The Power of Awe

It can slow time, improve mood and increase the power of our thinking

Yesterday, I chose awe. After weeks of steady rain and grey clouds, the day broke bright and sunny. On the three-hour drive back to my home in Central Oregon I decided to stop at a favorite running spot to stretch my two legs and Olive’s four.

Minto Brown park is a wonderful expanse of 1,200 acres along the Willamette River in Salem, Oregon. Over the years degraded agricultural land has been converted back to forest and native vegetation. It’s stomping ground for a lot of people and dogs and home to a lot of wildlife.

I particularly love the huge, old maple and cottonwood groves. Even though the dancing leaves were down for the winter, the sun-kissed branches were still vibrant green from thick moss and delicate, lacelike, epiphytic ferns. I stopped running for a moment and put my hands on the wet trunk of one of the massive beings and thanked it for existing. In that instant I was flooded with amazement and appreciation of the miracle of life in all its myriad forms. I sensed vastness and powerful vitality of creative forces. For the rest of the run/hike I was tuned in, not to a stream of thoughts flicking in and out of my mind, but to the landscape and beings all around me.

Olive raced ahead and then back unleashing her speed in in a black and white streak of pure joy in being. Though I never spotted them, hummingbirds fiercely chitted their territorial declarations from swaying branches. Large swaths of the park were flooded from the heavy rains and bursting river; being in a flood plain, this is a regular seasonal occurrence and adds to the health of the ecosystem. Flocks of wild geese and various species of ducks bobbed along on the newly-made ponds and swamps. I had been at that very spot enough times to know that come summer all would be dry ground again and the waterfowl would mostly have moved on for a while.

I rounded a bend to see the Willamette river had jumped its banks in another spot and was literally flowing across the paved access road. I’d never seen the flooding that high and marveled at the power of water. Though Olive plunged right in, I opted for dry shoes and took another, less familiar route. Moments later I witnessed a bald eagle circling the river then landing treetop. Nearby the park service had posted a sign warning a bobcat had been spotted in the area just a few days earlier. Lucky ducks who got to see her! Actually, the ducks might not have been lucky at such a sighting. I made sure to keep Olive a little closer while also hoping to spot the beautiful creature. I didn’t, but just knowing she was around enriched my day.

Awe is a feeling that is hard to put into language. Dictionary definitions run along the lines of, “an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, or fear, produced by something grand, sublime, or extremely powerful.” Respect and amazement are also listed in definitions. However we define it, we know it when we feel it. What isn’t as well known is that experiencing awe produces health and wellbeing benefits. A colleague of mine, Rev. Scott Awbrey, recently noted, “[A] growing body of research suggests that experiencing awe slows our perception of time – a phenomenon known as time dilation.” Experiencing awe has also been linked with improved mood, lower stress, and even improved critical thinking. This article describes some of these awesome (pun-intended) benefits.

One of the things I most love about awe is that it opens up an awareness that there’s more going on, and many more possibilities than what might seem obvious at the time. Right now, it feels like a lot of what’s happening in the world is less awe-inspiring than awful, and when I’m feeling that way expanding awareness can be a gift. Some of the birds I visited in Minto Brown park (and my own back yard) navigate using a magnetic field I can’t even sense. Sharks have an organ that allows them to feel the faint electrical fields generated by nearby fish and movements in the water. Olive’s canine world is more a kaleidoscope of scent than color. Butterflies taste with their feet.

Given these wonders, surely there is more available to humans to meet the challenges before us and change course than what we see/think on the surface. Here’s to noticing the awe-worthy, choosing amazement and reverence and stepping into greater possibility.

Much love,

Cylvia (and Olive)

---

Prosperity and Spiritual Economics Course

Why not kick off the New Year with greater abundance and prosperity consciousness?!

This course examines the prosperity teachings of Charles Fillmore, Eric Butterworth, Lynn Twist and other contemporary teachings. Students explore the broader meaning of prosperity beyond “material things” to discover their own beliefs about money, abundance and lack. Students create practices for healing limitations they hold about prosperity, and discover ways to address their own unexamined, unconscious assumptions about abundance, giving and receiving.

This course will also explore some of the challenges in the status quo consumption-based economic system that is our current societal operating system as well as alternatives that could bring about a healthier world.

This is a required class for Unity Worldwide Ministries educational tracks but is open to anyone.

Paid subscribers to TRANSCEND get a 20% discount. If that’s you and you’re interested in this class send an email to Cylvia@cylviahayes.com.

Six-week class Tuesdays, 1 – 2:30pm Pacific, Feb. 11, 18, 25, Mar. 4, 18, 25. Online via Zoom — Register here.

---

The Amazing Livvy Lane did it again!

For those of you who enjoy following Olive’s and my agility exploits here are a couple vids from our last trial. We’ve been taking some time off from competition to play on improving a few certain skills and she nailed it last weekend.

Our first-place FAST run on day one. I was late on a blind cross and got right in her line going to the A-frame but awesome Olive corrected and nailed the downside contact zone anyway (getting more consistent on the contact zones is the main emphasis of our training just now).

Here’s a Jumpers with Weaves Masters run in which we earned a Double Q. In this run I used the “Big Step” (a new skill for me as a handler) going into the home stretch so that Olive sent out to the jump and I could stay on the inside line of the last three jumps.

And here is our winning Jumpers Premiere run. Coming out of the tunnel headed to the next two jumps the best line was for the dog to wrap to their left over the second jump. Wrapping away from the handler is a pretty advanced skill. I still used a lot of arm and body in this but I could tell Livvy was getting the verbal cue (we use “Dig Dig” when she’s turning hard to her left and “Cut Cut” when turning hard to her right) ahead of the arm motion.

So much fun!