjoy and support her artistic endeavours.

Ω Enjoy also: Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon, Francis of Assisi

Ω Leave a comment and, if you like this blog, read the same posts at my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified when a new post is published.