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I think I first came across the word ‘wonderment’ at storytime in primary school at the age of 5 … ‘and amazed, she stared in wonderment …’ and I’ve had a fancy for the said wonderment – ‘astonishment, awe or puzzlement’ ever since. And a certain Mole, from another story, comes to mind again:

Then suddenly the Mole felt a great awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground … he felt wonderfully at peace and happy – but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august presence was very, very near.

Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

This blog made its first appearance back in June 2015. The creation of this online space has encouraged reflection, remembrance and gratitude in me. Its existence remains in the background of my contemplative mind. It is a source of joy to me that some family members and dear friends around the world are regular readers. Above all, though, the ‘conversation’ I have with this journal calls me to ‘astonishment, awe or puzzlement’ in much the same way that my camera lens does. Each calls me to attentiveness. And close attention, more often than not, will reveal some cause for gladness and gratitude.

We humans are incomparably fortunate to have a built-in capacity to reflect upon ourselves, upon our experience of others, of the environment, and of The Other. We can clearly recall holding a newborn infant in our arms – stunned by the miracle of another tiny complex life brought into the world. We laugh and cry in joy when the little one opens his or her eyes for the first time – nose wrinkling as miraculously formed eyes attempt first focus. And we notice the tiny fingers and toes, conscious of our own being somewhat older, and wondering where time goes. And we remember our own grazed knees, joys and delights, regrets and disappointments. And the excitement of holidays and the smell of fresh baking, autumn bonfires, frost, snow, ice cream, summer, and autumn leaves falling. There was a time in all of our lives when, even fully engaged in a million and one things in the present, still we had time to reflect, to notice, to be glad, to store away memories that would always bring to mind what an extraordinary thing it is to be alive.

Forgetfulness walks onto the stage of our lives though, at some point, we know not quite when. Our astonishment, awe or puzzlement might easily have been utterly forgotten had someone not encouraged us to keep a journal, to try our hand at photography, or poetry, or painting, or praying, or meditating, or simply looking around and about us – ready and willing to get down on our knees, in a dew covered sunlit morning, to notice the tiny hairs and stamens on and in flowers, the hitherto unnoticed insects, the French beans, the rosy apples, the lake, the stream, the ocean, the singing blackbird. Innumerable evidences of life’s surging through every atom in the Universe – including us. We journey as we journal. We know ourselves loved and loving and alive and thankful. We notice. Gazing upon a lake, in old age, a thoughtful journal-keeper once wrote

I have time to think.. That is the great, the greatest luxury. I have time to be. Therefore my responsibility is huge. To use time well and to be all that I can in whatever years are left to me. This does not dismay.

May Sarton, From May Sarton’s Well

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