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“If you are not living in awe, you are not paying attention.” ~Rumi
Life is too short not to fall in love with it. And it’s too long if you cannot. The smoothest way to fall in love with life is to discover a profound sense of awe. When you’re in awe, you’re enthralled. You’re enraptured. You’re inspired. You’re on the edge of your seat eagerly anticipating the next chapter.
Astonishment is engagement. When you’re engaged, you are always more whole, more connected, more aware of the fact that everything is connected to everything else.
What follows are five next-level strategies for living in awe and being engaged with reality in a way that takes your breath away and makes you fall in love with being alive.
1.) Overcome threshold guardians:
“Trickster is the god of the threshold in all of its forms.” ~Lewis Hyde
Befriend Trickster at the crossroads. He will be your guide into awe. Trickster is a vital ally in this regard. He will give you the courage needed to confront Confrontation itself. When you’re faced with the outdated and the parochial, trickster will give you the primordial medicine needed to break through all borders, boundaries, limitations, and conditioning.
As Camus said, “The greatness of man lies in his decision to be stronger than his condition.”
You must first break through the threshold of cultural conditioning before you can face the world as it is. Awe will continue to elude you until you have the courage and the wherewithal to face this initial threshold guardian. Trickster will help you rebel.
Here, rebellion is foremost. Without rebellion, you are without. You are stuck. You are at a dead end. Without the initial rebellion you will always be so blinded by the light of cultural conditioning that you will never be able to see the true light of transcendence and awe.
Joining forces with Trickster at the crossroads is where you transform your life into a Hero’s Journey.
2.) Realize that imagination is superior to reason:
“Intuition does not denote something contrary to reason, but something outside of the province of reason.” ~Carl Jung
Carpe punctum (Seize the moment) leads to carpe diem (seize the day) leads to carpe vita (seize the life), but it cannot begin without imagination.
A major roadblock to experiencing awe is reason itself. Why? Because reason is telling you that you’re stuck in a little human world with overreaching human laws keeping you in check, docile, and immure. Whereas imagination is showing you how to think outside that box, how to transcend it, how to rise above it and see how the small picture perception of reason was the only thing preventing you from seeing the bigger picture.
Inside the box of reason, you are limited to what the box dictates. Outside the box of reason, using your imagination, you are unlimited. The world is yours. All worlds are yours. You go beyond merely living in a world. You become a worldbuilder, a mythmaker, a boundary crosser. Equal parts divining rod and lightning rod, you’re able to open-up to the Great Mystery and to otherworldly music, poetry, and art.
Reason alone cannot grasp the Great Mystery. We are too fallible to discover the truth by reason alone. Reason has its place, but only after imagination has its say. Imagination helps us realize that remaining enchanted and in awe with the Great Mystery is always the truer providence.
3.) Embrace the Void:
“The power of the Void is the power of wombness in us all, the power of true creativity.” ~Peggy Andreas
What is the void? A better question would be: what isn’t the void?
The void is everywhere. It’s behind you: random persistence mixed with pre-existence. It’s ahead of you: quantum predictability mocking your short life. It’s beside you in the form of Death whispering in your ear. It is inside you in the form of your shadow bobbing and weaving in and out of repression. It outflanks you. It destroys you with its pointlessness even as it resurrects you with its sacred alignment.
The void is between worlds even as it creates worlds. It is the primordial source, the vital condition, the perennial root. It is all at once lodestone, whetstone, steppingstone, and Philosopher’s Stone.
M