No Small Wonder

I had goose bumps as I read Mark Leviton’s interview with Dacher Keltner on awe [“No Small Wonder,” September 2023]. Our potential to be awestruck often goes unrealized, and I fear too many people who use the word awesome fail to contemplate what it really means.

My enthusiasm for moments of epiphany has caused some people to call me crazy, an epithet I proudly own. I’ve been mesmerized by music like Mahler’s Symphony no. 4 and Schubert’s String Quartet no. 14 (Death and the Maiden). My mother took me to church (which I hated), but my father took me to mountains, woods, lakes, and streams, where I found my personal sense of God. And about forty years ago I found poetry, which has helped me survive some of the greatest challenges of life.

When I reluctantly reached the end of Leviton and Keltner’s conversation, I set the issue aside so the ideas they discussed could resonate through me. This is one interview I will read again and again.

The county jail where I’ve been detained for a year has no outdoor yard, but the rec area has a small opening in the wall ten feet off the ground that lets in daylight. We always hope our weekly hour of rec time will be during the day, so we can see the sun shining through the opening.

Earlier this summer we were sent to rec at sunset. Thinking we would see neither the sun nor the sunset, we solemnly marched to the rec area. When we arrived, someone noticed through the opening a patch of pastel color melting with the darkening blue sky. One of the guys from my unit suggested we stand on his shoulders and try to see the sunset. We helped one person at a time get onto his back and then steadied them with our hands. The reaction of awe on each guy’s face was infectious, and we took turns so we could all experience the beauty beyond the wall.

When it was finally my turn, I could see part of the Cascade mountain range, cast in brilliant purple, pink, and blue hues. For ten seconds I took it all in. Then my turn was over, but my heart was overflowing with awe.

Each year I act as rabbi for a small congregation of unaffiliated families who wish to celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This Rosh Hashanah I shared bits of Dacher Keltner’s findings on awe and encouraged everyone to take an “awe walk” for ten minutes each day, observing what it did for their state of mind. It was a perfect exercise for the ten Days of Awe.

Dacher Keltner articulates what I’ve experienced but could not express. His description of birth as the “change from nonexistence to existence” puts simple language to a profound event. When I witnessed a total solar eclipse in 2017, it felt similarly powerful. Under that ring of fire, thousands of us stood in a farmer’s field filled with awe.