Wonder

“the world is such a wonderful place, la dee daa dee daa….

I love singing along with this line from the song, “Ode to LRC” by Band of Horses. I know it may seem pollyannaish, but I feel good every time I hear it. I do see the world as wonderful….. full of wonder. I know what you are going to say…. what about all the awful things???  Shit does happen! Plenty of it. But still, I think the world is a wonderful place. Most days anyway….

Today didn’t start out like that. I had no thoughts of the world being wonderful. I woke up in a funk and I stayed that way for most of the day. Maybe it’s because of the dream homework that I am working on this week. It brings me to a place of feeling fairly miserable at times. Who knows the reason?  But the truth is, I didn’t like myself, or much of anything else today. It was just one of those days. I know I sound like I was a feeling sorry for myself… and I hate to admit it, I was. I felt bad about it too because I heard a few stories of people with big health problems, even a death. What was my problem??  In this sorry state, I was getting absolutely nothing done at work and so I went home.

Recently, I blogged about a place of aliveness that I am learning to connect to. Today, I wasn’t feeling that aliveness. There was no connection. So, after I got home, I went for a walk. As it turned out, it was just what the doctor ordered. Nothing like a bunch of trees and a river to soothe the soul!

As I headed out, I felt discouraged, disconnected. At one point I spoke out loud to whoever would listen… “Please help me!”  I guess I was speaking to God but I am not exactly so sure about who God is, and so I was just putting it out there to any entity that might hear me. As I kept trudging along, slowly I started feeling better.

At one point, I was walking down an embankment towards the river and I saw the setting sun reflected there in the river. I decided to stop, lean against a tree and gaze out at it. I felt drawn to staring at the rippling, bright reflection. As I stared, I saw something that filled me with wonder. I couldn’t stop looking. The trees that framed the ball of light in the water all became luminous… almost see through. It reminded me of how a negative image looks on film. I’ve heard before that if you look at leaves on trees at the right time of day and at the right angle without looking directly at them, you can see a kind of white looking energy around them. I find it easy to become skeptical about these things but on the other hand, I always do have a sense of wonder too. The door to possibilities is always open at least a little for me. I am not a person of absolutes. I don’t absolutely believe or disbelieve too many things. So the idea of a tree aura…. although it’s a little out there…… well after today, I certainly do have a sense of wonder about it. Maybe what I experienced was a physiological phenomenon of the eyes. To be honest, it doesn’t really matter. All I know is that it got me to wonder …and it also began to pull me out of my funk.

By now, my step was a little lighter and I started heading home. As I walked along the riverside, something else caught my eye. There were two beavers swimming in the river right at the river’s edge. In all my years of walking, I have never seen anything like it. They were a cute little couple nudging each other and making sweet cooing noises. I followed them for about a minute and then, just like that, they dove under the water out of sight. Now the spring in my step turned into a jog and then almost a run. I felt like a kid again. The woods are a great place to return to that place of wonder.  Being there today helped to remind me that yes, in many ways, the world is wonderful place!