I've just come back from my Saturday morning walk along the ocean with my dogs. It's a warm, sunny day here in Sitges, with many of the hundreds of people along the boardwalk wearing only sweaters, and occasionally just T-shirts or tank tops. And for some reason the exper- ience has left me wondering about wonder.
One of my favorite Bruce Cockburn lines ( Yes, *him* again! :-) is his reworking of the Lao-tzu quote from the Tao Te Ching that is the Subject line of this post. If we can sing with the wind song Chant with thunder Play upon the lightning Melodies of wonder Into wonder Life will open What has me pondering the word "wonder" this morning is the curious phenomenon of the different places that human beings *find* wonder -- how open and unlimited some of these places are, and how limited and constricted other such places are. Take this discussion group, for example. Face it...we are pretty much all "wonder junkies" here. Even if we are no longer on an overt spiritual path, we love those moments of wonder that we stumble upon that zap! some- thing in our brains or our hearts and make us wake up! for just a moment and re-experience the wonder we felt about life in our youth. For some, those moments of wonder are found in rooms sitting with their eyes closed, in reading scripture or tales of power from the past, in the words of their spiritual teacher, or by focusing on him or her one-pointedly. For others, they seem to find similar moments of wonder that inspire them in just the weirdest, most everyday places -- in movies and TV, in a funny YouTube clip or a ribald joke, in a favorite song, or in catching a glimpse of a beautiful woman or a handsome man. Some would have you believe that the former moments of wonder are qualitatively "better" or "higher" than the latter moments. The argument goes, "Because we are focus- ing on something 'higher,' something 'more refined' and 'less worldly,' our moments of wonder are cooler than yours, and more spiritual." My response would have to be an unqualified "Bah!" Wonder is wonder, wherever one finds it, and from what- ever source of inspiration. The inspiration itself -- if it lifts you out of the same old same old and into a mental or emotional space that reminds you of wonder itself and the joy of life -- is the same, whatever inspires it. That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it. When folks sug- gest that me finding wonder and inspiration in a beautiful girl walking by is somehow "lesser" than them finding wonder in a book of scripture or in thoughts of God, I emulate Dogbert by raising my paw and saying, "Bah!" On my walk today by the ocean, I saw dozens of things that, for me, inspired wonder. Each of these things uplifted me and made me feel "spiritual" in a way that I'm not sure I would ever have achieved by sitting at home and reading the "highest" scripture. YMMV. Some of this morning's moments that inspired wonder for me: * The beautiful young mother pushing her baby along the boardwalk in a stroller, feeling her long blonde hair toss in the wind and enjoying the sensual nature of it, then noticing me noticing and smiling, and smiling back. * The two-year-old toddling along, still somewhat unsure about this walking stuff, and noticing my dogs...toddling up to one of them and getting his first "dog hug"...my dog tolerating it gracefully, but with a look on his face that made me LOL. * A seagull with Johnathon Livingston Seagull aspirations doing loop-do-loops above us, occasionally swooping down to grab morsels of food held out by admiring humans. * A teenager overcome with a need to not only walk along the boardwalk on a sunny Saturday morning, but to *dance* along it, doing a creditable pàs de deux with the wind...stopping, noticing the passersby not being as appreciative as she'd thought they might be, frowning...noticing me watching her and smiling big-time...laughing, and doing one last pirouette and curtsy in my direction before walking on. I could go on and on. So many moments of wonder, each of them opening me to even more. While I may understand that people find wonder in the same old same old places they've found it for years -- in meditation, on "rounding courses," in pujas and yagyas and celebrations, in thinking about or discussing intellectual models for enlight- enment or self discovery, I think they might be missing some- thing if they believe those are the *only* places they can find it. Wonder is all around us, on every street or boardwalk. If we don't notice it, and hurry home to search for wonder in a book, IMO that's not the wonder-on-the-street's fault.
