Upping My AQ

When Ed and I first saw the house we’d eventually buy, a two-story grey house smack dab on the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River, I looked over the back fence, where the river gleamed as it rushed by, framed by cedars, Douglas firs, cottonwoods, alders, vine maples, and prolific ferns, and I heard the ever-present river sound, soft and strong. I hadn’t yet been inside the house, nor stepped into the yard, when I said, “Oooh, Could we have This?”

After twenty-three years living at and in This, one of my favorite parts of it is the wide gravel trail that runs past our house. Every shade of green gleams around me as I walk, with rich color from blossoms and weeds and wildflowers. It changes with the seasons, and there is no telling what I’ll see—a pygmy owl staring from a tree limb, or red Autumn leaves as big as my face, or a row of horsetails so spiky I can hardly believe they’re real.

Lately I’ve been struck hard on several walks, overcome by the magnificence around me, at how amazing it is that we are created with these five senses, AND that our world is overflowing with things that connect and interact with those senses. The orange and yellow on that quivering leaf delights my eyes, and the waft of whatever that minty thing is makes my nose so happy, and when a telephone bird shrills, my ears wake up and take notice. It’s like they belong together, and it blows me away.

Last month, I was taken by The Sun Magazine’s interview with Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, titled, “No Small Wonder—On the Science of Awe.”  Though Dacher elaborates beautifully on the components and processes that are central to our experiencing awe, he sums them up with, “Simply put, awe is the feeling of being in the presence of a vast mystery.”

He describes the study in which subjects were instructed to take “awe walks”, in contrast to a control group who also walked but were not directed beforehand to cultivate awe. The subjects purposely seeking and experiencing awe reported less stress and increased positive emotions. They smiled more in the photos they took, and, in their photos, became increasingly smaller in relation to the landscape. They were more taken with “the vast mystery” than with themselves.

I figure my IQ’s cemented in place, but I do want to keep upping my AQ—my Awe Quotient, the extent to which I live in that awed place. All I have to do is look out my window at This. At the shower of falling yellow leaves as far as I can see. At the osprey, perched still and watchful on the towering cedar. At the morning mayfly hatch so thick it’s a swarm.

Awesome.

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