Wonder
“I hope
you never lose your sense of wonder
You get
your fill but always keep that hunger
May you
never take one single breath for granted
God forbid
love ever leave you empty handed
I hope you
still feel small when you stand beside the ocean
Whenever
one door closes I hope one more opens
Promise me
that you'll give faith a fighting chance
And when
you have the chance to sit it out or dance
I hope you
dance...”
Tia
Sillers & Mark Sanders, Songwriters (excerpt from “I Hope You
Dance”)
I always wanted to sing
this song to my sons. They begged me not to, because I'm a terrible
singer, but it says many of the things every parent hopes to impart
to a precious child. There is no more important attribute to have to
get though life with joy than the sense of wonder. It is soul
connected in a way that almost nothing else is. I watched the first
episode of One Strange Rock several nights ago, and was blown away by
the incredible beauty of planet Earth. We inhabit a living miracle.
In the lecture on Love,
Friday night, the presenter, Jungian Analyst Jan Clanton-Collins,
spoke about different ways of expressing the joy that comes with
having a loving spirit. One of them is dance. I'm not so much talking
about Contra, or Latin, or even line dancing, even though all of them
are fun. I'm talking about having a conversation between the music,
the rhythm of the percussion instruments, and your body. Moving with
the beat, allowing your body to interpret and move just as it wants.
When you have to learn steps or a set pattern of movements, you have
migrated away from the heart and into the head. Just become part of
the rhythm and don't worry about getting it right.
If you carry a sense of
wonder with you from childhood, when everything was new and
surprising, you keep that freshness of discovery. I experience wonder
most often in nature—at sights both new and familiar. Sunsets and
sunrises are like heady spices to me, and the fragrance and sounds of
water running either at the ocean's edge or in the green glade of a
mountain stream can mesmerize me for hours. Wonder causes the heart
chakra to expand to its fullest, and its energy encompasses our
surroundings, including the people with us. It's a feeling of pure
joy and, at the same time, of melting away—the boundaries between
us and our surroundings dissolve and we merge into that moment in
perfect unity.
Of course, life is not
always in a state of wonder. If it were, we would not enjoy those
precious moments very much. We will have doors shut in our faces from
time to time, and no doubt love will leave us empty-handed more than
once. But having the capacity for wonder is an antidote for sadness.
It's springtime here in the northern hemisphere on this miraculous
blue planet. I hope you go outside and dance.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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