7:30 morning coffee, my first cup when Becky calls me to the window to watch a large turkey stepping and bobbing across the path leading to the garden field as it heads into the woods. Later, sitting on the deck with a second cup searching email, we spot a young deer take delicate steps through the field on its never-ending search for something to eat. Another typical morning at home. Beautiful.
After that, I read a New York Times article by reporter Jancee Dunn about Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley and author of “Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life.” The good professor promotes a technique called “Awe Walks,” defined as “outdoor rambles designed to cultivate a sense of amazement.”
“Awe,” Dr. Kelter explains, “is a complex emotion we experience when encountering something so vast that our sense of self recedes.” The awe experience can be positive or negative “but the awe that feels good is the type found in moments of wonder and humility.”
The reporter and professor discuss the notion that certain places—think the Grand Canyon—are considered awe-inspiring, but places much less-dramatic—city parks, trails, bodies of water—also can trigger a sense of awe. Well, my wife and I live in a pretty wonderful place, and it’s going to be hot today, so I decided then and there to take an Awe Walk. Becky decides to come with me.
Dr. Keltner offers some suggestions. Devote at least 20 minutes to your walk. Turn off your phone. Take a few minutes to relax and breathe. We did those things then headed down the driveway to the road. Becky noticed just how tall the trees are on both sides of the driveway while I noticed how the morning sun shone through the dense growth spotlighting small ferns on the ground. We understood that you can’t pressure yourself to be awed, so we tried to just be open to what was around us. Being “Mindful” or ‘In the moment’ might be another way to think of it. “When something catches your attention,” says Dr. Keltner, “Stop, and pause and feel.”
Dr. Keltner suggests “part-to-whole” focusing. Start on something small and let your vision and attention expand until you see a vast expanse. At one point I tried to do it backwards: I gazed at the wide green field across the road smeared with white flowers and then narrowed my focus down on the details of one tiny flower. Astounding.
We heard the many and various bird songs that seem sometimes to comprise a background soundtrack to our lives here. On this walk I still heard them, but I tried to stop myself from identifying the particular species and to simply concentrate on the music. As we stand in the shade we agree the breeze against our skin is a wonder in itself.
We reached the endpoint of the road and turned back. At the side of the road one redbud tree had red seed pods and another had green pods. Both trees were part of a wall of greenery along the narrow curve of the road. Soon we took a path through the woods which would lead to our pond. There I focus on blue dragonflies; then clouds of insects; then fish near the water; then the edge of the pond, then trees rising into the sky; then the sky itself bright, sunny and blue.
We circle back home and pass our favorite tree. The massive red oak limbs were fully green and spread wide like a sentinel overlooking the field and garden. At the tip of one curved, low-hanging limb, Becky points out an emerging set of new leaves just on the end of a twig. Amazing.
The breeze is still wonderful when we get back home from our Awe Walk. It was not like walking through an unfamiliar place, exactly, but there were moments when we saw things in different ways. Regular focused walks just might become a thing for us. That would be awesome.
Norman Knight, a retired Clark-Pleasant Middle School teacher, writes this weekly column for the Daily Journal. Send comments to [email protected].
