Awe is an antidote

At this time of spring holidays, we ask all in power to recognize their responsibility to celebrate the web of life of which we are a tiny, essential part.

This week sees the convergence of several traditions celebrating spring’s renewal of life. Buds swell, leaves emerge, blossoms open. These observations bring the urge to pause, reflect, embrace the moment of awakening before the race to grow, fruit, ripen, and harvest.

It truly feels like a miracle, each time it happens. We wait, hold our breath, wonder if this will be the year winter never leaves. It might be late and cold, or early and wet, but it arrives: the cycle continues. We stand in awe, observing new life.

Awe is the antidote to our human desire to cling and control. Our social and political structures cannot capture awe; artificial intelligence cannot experience awe; money cannot purchase it, machines cannot manufacture it. Awe is uniquely experienced by live beings. It is founded, in part, on our awareness of two profound truths: all life is connected, and we are a miniscule part of this vast web.

Awe can trigger fear, if we only focus on the fact of our smallness. It can amplify our desire to control the vastness around us, through laws, power, violence.

But if we recognize that our smallness does not negate our importance; that, in fact, we are as important as the vast ocean or the smallest krill, that every node in the web of life is essential; then we no longer need to grasp and control.

The traditions that ask us to stop and reflect on the emergence of life in spring, to make time for awe, are based in this wisdom. We take this moment to send our hope, and our actions, to those who hold power that they will be able to experience awe, let go of their destructive need to control others, and recognize their responsibility to celebrate the web of life of which we are a tiny, essential part.

Thank you for celebrating awe together.