Have You Lost Your Sense of Wonder?

And can we soften and get it back?

I lay watching my 3-year-old daughter tracing her finger along the moulded outline of the wallpaper design on her bedroom wall as she fell asleep. It reminded me of my own childhood, tracing my fingers along the loops and swirling patterns of a 1960s-style ornate metal headboard.

My toddler tracing fingers over her baby cousin as my hand supports the unfolding tapestry of life

Wonder & Awe

It rekindled that sense of wonder and immersion in the world one has during early childhood.

Before the age of 6yrs or so, there’s a sense of being an active participant in the myriad unfolding of the universe. To draw your finger over wallpaper at 3 years of age, is to be both the finger *and* the wallpaper. It’s akin to being *on* a rollercoaster whilst simultaneously watching the rollercoaster be propelled at the whim of your finger.

If I were a poet, I might say it’s like being both the leaf and the wind.

Leaf storm

It’s hard to put into words exactly what that very early childhood experience is. Can you remember it…the feeling of it?

It’s confusing to the rational parts of ourselves; the observers viewpoint is not a static one.  You might be watching the finger from behind the wallpaper’s perspective.

So bewildering is this early conscious inter-play, that it’s better to dismiss it as naivety and move on with our adult rational ways.

A Beach Walk

Where does wonder call it’s home now that we are adults?

Tracing my finger over this washed up piece of wood at the beach is not the whole universe experience of my early years. 

Crouching down on the sand, I’m very conscious and clear about where my finger finishes and the wood starts. To my sadness there’s very little sense of how the wood is experiencing this situation.

At my local beach…tracing my adult finger across the grain of wood washed ashore by winter storms and Febuary’s ‘Snow Moon’ high tide.

Self and Separation

At some point…I reckon around the age of six…it’s as though we fall out of the universe.

For most, it’s a very gradual process but some people can recall a really clear moment where they ‘found’ themselves in the world all at once. Catching their own reflection, as if for the very first time with the lightening bolt of, “Oh there I am!”

• Do you recall that moment?

• The exact time you realised you were a being at large in the world?

Loss of Wonder

Once we are firmly established in the world it’s hard to get back to this magical sense of belonging to the universe.

Time with meditation helps soften my edges certainly.

And so to sleep…

I’ll end where I began. With my daughter in the twilight moments of consciousness as she settles down to sleep.

Before finally shutting heavy eyelids, she cups my face with both hands on my cheeks.

I feel like she’s holding me like a prized possession.

Just like meditation breaks down the walls of who I think I am in the world. I feel like I’m no longer a father, a husband, a son, a man or a human. I am an idea. Much like the wave is an idea of the sea.

Perhaps I am young Simba being held aloft and presented to the stars by Rafiki.

I don’t know how I know this but I know that she isn’t so much holding me up in praise but rather she’s let go and it’s the Universe moving through her and holding itself up. All praise to God.

That’s it guys. That’s my essay. 🫶🏼

Remember I’m nowhere near as poetic and mystical as I appear on Substack’s paper. If only. I’m as confused and chaotic as we all are right now. These are just my higher thoughts and feelings that I’d like to put out in the world. My deepest wish is that it offers some kind of solace and softening in your own heart. And that it connects to something bigger than our biggest stories. ✨

Thank you for reading and softening along with me.

Yours in Softness

David Venus