30 Days of Gratitude: Day 12 - Wonder

Trees (Psychedelic)
March 2008, I-40, Raleighwood, NC
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30 Days of Gratitude: Day 12

Day 12 - Wonder

"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."
-- Albert Einstein

To wonder is to leave behind your understanding of the world as it is, is to forget what we consider to be possible and what we consider to be impossible. Wonder is to see something, anything, as an entirely New Thing.

As I've grown older wonder often tends to be harder and harder to come by. My mind gets easily preoccupied with the needs and events and problems of the day and in that crowded, concerned environment it's often hard to let something as revolutionary as wonder creep in.

And yet, the thing is, it does.

I'm a sucker for getting wonderstruck by mechanical tools and puzzles and anyone doing a complicated task in an almost effortless way. I'll stop cold for things like that, wandering over with my head cocked slightly to the side, trying to understand what's happening and, more importantly how that thing is happening.

(This can sometimes be an annoying habit, as Bonn has learned over the years. We'll be walking along together and then suddenly we're not. She's still walking and I'm completely absorbed by whatever New Thing has captivated my attention)

One of the best thing about working with kids when I was an elementary school librarian was to be able to work around kids who still had pretty good amounts of wonder with them. They were also open to new ideas, learning new things. As a librarian I was able to give them the tools to explore those things that they were interested in and nurture that sense of exploration and discovery. That was always a great feeling.

Be wonderful and full of wonder today.

"If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in."
-- Rachel Carson

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