The Wonderserv

Clouds.The way they light up the sky, alter its colours––they...

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 13:34:45 -0400

Clouds.
The way they light up the sky, alter its colours––they act like a prism on my mood. No matter how I feel, a cloud at dusk will always make me stop, gaze at the sky, absorb its pastel skies and neon reflections, smile, and walk on feeling warm and happy.

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Mathieu Ragueneau
Paris

The mercy of God

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 12:51:04 -0400

I grew up without religion or spirituality, and was your typical teenage atheist. But at the age of 11, I began what turned out to be 13 years of severe depression, anxiety, and psychosis. They called it depression but I wasn’t sad - I was terrified. I hated myself and was convinced that everyone else hated me too. I would work myself into a frenzy of self harming every night - every night for 13 years, until I would find myself laying on the floor, gasping, too tired to continue, and I would pray for death.

Every time this happened, God came a little closer. Because when you’re at your most vulnerable, that’s when the monsters have done their work - and God comes over and says, “I still love you. I still love you, when you’re lying here helpless. I love you even when you’re completely lost from yourself.”

I didn’t “Find God”. I didn’t convert. I didn’t read a book to learn what God was about. I just felt something, over those years, pulling me up gently over and over again like an invisible string. Sometimes with my eyes closed, I would feel the room fill with light, and a warmth wash over me.

Now at the age of 24, the darkness is gone. The pain is gone. And every day I am thankful for His mercy. This song, Never Let Me Go, is exactly how God feels to me - and makes me feel awe every time I hear it. This feeling of being loved so unconditionally makes me cry and laugh at the same time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMBTvuUlm98

www.kaylaramsay.com

Awesome Variety

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 12:46:57 -0400

I am working towards my master’s degree in neuroscience. My field is absolutely incredible, and there are tiny moments of awe peeking out at me all the time. For example- there are a over a thousand times more synapses (points where neurons communicate) in your brain than there are stars in the entire Milky Way galaxy. And yet these rattle away in almost perfect harmony for your entire life, whether or not you know they’re there.

But it was several days ago that learning about neuroscience actually gave me a physical sensation of awe. I was sitting in the library reading the book Connectome, by Sebastian Seung. Overall, the book is just okay, but there was one part that really moved me. Seung was describing how the arrangement of synapses in our brain could be one of the main things that determines the wide range of mental differences between people, and that this arrangement might be largely due to random chance.

I sat back in my chair, and my mind filled with the incredible, stunning variety of humanity. Introverted, extroverted, gay, straight, alcoholic, genius, bi-polar, claustrophobic, funny, obsessive-compulsive, musical, and on and on. I felt like we were all part of one fabric, and we should all work as hard as we can to respect and preserve the truly awesome richness of our species. For a moment, I felt as thought I had glimpsed something behind the scenes, beyond anyone’s control, that shapes our humanity, and it made me feel connected to every other person on the planet. And it made me love them.

Peter Hildebrand, East Hartford, CT

I feel awe and the most alive in the early summer mornings standing out amidst the fields, hoe in...

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 12:46:36 -0400

I feel awe and the most alive in the early summer mornings standing out amidst the fields, hoe in hand while the sun begins to crest the horizon. The silence is the sound of peace and timelessness. A cool breeze whispers across the land. The world lights up with rustic oranges, yellows, scarlets, and golds. About my boots, the blossoming plants innocently reach towards the sky. From a tiny seed those same crops instinctively knew when it was time to grow. They already know what they are supposed to become. Who told them?

This is my sanctuary. This is where I find God.

I hope this email finds you well,

-Allie

My brother Dan regularly inspires awe in me. He is a 27-year...

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 12:44:00 -0400

My brother Dan regularly inspires awe in me. He is a 27-year old man with Down syndrome who lives at home in Philadelphia with my parents. Dan has this tendency to change the lives of those around him without even trying. He’s one of the funniest and wittiest people I know, dangerously charming and full of life. One of the most awe-inspiring things about Dan is his ability to express his emotions without hesitating, and more importantly, without censoring what he is feeling. If he was reading your blog right now and all of the awesome submissions you’ve gotten and posted there, he might be bawling his eyes out. Whereas I sometimes struggle to express emotions when I most need to, it seems Dan has never been afraid to let it all out. Sometimes this is a source of frustration for me, that Dan doesn’t keep the tears from flowing even when someone he barely knows passes away, for example. Living in this city has made me feel as though I need to develop some hard, unbreakable outer shell in order to survive. But I am amazed at Dan’s refusal to compromise what he is feeling, regardless of the time, place, or event to which he is reacting. I’ve learned a great deal from Dan about how to feel, and that’s an awesome thing.

