Awe and wonder can be experienced everywhere in Daydreaming on the Porch

When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.

Georgia O’Keefe

To Look At Any Thing


To look at any thing,

If you would know that thing,

You must look at it long:

To look at this green and say,

“I have seen spring in these
Woods,”
will not do – you must

Be the thing you see:

You must be the dark snakes of

Stems and ferny plumes of leaves,

You must enter in

To the small silences between

The leaves,

You must take your time

And touch the very peace

They issue from.

John Moffitt

This poem reminds me that to truly “see” is a deeply meditative act. It is essentially about transcending normal perception. Mostly we look at things casually or superficially, unless we suddenly come upon something spectacular like a perfectly arched rainbow, or even a part of a rainbow. Then we gasp in awe. This I would term “awe at the macro level” but at the micro level, just coming close to an ordinary object or a sight we think we’ve seen a million times, will reveal hitherto unknown wonders.

Mystery surrounds us, but we’re not aware just how mysterious this life is, because understandably, we have work and family, and obligations and chores to attend to all the time, and a multitude of activities and interests we enjoy pursuing. Thus our lives can become both hurried and harried.

But don’t we owe it to ourselves to take enough time out of our busy lives to look deeply and to think deeply about what we see and experience, even the familiar, even mundane objects we see often can be infused with the kind of awe that surprises us. Through attentiveness, we can see beyond the surface and delve deeper into reality.

Looking closely at azaleas backlit by the sun:

https://flic.kr/p/2pBJrac

I gathered together a collection of some of my recent photographs to illustrate what ai am talking about in this essay.

https://www.flickr.com/gp/camas/9GM02pDS0p