Rediscovering Magic in the Natural World
The author’s wife at Salt Pond Preserve & Tide Pool, New Harbor, Maine where Rachel Carson did much of her scientific study when writing 'The Edge of The Sea'.
I am happiest when out wandering about in the world of nature. It is a time where I am most easily filled with a sense of wonder, bridging my immediate physical moment to all that is magical. A point within my inner landscape, or being, that bears resonant images of wild nature’s brilliance. Where the radiance embodied in her raiment draws me closer to that deep point within where I behold myself silent, still, and open.
It is this emotional sense of wonder that’s first noticed when some animal track or sign (aka spoor) first appears within my observable landscape when out wandering, tracking all the daily happenings worthy of the NEWS. Much like in Edwin Abbot’s 1884 classic novella Flatland, this sense of wonder enters my field of awareness like a gift from another dimension: fleeting in duration yet pure and inviting.
An echo of author, scientist Rachel Carson’s deep-seated wish, when asked at the dawn of the environmental movement what gift she would bestow upon children if she had influence with the good fairy: “I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.”
A gift indicating the truth that it is not half so important to know as to feel, and why, as an educator, I see wonder as the essence of human interaction with the natural world. The elemental crux of human experience and entry point around which real magic weaves a plethora of possibilities within my present moment.
This feeling of wonder is something instantly recognizable and immediately familiar, for it is the same emotion that moved our ancestors to build stone circles, monuments, and soaring cathedrals. Times and places where great and elemental things prevailed - places of meaning that reflect the mythic journey’s intricate weaving together of nature and culture. A true metabolic moment as lawful as the exchange between living cells and their surroundings, where the vital breathing in and out, and the flux of water and nutrients, constitute a commingling of the outer world and inner flesh.
Sadly, this loss of our cultural abandonment of any deeper sense of our physical and emotional connectedness to the natural world is characterized by the imperiling loneliness and increased isolation that defines our times. Knowledge of natural law has unfortunately become second hand; hypnotically conjured and peddled by the purveyors of media madness, while our emotional world has been commandeered by the soothsayers of fear.
Reminiscent of the ancient wisdom that traced the journey of an impression in our mind’s eye from its impact to ‘interest’, ‘desire’, and ‘mania’ - those proverbial “7 deadly sins” or concomitant dispositions toward pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, sloth. I ponder daily Carson’s injunction concerning the fairy’s gift alternatively taking us from impact to ‘wonder’, to ‘joy’, ‘beauty’, ‘gratitude’, and ‘reciprocity.’ A clear juxtaposition of process contrasting our western market economy with an indigenous view of nature’s gift economy, where a sense of wonder is the keystone state upon which a very different mindset can be birthed.
This was Henry David Thoreau’s innermost conviction, that wonder was the seed of higher emotional inspiration and archetypically connected to qualities connoted with the Divine Feminine principal in myth lore. “Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”
By cultivating wonder, we reestablish our innate bond with the natural world and rediscover the magic that lies within and around us. It is a conscious choice to engage with the mysteries and marvels of the Earth, to embrace the interconnectedness of all life, and to live in awe of the ever-unfolding wonders of nature. In doing so, we not only enrich our own lives but also contribute to the preservation and restoration of the natural world for future generations. So, let us open our hearts and minds to the wonder that surrounds us, for it is through wonder that we truly come alive.
The author’s wife at Salt Pond Preserve & Tide Pool, New Harbor, Maine where Rachel Carson did much of her scientific study when writing 'The Edge of The Sea'.