What Astonishes You?

Although we will have more snow in Colorado, I have been smitten once again by the promise of springtime. Always I am astonished by its arrival.

What astonishes you? Synonyms for the word offer clues to the intensity of its meaning: amaze, surprise, shock, startle, stun. The word is derived from a Latin root that means “to thunder.” If we take the root meaning literally, it may suggest that to be astonished is to be startled into awareness, to be forcibly awakened from our sleep. We may miss the lightning, looking in the wrong direction at exactly the wrong time, but some seconds later [...one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi] our very being will be shaken by the crack and roll of the sound of thunder.

In various mythologies, thunder is associated with a particular god: Thor in Norse mythology; Jupiter in the Roman pantheon; the African God Obumo; Sucellos, the Celtic God; and Rudra, the Hindu god of nature and the ruler of the Maruts, the storm gods. This association makes sense for the divine is always trying to get our attention, yet we resist. The purpose, I believe, of this season of spring is to get our attention. Elizabeth Bowen wrote, “It is in this unearthly first hour of spring twilight that earth’s almost agonized livingness is most felt. This hour is so dreadful to some people that they hurry indoors and turn on the lights.” What astonishes you?

I remember vividly a springtime thunderstorm when I was eight or nine years old. I stood on my grandmother’s front porch as the clouds rolled in bringing daylight to an abrupt end. This drama had four characters: wind, rain, lightning, and thunder and they each struggled to take the lead role.

With each flash of lightning, I counted how many seconds it took for the sound of the thunder to reach my ears. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, boom. I’ve never again seen it rain as hard. This conspicuous spectacle lasted for over two hours. I watched transfixed, astonished, moved by the beauty of the storm and by its terrifying power. In the aftermath of the storm, the air had a sweet, clean smell, as if the world had been washed clean. Perhaps this was the moment that I first realized that I am perpetually astonished by life itself, this improbable, imponderable gift.

The poet Mary Oliver speaks of her fierce desire to be perpetually astonished. She writes,
“Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled –
to cast aside the weight of facts
and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.”

What astonishes you?