Centering Awe

Can we bring it closer? Field note from the Fallow

I’m trying to take myself on regular artist dates. Earlier this week, I spent the afternoon in Harvard Square. Though it seems to lose more and more character every time I visit, there are still some quirky corners, including Harvard’s Museum of Natural History, which does not disappoint. Even though the physical plant doesn’t hold a candle to the one in New York, the place is stuffed (I use that word advisedly) with so much cool stuff. What blew me away this time was the collection of American pre-Ice Age mammalian megafauna fossils. Holy Wonderbeasts, Kipo!

There was a turtleshell from the Orinoco basin in Venezuela that I could have starfished on. There was a land sloth that stood 12 feet. And there was this armadillo ancestor that easily measured 7 feet:

Look at that carapace! Talk about carrying the world on your shoulders. (I just started listening to the latest episode of the Emerald podcast on the subject of burdens. There’s more to say there, but for a different time.) The scale of these animals—somehow more real to me for being mammals—I was not prepared for! I walked out with that sense of awe you get when your mind has been blown a little bit.

The phrase that’s coming up is ‘domesticated awe.’ Awe, by definition I suppose, is the opposite of domesticated, but I want to cultivate an attitude of awe that is both easily accessible and takes me by surprise. This week, I just needed to get out of the house and go around the corner. I hope you can, too.