The Telling Life: Expect wonders

I sometimes struggle to find inspiration for anything. For writing, for stories, for cleaning the kitchen, for getting out of the house. I bet you do, too. Wonder, I have found, is an excellent antidote to the struggle. This may very well not work if you're in the throes of depression (I've been there, so I know), but if you're just feeling as though there will never be anything inspiring ever again and you want to sulk, open yourself up to wonder. Maybe the universe will come through this time. It often does for me.

Wonder is everywhere. I'm not talking about the BIG awe-inspiring wonders, like Niagara Falls or the birth of a baby, but the things we will see if we are willing to take some time to look.

I went for a walk in the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum with my sweetheart a few weeks ago. It was a hot, bright day, the air clinging to our skin and clothing. The arboretum has many different landscapes you can explore, all lovely and all full of wonder. There are sculpted gardens, rosebeds, woodland, marshes and more.

At first I saw the big things.

 

Then I began to see details.

And soon enough the world exploded into wonder.

Wonder is there if we look for it. You needn't be in an arboretum or any other special place, you just need to be willing to let it in. It's in the cracks in the sidewalk, the slip of paper left in an old book, the expression on a stranger's face, the arc of the clouds across the sky. It is big and it is little. It is in our pores and in the air we breath.

When we are open to wonder, we are open to the world and much more able to make something of it.

What wonder have you found lately?

(c)2016 Laura S. Packer