They have a wide range of emotions, but do they experience awe?
They have a wide range of emotions, but do they experience awe?

We went out to Madeline Island, Wisconsin for a quick trip this past weekend to meet up with some friends, walk some beaches, hike some forest, and dip our toes in the water.

When we arrived, there was a good wind and rain was threatening. The physics of the natural world were making themselves evident, as vacationers left the beach for the shelter of their tents and campers. Waves crested and trees swayed as atmospheric pressure dropped and goosebumps formed on my skin from the cool humidity. I saw vectors and forces I can only pretend to begin to quantify.

I know just enough to see all the things I do not know. Knowledge, awareness of imy own ignorance, joy: this is how I would try to use prose to explain my experience of awe. In poetry we might say only that the landscaped crawled with “small gods."

Its not much different than visiting an art gallery, anyone can fall under the sway of the Dutch Masters or a Monet, but it hits at a different level when you begin to grasp the depth of the skill and detail involved. Knowledge provides the foundation of self-awareness and smallness. We all know the joy of burying ourselves in the sand of a beach in summer, but it is another thing altogether to experience awe that every atom heavier than hydrogen, including the silica between your toes, was born in a star that died eons before our sun was a swirling ball of gas.

Huron, my favorite Aussie/Collie mix, definitely understands joy; I see it on his face a dozen times a day. Awe, however, seems to be more uniquely human: I think of it as the place where joy, knowledge, and an acceptance of ignorance merge into one singular experience.

Like other human traits, it is one we can and should foster in ourselves and others.


Huron enjoys the "water gods" but he does not know them.