Sometimes a few days go by which conform to a certain theme, and this past weekend was a weekend of “wonder” in several forms.
I watched a video from the library called “Bronte Country,” about the Yorkshire landscape of the Bronte family (in particular, the three literary sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne.) I had not realized how bleak and tragic their 19th century lives were, with the very early deaths of their mother and two sisters, and the alcoholism and dissipation of their brother, in a town with an extremely high incidence of illness and death because of poor sanitation. The fact that these three young women from one benighted family survived beyond their teen years to begin with, much less published still-acclaimed literary masterpieces, fills me with astonishment and wonder. It reminded me of the Gloucestershire newspapers from the early 20th century that I read on microfilm while doing research into composer Herbert Howells. Small town English life 100 years ago was still, by our 21st century standards, a minefield of uncertainty. Every newspaper was chock-a-block full of accounts of freak accidents; from passengers falling off trains, to farmers being gored by bulls, to women being trampled to death by runaway horses on the High Street, to major mining accidents. I remember that as I sat at the archaic microfilm reader, I wondered how it is that much-loved West Country composers like Howells, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Edward Elgar, Ivor Gurney and others could have grown up with any sense of a larger purpose in this inherently uncertain environment.
Then late last week, I happened upon the latest episode of NPR’s “On Being” with Krista
Tippett. Her interview with Dr. B.J.
Miller, director of Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco, was a wonderful, rich
meditation on life and death. Miller
himself experienced a serious accident in college, leaving him without legs and
one arm. His situation gives him a unique perspective on and understanding of
dying hospice patients, and his early architectural studies inform his work as
well. Once again, I wondered at human
courage, and how so-called tragedy molds unique gifts to the world.
My last
dance with “wonder” over the weekend came in the form of a free audio lecture
by astrologer and “visionary activist” Caroline Casey, sent to me by The Shift
Network. What an astonishing person! Listening to her is like being hit by a
spiritual tornado. She’s so brilliant, her
mind moves a mile a minute, her use of language is so precise and yet creative,
and the lens for her teaching (Coyote/Trickster) is so intriguing. But she said the most “wonderful” thing: that
“Wonder Invites Revelation.” She
suggested couching our life’s predicaments in “I wonder” statements, inviting a
divine response, a gentle opening to insight and possibilities. Some general examples I came up with are:
·
I
wonder how my body will heal me today
·
I
wonder where my true home is
·
I
wonder what’s next
·
I
wonder where I’ll find my optimum source of income
·
I
wonder what the gift is in this situation
·
I
wonder how my spouse and I can get on the same page about ____
·
I
wonder how to heal from grief or pain
Globally,
perhaps some questions might include:
·
I
wonder when humans will stop fighting each other
·
I
wonder how we can treat Mother Earth more gently
·
I
wonder where humanity will be a century from now
We are all
buffeted by some ferocious winds in our lives, which may threaten to topple us
over completely. Sometimes lives of
great meaning and beauty are blown
over sooner than makes sense. And yet
the wonder is that so many of us are still standing at any given moment, molded
by adversity or “contrast,” heroically being ourselves as our fragile planet
hurtles through space. Not everyone has
aligned yet more with love than with fear, but still … billions of courageous
people, billions of singular stories. What
could be more wonder-ful than that?