Several years ago Dan and my other brother Will began a documentary project about Dan’s life, focusing primarily on his transition from high school to the work force and adulthood. One scene from the documentary centers around Dan learning about the death of someone he knew and demonstrates how Dan reacts to and copes with such news. The scene does a good job of explaining this awe-inspiring thing about Dan. It’s super embarrassing because in the clip I’m 16 years old and have braces! But I’d like to share it anyway.

(Just FYI, a blog accompanies the film project and is widely read by fans of Dan, friends, parents of children with special needs, and educators and is definitely worth checking out if you’re at all interested in the documentary! dandrinker.com)

-Emily Drinker

Brooklyn, NY

Row 14 - Barcelona. You walk in and your jaw is on the floor....

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 12:13:33 -0400

Row 14 - Barcelona.

You walk in and your jaw is on the floor. Im not even a big music person but that place is unlike anything I have ever experienced.

Erica

New York

Watching the moon rise over the ocean after reading A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill...

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 12:12:29 -0400

Watching the moon rise over the ocean after reading A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson on the beach all day. Try it and tell me if I’m not totally right.

Rob Carlson

I am awed by the power of belief. Belief is capable of rejecting the undeniable and embracing the...

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 12:11:42 -0400

I am awed by the power of belief. Belief is capable of rejecting the undeniable and embracing the unbelievable. Belief is the portal to an infinite number of possible realities. Near 7 billion people, 7 billion realities, all different; now that’s awesome!

Dick Hall

Aberdeen, UK

Taken from the same park as the Ellis Island rainbow...

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 08:08:59 -0400

Taken from the same park as the Ellis Island rainbow photo.

Jeanette Taibi

Björn Hamburg, Germany

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 08:07:24 -0400

Björn

Hamburg, Germany

Here’s what makes me feel awe: the subtle line between irrational and rational, between awake...

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 08:07:05 -0400

Here’s what makes me feel awe: the subtle line between irrational and rational, between awake and asleep, between day and night, between unconscious and conscious. Those sweet moments that prove that, no matter how organized and categorized our (sub)consciousness demands the world to be, there’s nothing but a never-ending continuum of seconds, shades and beats.

Maria

Portugal

Recently there was an awesome thread on Reddit called: Reddit, what is the most mind-blowing...

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:13:00 -0400

Recently there was an awesome thread on Reddit called:

Reddit, what is the most mind-blowing sentence you can think of?

These were some of my favorites:

—————————————————-

My friend once said “Du är för dig själv vad du tänker, du är för andra vad du gör.”

Roughly translated,

“You are to yourself what your thoughts are, you are to others what your actions are.”

I like my friend.

—————————————————-

‘Blind people don’t see black, they see the same as what you see out of your elbow.’

—————————————————-

An atom is around 99.9999% empty space, making everything in the universe mostly nothing.

—————————————————-

On grasping large numbers:

One thousand seconds is 16 minutes.
One million seconds is 11 days.
One billion seconds is 32 years.
One trillion seconds is 32,000 years.

The difference between billion and trillion is equivalent to the difference between your lifetime and the entirety of human history.

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The time difference between when Stegosaurus lived and Tyrannosaurus rex lived is greater than the time difference between Tyrannosaurus rex and NOW.

—————————————————-

Also… some people have used the word “awe” regarding my current project where I’m recording 1 Second Everyday for the rest of my life… you can see the start of it on my website.

Go Brooklyn!

Cesar

Brooklyn, NY

There was a drunk guy passed out near my flat tonight. It is cold and wet and late, he was slumped...

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:11:31 -0400

There was a drunk guy passed out near my flat tonight. It is cold and wet and late, he was slumped over. He wasn’t dead. I managed to rouse him but he wouldn’t budge, would not move just five meters into the doorway with a roof. When he started saying I’m all right I’m all right over and over again I backed off, I said Ok I can’t make you… but really the roof is right here…

The rain was coming thicker. I was already cold. He wasn’t going to move. I didn’t want to find him there in the morning, sick or robbed or dead, so I called the local police. I said it was non-urgent, but, y’know… In 20 minutes they called back and I guided them to find him.

As I retreated indoors they were saying to him It’s the police… Come on, people are worried about you, which I thought was quite sweet. There’s just been a case of two young female police lured to a trap and murdered in the UK, and these two officers fit the same profile, and here they are, still on the streets, walking toward all manner of potential trouble for the greater good. At times, I find the organisation and compassion of society awe-inspiring.

Bob Churchill

United Kingdom

Sômolo Brazil

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:10:34 -0400

Sômolo

Brazil

I am one of those people who experiences awe on a more frequent basisthan do most people. Or, it...

