What Brings Us Awe

Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast and mysterious that challenges our current understanding of the world. Whether listening to a piece of music, staring at the stars, or exploring a new concept, people often describe their experience of awe with words like wonder, amazement, or surprise.

Awe opens us up to the idea that we’re connected to something larger than ourselves (e.g., ecosystems, moral or artistic movements, and life cycles) while also helping us to shine a light on what is meaningful to us, both personally and collectively. In fact, after awe researcher Dacher Keltner and his team analyzed awe stories from individuals living in 26 different countries, they identified eight cross-cultural wonders of awe.

With these wonders in mind, our staff decided to share some of the awe-inspiring experiences in our lives right now. We invite you to do the same this week: What brings YOU awe? What is vast and mysterious to you? We welcome your email responses at ggsceducation@berkeley.edu.

The image is the trio, I’m With Her – singers/songwriters/musicians Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, and Sara Watkins

I am in awe of voices singing in harmony. As the group rises and falls together, their different notes intimately connected, I am overwhelmed with feelings of peace, joy, and gratitude; I am transported.

—Sarah Bracken, Education Outreach and Partnerships Manager

Growing up in San Diego, the ocean has always pulled me in. The way the light glimmers on the reflection of the water, almost dancing as the waves break.

This summer, I’ve spent many weekends beach camping and just admiring the ocean. Even after all these years, looking out at the horizon still gives me reason to pause. It’s a reminder of how much beauty sits right in front of us if we just take a second to notice it.

—Emily Brower, Communications Specialist

I’m continually in awe of my sibling cats’ perfectly shaped little “paw paws” (as we like to call them in our household). When lying in repose, their feet are often inexplicably aligned.

The symmetry of their limbs (along with the striking patterns in their coats) catches me off guard over and over again, which is probably why I have over 1000 cat pictures on my phone. These two wonders of awe—nature itself and the phenomenon of visual patterns—reflect the beauty and order I can find in a (sometimes) chaotic world.

—Amy L. Eva, Associate Director

A recent moment of awe for me was visiting the Atlantic Ocean from a new side—from the west coast of France! This summer, my family and I visited a small, coastal town and the first night we spent sunset at the beach. I marveled at the vastness of the ocean that connected this country with the country I came from; the beauty of the pinks, oranges and yellows layering above the coastline as the sun creeped closer to the horizon; and the pure JOY of my children frolicking in the shallow waves.

—Mariah Flynn, Program Coordinator

So many things bring me awe, but seeing my daughter give birth to my grandson was an awe- inducing experience . . . and each day since, the time spent holding him, smelling his head, and watching him as he smiles in his sleep have been awe-inducing experiences for me.

—Margaret Golden, Director of Learning Communities

My beloved Tintern Abbey on the banks of the River Wye. Every time I visit, I am moved by its profound, otherworldly peace, cultivated by ancient centuries of contemplative joy. Wordsworth’s poem “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” captures the “thoughts of more deep seclusion” that come from a few moments in the Abbey’s presence.

Here are some of my favorite lines that speak to this experience:

While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things…
…And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

—Vicki Zakrzewski, Director