wonder and awe podcast – Grow Mindfulness

Pathways to Gratitude and Joy

Neuroscience research has demonstrated that gratitude is a source of wellness and joy if we choose to practise it on a regular basis. Louie Schwartzberg in his latest film, Gratitude Revealed, identifies a number of pathways that can develop gratitude and appreciation in our lives and lead to health, happiness and lasting joy. Louie – time-lapse photographer, director and producer – takes us on a journey through nature, the eyes of children and lives of insightful people. He comments in a subsequent panel Q & A video that the Gratitude Revealed film contains many wise “one-liners” from inspiring people as well as some stunning cinematography. The music for the film is provided by Lisbeth Scott – singer, songwriter and composer – who Louie interviewed as part of his podcast series.

Pathways to gratitude

Throughout Gratitude Revealed Louie explores different pathways to gratitude with his guests and provides illuminating comments about each pathway, some of which I explore in the following:

Curiosity – is a basic human attribute that leads us to explore the world around us, the people in our lives and the concepts we encounter in our reading, discussions and games. How often have we seen a toddler pick up a leaf or a stone and examine it, look underneath some branches to see what lies beneath, gaze into pools of water at the seaside to see if there are any living creatures there, or feel the texture of the grass or the ground to judge its softness or hardness? Unfortunately, as we grow older we can lose the art of being inquisitive and curious about things. However, if we can cultivate curiosity, we open ourselves to marvel at the intricacies of things in our environment, the power of our subconscious, the expansiveness of knowledge and the inexhaustible complexity of the human body (including the emerging understanding of the “brain-gut connection” and the heart’s intelligence). Curiosity leads us to explore the ineffable, to seek to understand the mystery of life and to explore relationships with people we encounter. Ultimately, curiosity leads us to appreciate what is and to be grateful for our discoveries as well as our capacity for exploration. Albert Einstein was a strong advocate for curiosity and acknowledged that it lay at the root of his knowledge and wisdom – “The important thing is to never stop questioning. Never lose a holy curiosity”.
Nature – is a source of wonder and awe which leads us to be grateful that we can perceive its beauty, complexity and interconnectedness through our five senses – what Jon Kabat-Zinn describes in his book, Coming to Our Senses, as our sightscape, soundscape, touchscape, smellscape, and tastescape. Louie encourages us to develop an intimate relationship with nature because nature, and nature imagery, can be incredibly healing and can develop a deep appreciation and gratitude for our interconnectedness and interdependence. Louie’s Wonder and Awe Podcastexplores the intersection of science and art (the “why” of art and the ”how” of science). There are multiple ways to engage with nature including gardening, walking in a rainforest or on a beach and mindful photography – we just have to form the intention to make the most of our natural environment that surrounds us daily.
Music – cultivates wonder and awe, healing and creativity. Louie highlighted the power of music to transport us beyond the present moment concerns and anxieties and to still the mind. Music taps into our positive emotions and stimulates gratitude for the beauty, variety and nuances of sound. Sound therapy can heal us from trauma and depression and help us to appreciate what we have that is positive in our lives. Mantra meditations can promote calm, peace and stillness of mind and, in the process, open our hearts and minds to the power and energy of the present moment. Music deepens our spirit and helps us to value our lives while expressing gratitude for all that we have.
Mindfulness – by definition, it involves being fully in the present moment and paying attention to something or someone with openness, curiosity and acceptance of what is. Michael Beckwith reminds us in the movie that we should be “grateful for the challenges in our life” because they help us to realise our potential and develop resilience. Louie suggests that mindfulness “is being present like the film itself” – open to wonder and able to “relish the mysteries of life” that are revealed by paying focused attention in the “now”.

Reflection

None of the pathways I discussed above are discrete – they are overlapping, reinforcing and compounding in nature. Together, these pathways engender appreciation and gratitude and stimulate happiness and joy. Louie and his presenters on Gratitude Revealed highlight the fact that “busyness” in our lives can create a block to gratitude and blind us to what is happening within and around us. In contrast, gratitude blocks out envy and self-absorption. As Louie comments, “Focusing on what we do have, leaves little in your heart for what we don’t have”.

