Unless your emotional circuitry is fried, you’ve experienced the quiet, giant awe that stands and stretches against your organs, bones, and flesh.

When this giant pushes against the confines of your heart and mind to the point of explosion, the urge to share becomes overwhelming. You quiver like the valve of a pressure cooker, just before it rattles to release the pressure. This need to release is electric, powerful, and necessary. Sometimes the giant defies definition or explanation, but you need to share it.

These big pressure-pot thoughts and emotions can be triggered by the sublime. That evening you really see the moon and the stars and allow your speck of existence in the cosmos to sink in. Or when you’re standing on the edge of a canyon and a rush of awe, fear, and fragility lights up your nerves.

And, sometimes it’s the little things. Your toe in the water inches from a minnow or a tadpole tinier than your pinkie toenail. The daddy hummer regurgitating sugar water from your feeder to feed his fledgling, one impossibly long, thin beak to another. The cycle of milkweed plants: chewables for the caterpillar, stations for the cocoon, and nectar for the butterfly.

Sharing the Awe

We often take these big and small wonders for granted. We walk under the stars without looking up, shield our faces from the sunlight without exclaiming, “That’s OUR star! Our miracle of light, vitamin D, seasons, and growth.” We don’t consider the purpose and unfinished business of frantic minnows and tadpoles as they dodge our feet in the water. We overlook the energy required for the stubborn return of zinnias, cosmos, and milkweed that spill from their beds.

But when we do take notice, the pressure to share the awe we feel builds.

I’m lucky. I get to write it out. I have friends who capture wonder in their art, music, photography, and acts of kindness. And I appreciate those who release their awe pressure into social media. It’s a much-needed injection of joy into feeds that often become cluttered and sticky with politics, miscommunication, and hate.

When does awe fill you? How do you experience wonder? How do you release it? Share it?

©Pennie Nichols. All Rights Reserved. 2024