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:09:13 -0400

I am one of those people who experiences awe on a more frequent basisthan do most people. Or, it seems so to me. I am not religious. In fact, I count myself as a radical atheist. One who has little intellectual respect for those who don’t understand that when the “founding fathers” described freedom of religion, they also would have agreed with the statement “freedom from religion.” But that’s a drum I won’t bang here. You probably get my position.

So, as to awe… yes, it can be anywhere one looks. An insect working in its colony. A risky grab at a suicidal jumper. An organ donation from a living person to a total stranger. A victim of physical, emotional and sexual abuse who manages to make something transcendent of her life. I could make an argument that awe is endless and everywhere, if one chooses to really see it.

For me, what never fails to inspire, is in reading about or seeing images of the universe at work. The recent discovery of thousands of planets, confirming what we imagined but had no proof of, a mere twenty years ago. Massive forces, gases, cosmic dust, light, waves, gravity… all strings of some inaudible symphony being played in what may not even be a physical place so much as in our own minds’ perceptions of what simply appears. Real or not, it exists somewhere; and it’s beauty is endless and immeasurable.

I often want to grab someone and talk…”hey, look at that! What is a double star system, or an event horizon? Help me understand! Don’t you feel overwhelmed, as I do?” But even my loved ones, family, will look at me like, “okay, relax. I see you’re excited, but who knows about all that? and how can I even spend time thinking about it while I try to carve out a difficult and challenging survival?”

It seems that all earthly phenomena and our experience of it is both puny and fully comprehensive. We just can’t work out how it fits together.

I’ve always had a fantasy that, in death, I [whatever I is] would experience that moment of “OH!! SO THAT’S WHAT IT ALL IS, WAS, WILL BE!!!!! But in reality, I fear that I will go quietly, with no right to assume that, even if there is an answer, or an understanding, that it will be revealed. And so… all the more reason to seek awe right here, right now, as much as possible… so it’s not missed.

Bill Brosh

Manhattan, NYC

This song.

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 16:23:14 -0400

This song.

I do a lot of canoeing in the Candian Quetico in Ontario, and there are few things in like that make...

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 16:19:35 -0400

I do a lot of canoeing in the Candian Quetico in Ontario, and there are few things in like that make me feel as loved, alive and at peace than those beautiful sunrises. When my friends and I would watch the sun rise at 4:00am I have never felt so close to them or to nature and God. To be with ones you love watching something beautiful happen… for me, there can be nothing better.

~Catherine Jarocki

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 15:42:11 -0400

This siteis my home page, so each time I turn on my computer, I get a photo of the universe. Nebulae, moon rises, aurorae, falling stars, eclipses (lunar and solar), sky maps — you name it, they’ve got it. Three have actually made me cry: take a look at Flying Over the Earth at Night, A Flight Through the Universe, and Lightning Captured at 7,207 Images per Second.

The world and the universe are gorgeous!

Anonymous

NYC

Music-wise: Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor Coldplay’s Fix You (when listened to...

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 15:34:49 -0400

Music-wise: Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor

Coldplay’s Fix You (when listened to on proper speakers in an empty room in solitude)

Book: Tuesdays With Morrie. Without going into too much detail, it changed my life such that every day I ask myself, “If today is the day I die, would I be happy with the person I am and the things I am doing?” I don’t know if you read yesterday’s Listserv, but the writer seemed disenfranchised and assuming that every thing people say is a cliche. I hope that you and I are never jaded like that, and that we can appreciate the advice people have to give and truly take it to heart.

Experience: Since you don’t know me, there is a mutual understanding between the two of us that anything I say is not to impress you or make myself seem like a good person. I have a genuine moment of awe whenever I help the homeless; whether this means giving someone a meal, volunteering at a soup kitchen, giving money, or physically bringing someone to the grocery store to let them grocery shop (the last is my favorite). The encounter between two “different” people, and being able to connect and mutually give and receive makes my heart swell every time.

From a religious point of view: I am a 21 year old Jewish, observant college student. This past Yom Kippur (Jewish day of atonement, a 25-hour fast and break from “work” to repent and be judged), I spent the holy day on my college campus instead of going home, as per usual. Sitting in a room of 18-23 year olds, plus some scattered adults, who are all voluntarily spending their day introspecting and praying and abstaining from life’s simple pleasures like eating, drinking water, showering, and wearing makeup, blew my mind. It showed me the unity that makes Judaism beautiful, which has been permeating my every day since then.

Jess

New Jersey

It doesn’t happen every spring, but there’s usually a moment when I’moutside, and...

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 15:33:35 -0400

It doesn’t happen every spring, but there’s usually a moment when I’m
outside, and the trees are that bright new green, and the birds are
fluttering about excitedly, and there’s a breeze, and everything is
bursting forth with life, and the universe is in tune… I get an
expansive feeling in my chest as if love is about to fly from my chest
like a baby alien.

that’s awe, to me.