In the film, Brother David Steindl-Rast, developer of gratefulness.org, distinguishes between appreciation and gratitude. He states that appreciation is an in-the-moment experience while gratitude is “what we remember that opens our hearts”. Interestingly, when I am playing tennis, I often internally express appreciation for being able to participate and play a good shot or two. However, after watching Gratitude Revealed, I experienced a real sense of gratitude based on my memory of all the events and experiences that enable me to play social tennis at the age of 76.

In particular, I am grateful for:

the opportunity to be coached in my teens by a tennis player who had been selected for the Australian Davis Cup Team
having practised tennis drills and played games of tennis with my brothers and my niece
having played competitive tennis over 5 years with a team drawn from members of my extended family
being trained as a sprinter in a GPS school (improved my capacity to move around the tennis court)
the opportunity to play tennis for my school, for Brisbane ((against Gympie) and for the Queensland Tax Office (in the annual Taxation Intestate Tennis Carnivals)
being able to play social tennis with a closed group of six quality players over a period in excess of 10 years
the opportunity to play tennis on different surfaces including bitumen, ant-bed, grass, clay and flexipave
being able to play socially in Port Moresby, Auckland, Lake Annecy (France) and Boroughbridge (Yorkshire, UK)
developing a wide range of shots through tennis coaching, practice and competitions, e.g., slice, topspin, back spin, under spin, side spin (out-swinger & in-swinger), volley, one-handed and two-handed backhand, half volley, drive volley, drop shot, lob, smash and, recently, half-volley drop shot
being able to play social tennis with an open group in my 50’s, 60’s and 70’s (now)
discovering the benefits of Tai Chi and how it improves my tennis game.

As we grow in mindfulness and gratitude, we enrich our lives, deepen our happiness and joy and build our resilience and capacity for creative endeavour. Music and nature can inspire us if we are fully present to experiencing them and our natural curiosity can open our hearts to appreciating whatever we experience.

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Image by allPhoto Bangkok from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Understanding and Developing AWE

Jason Silva maintains that whatever we find that is awe-inspiring extends our “perceptual frameworks” , expands our comfort zones and builds compassion and creativity. When we experience wonder and awe, our “mental maps” are challenged and our mind is expanded to accommodate “land beyond the maps” that we have in our head. We encounter boundarylessness, mystery, and the majesty of creation. Through his Shots of Awe video podcasts, he encourages us to move beyond the “banality” and disengagement of our lives, to open to emotional and aesthetic experiences and to awaken to awe. He suggests that, in the final analysis, we have a “responsibility to awe”. Jason offers ways to understand and develop awe through his free video, Find Your Awe.

Developing awe through nature

Louie Schwartzberg, time-lapse photographer and filmmaker, presented a TEDx Talk that focused on Wonder, awe and the intelligence of nature. Louie explains that he often makes the invisible visible through his slow motion photography. He opens us up to a sense of awe in the light of the ineffable beauty, power and interconnectedness of nature. He maintains that nature takes us beyond ourself and our limited, self-absorbed focus and develops gratitude, compassion and wellness. He argues that our sense of awe and wonder is heightened when we develop an intimate relationship with nature.

Louie, through his awe-inspiring, time-lapse photography, brings us visual sources of wonder by capturing the beauty, intricacy, expansiveness and grandeur of nature. His photography unearths the incredible cooperation and coordination between plants and trees and the mind-boggling cycle of life. He captures in slowed-motion the pollination of plants by birds, bees and bats; the development and emergence of fruit (such as strawberries); and the incredible internet-like network of fungi beneath the earth (captured in Louie’s film, Fantastic Fungi). The wonder and awe experienced by people viewing his photography is clearly illustrated on the faces of people seeing his time-lapse photography projected onto St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.

Developing awe through sound and sight

Louie captures other sources of awe through his Wonder and Awe Podcast. Some of these podcasts focus on auditory sources of wonder and awe, e.g., the wonderful compositions and singing of Lisbeth Scott; the soaring, healing sounds of violinist Lindsey Stirling; and the productions of Cosmo Sheldrake, musician and composer, who reinforces the “power of sound in nature”.

Rebecca Elson, dedicated poet and astronomer, left a legacy not only of scientific discoveries but also her poems and personal notes/musings captured in her book, A Responsibility to Awe. One of her poems, Antidotes to Fear of Death, is shared publicly through readings by different people and captured visually by the accompanying deep space photography of Scott Denning.

