This post, an hour ago, was going to go in a different direction. As glad as I am that, however belatedly, our culture has finally noticed that there is an environmental turning point facing our earth home, I am almost swooning in disappointment with the omnipresent phrase, "We need to fight climate change". I wanted to do the very thing that no longer works: contradict (literally, speak against) this notion, prove why it won't work, effectively fight the use of such wording, and offer the "right" approach. (This blog, and my life, is a work in process, and you can't be on planet earth 66 years without having soaked in the impulses of our conflict construct!) It's so satisfying to say, "so there", "so there", "so there", and wrap up with a sharp, take-no-prisoners conclusion. My inner lawyer loves to make her case, and win.
But that is the old, duality construct talking. So all I will say, addressing virtually everything in the news on this Monday morning including the climate crisis, is: anything you fight gets bigger. Several centuries from now, humans will know how to live a fighting-free existence, and we might as well start now.
So, awe.
The dictionary definitions of this, both online and in my 50-year old hardcover book, are pretty good. It's an interesting condition/emotion, having both positive (wonder, reverence, respect) and negative (fear, dread) aspects, and seemingly appropriate in situations where humans face the divine/Nature or other humans. I suspect that most humans have felt awe at some point in their life, although I also suspect that people incapable of love are incapable of awe. That would be an interesting thing for someone to study, if it hasn't been done.
Awe, for me, happens when my breath has been taken away, when I am overcome with joy at the beauty or sublimity of a scene in front of me, or a piece of music, or the smell of flowers or rain, or the touch of a lustrous fabric like velvet. In the natural world, it has happened when I have seen northern lights, at my very first view of Lake Superior, seeing almost every landscape I have ever laid eyes on in England, and looking at the astonishing photographs being released from outer space. It is when a beauty pierces you to the core, and you realize it was created by a power so far beyond our limited human understanding that it is inconceivable. But I also feel awe when presented with certain human constructs. Yes, my beloved cathedrals. The sound of organ and choral music in cathedrals. Stone circles and Celtic crosses and beautiful architecture, art and design. On "Antiques Roadshow-UK", I have been introduced to a form of art called "micro-mosaics". What looks like a miniature painting or decorated piece of jewelry turns out to have been made using minuscule bits of stone, glass, or gems of different colors to "paint" images. When I think of the people who have the patience to create beauty in this almost impossibly difficult form, I feel genuine awe. Same with ships-in-bottles, certain needlework, basically, detailed artwork of a kind that I don't seem to have the patience for (!)
Many people probably feel a more fear-filled awe faced with some current climate events. In certain situations, I might feel that too, but for the moment, on the periphery, my "awe" is reasonably positive. There is beauty in every natural event, whatever the catalyst: fires, earthquakes, flooding rivers, windstorms, snowstorms. The power of the events themselves is awesome, as is, often, the beauty of the new visual form. The snowdrifts outside my window last winter, at least six feet high, changed every day. The wind blew them into patterns of astonishing ever-evolving beauty, and that visual perfection extends down into the unique patterns of each snowflake. It is a beauty literally beyond human power to create, so I feel awe.
Certain "manmade" constructs do not, I'm afraid, leave me feeling awe or reverence. 100-story office buildings. Giant dams or oil rigs. The "shock and awe" of war. Phenomena from enormous ships, bridges, and spacecraft down to artificial intelligence. It's not so much a case of judging them as bad or wrong, as simply not feeling that inner thrill of joy and beauty. On an energetic level, I don't feel that they were created as an expression of love, so not feeling that love, I seem to be able to feel no awe.
Why did I write this down as a Goddess word? I guess because as I try to imagine a future, more divine feminine-oriented world, awe seems like a quality that will be more common. The more we love, the more we will see, and the more we see, the more we will be in awe of loving and love-filled creations (both divine and human). Today, if we feel awe, it is important to pay attention to it, and to whatever caused it. Let's collect and cherish our experiences of awe.
