Seeing in macro
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
AWE…. It's the ability to elicit a response in seeing something and finding yourself enthralled.
A few months back I was working with a girl who had had a massive concussion. The mom told me she was fine after 2 weeks, and that she had no residual issues. Now I was skeptical, but true to form – the girl showed up and had no side effects.
When I asked what they did, the mom said she had got a few macro photography books out of the library, so the daughter wouldn’t be bored. Surprisingly, the daughter was taken with the books for hours every day. Watching a small frog leap in great detail - to the smallest raindrop holding onto a flower petal – she was enthralled.
I was taken aback….I had never witnessed nor worked with this before, so I began to do some research, and sure enough there are scientific papers explaining the chemicals released in the brain when the body is in awe. I read on, and more explanation was given about the healing potential of these chemical.
So next time I had someone with a concussion walk through my doors, I got the macro books out, had them read them and waited for the awe to start -- and I got NOTHING. Absolutely NO AWE from this client. So I thought maybe I needed to point out the amazing closeups of snowflakes, or the vivid colours of the peacock feather….YUP -- NOTHING.
Stumped, I asked, What things created awe for this individual? And it had NOTHING to do with macro photography. For this individual, it was something totally different. I had a good laugh at myself, and my limited thinking on this topic….
What challenged me was:
INDIVIDUAL UNIQUENESS & AWE
Every person is unique and awe is created differently in each person. Awe is an intimate and individual thing and that is so incredible. That brings me awe, knowing that no two people will see things the same way, or that they will heal the same way.
My challenge to you:
1) Find your Uniqueness on all fronts, celebrate them, and be in awe.
2) Find the things that bring you awe, and your unique connection to them.
3) All the while, be mindful of how this feels in your body, brain and and being.
Let me know what you discover.
Rosie