wonder at nature is rare because it takes vulnerability

[belenen]

icon: "plant magic (a photo of pink tree buds with a forest in the background, taken early spring)"A deep feeling of wonder at nature is not common and not something many people want to enter into on purpose (though they might if they are high on romance or drugs or something). It takes a level of willingness to be vulnerable, because wonder is

Comments

[song_of_copper]

Yes, and to feel awe of that kind implies that you acknowledge your own smallness and fragility. A rock might be millions of years old and will probably continue to exist long after you-the-individual has ceased to be. Plants have complexities going on that we humans barely notice, let alone understand. And we rely totally on nature, are enmeshed in it, are not higher than it but subject to it.

I think we often prevent ourselves from feeling naturally-arising awe by pre-empting it too much. (I know I've visited 'important sites' and felt nothing much, despite thinking I ought to feel something... guide book syndrome?) But on other occasions, when I wasn't expecting to feel awe and wasn't gearing myself up for something of the kind, the feeling has overwhelmed me in an unpredictable, private way.

[belenen]

*nodnod* I get what you are saying about pre-empting awe. Expectations can crush such delicate things as wonder.