issue 11: Celestial Awe & Wonder

Awe is a powerful emotional experience evoked by a sense of vastness, beauty and wonder. The experience of awe, especially on a regular basis, has the power to heal, enhance and transform us on many levels both individually and collectively.

Some of the benefits of awe are: greater receptivity to new ideas and perspectives, increased resilience after stressful life events, desire to collaborate and seek out community, even reduced inflammation in the body and release of feel-good chemicals like dopamine and oxytocin. And, because awe makes us feel part of something larger than ourselves, it may be the antidote to the loneliness and isolation many feel in our increasingly polarized social climate.

When we orient ourselves towards perceiving and experiencing awe, it can be found virtually everywhere and in anything, large or small. The experience of awe need not bring us to our knees each time, it can be a subtle and fleeting sense of connection to something both wondrous and mysterious.

I feel especially blessed to live here in the Greater World as I find awe and wonder to be abundantly available within our community’s landscape and throughout the surrounding area, though especially in our nearly pristine nocturnal sky. It’s an added delight when it’s something we can share and connect through (like rocket ships, rainbows, frog songs, auroras and eclipses). With homes designed and oriented in such a way as to preserve our precious darkness, we may better lose our sense of self in the vastness of the celestial theatre.

In this Celestial Awe & Wonder issue, I invite us all to cultivate a greater sense of humbling wonder at the vast and Great Mystery through something I think we all can appreciate—our awe-inspiring celestial skies!

In Truth, Beauty and Goodness,

B. Monique

Find the full issue 11: Celestial Awe & Wonder newsletter here.