Louie also interviewed Anna Bjurstam as part of his series of podcasts and explored energy science beyond the immediate realm of visibility. Anna is a pioneer of wellness through Six Senses Spas of which she is Vice-President. These luxury resorts stimulate the senses through the incredible beauty of nature and experiences that are meaningful, empathetic and enhance well-being. Anna mentioned her near-death experience which led her to understand “how beautiful, amazing and what a gift this life is”.

Reflection

Jon Kabat-Zinn encourages us to develop wonder and awe through our senses. His book Coming to Our Senses, e.g., ways to fully enjoy our “tastescape”, “touchscape” or “soundscape”. He suggests that mindfulness meditation creates the doorway to be consciously in the present moment in a non-judgmental and open way.

Being curious about what we are experiencing in all its dimensions opens the way to develop wonder and awe in our lives. As we grow in mindfulness, we become more aware, increasingly focused on the present, and more attuned to nature and the world around us. Jason Silva maintains that we often forgo the present for the future and we need to reverse this tendency if we are to awaken to wonder and awe.

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Image by finix8 from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Developing a Relationship with Nature

Louie Schwartzberg reminds us that nature is a source of wonder (exploring and admiring) and awe (questioning the “how”). In his view, nature effectively represents the intersection between art and science. Art explores the “why” and generates admiration and inspiration through demonstrating the interconnectedness of everything and exposing nature’s beauty, even in the mundane; science, on the other hand, encourages questioning with curiosity and openness while exploring the “how”, e.g., how do nectar feeding bats pollinate cacti and create milk to feed their young?

It is particularly apt then, that Louie’s podcast is titled Wonder and Awe which explores the intersection between art and science through interviews with musicians such as Lisbeth Scott and scientists like mycologist William Padilla Brown. There is so much of nature that is unknown and invisible to us and these artists and scientists along with Louie’s time-lapse photography help us to deepen our relationship with nature.

Developing an intimate relationship with nature

Louie offered his perspective on the need for an intimate relationship with nature during his presentation, True Romance: Falling in Love with Nature, at the recent Nature Summit. He highlighted the fact that the pandemic has created a “mental wellness barrier” for a lot of people and that nature has a healing quality. He is now creating digital nature imagery for use in hospitals as a healing modality. This “visual healing” has been scientifically proven to achieve “shorter length of stay in hospital, increased pain tolerance and decreased anxiety”

The pandemic has created opportunities for people to appreciate what they normally take for granted – the ability to go for a walk in nature, to connect with friends and family, to spend time alone away from the “madding crowd” and associated noise. It has helped us to be more introspective and value what we have, as so much and so many have been lost.

Louie maintains that if we can develop an intimate relationship with nature through frequent mindful visits to natural environments and personal research (including videos, podcasts and articles), we can begin to care about the sustainability of our planet. He pointed out that while a lot of scientific research has helped us understand the threats to our natural environment, the wealth of data has failed to achieve any appreciable shift in people’s behaviour in relation to nature’s fragility.

He points out that our capacity to view nature is considerably limited – effectively we are able to view the equivalent of one octave of an eight-octave scale. Through his photography he makes so much more of the beauty of nature visible to us – by filming at 1,000 frames per second he can enable us to see something that happens in one third of a second, actually 15 times longer. Hence, he helps us to “explore beyond the one octave”.

Louie contends that the heart has greater influence over behaviour than the head – when our relationship with nature is one of loving and appreciating it, we are more inclined to engage in caring behaviour towards it. We will be more careful about our paper use (because of its impact on trees), we will avoid plastic bags as much as possible (because of the impact on our oceans and marine life), we will plant a vegetable garden (because it provides us with a closeness to nature and fresh, uncontaminated food).

Reflection

There is so much to learn about nature and our interconnectedness with it – it is a lifetime pursuit. We can grow in mindfulness as we spend more time in and with nature and adopt nature meditations. Another way into building our relationship with nature is participating in mantra meditations that incorporate wonder and awe of nature such as Lulu & Mischka’s “Stillness in Motion” filmed with the whales in Byron Bay, Queensland.

Artist, David Hockney, reminds us:

The world is very, very beautiful, but you’ve got to look hard and closely to notice that beauty.

(Source: The Art of Living, Martin Gayford, The Weekend Australian, pgs. 10-12)

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Image by Bessi from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.