12 Simple Things You Can Do Today
to Help Yourself Discover Your Sense of Wonder

Of course, this is an incomplete list.  Wonder is a broad highway, a limitless horizon, an endless ocean.  But try one or two or all of them over the next 12 days, or 12 weeks, or do one a month for the next 12 months (Well, you might want to at least do suggestion number 1 every day. Studies have shown that breathing is very helpful to living). 

Oh, same with 2 and 3.  These are the bare minimum.  

But try them all.  Let them open you into the world

and let the world open into you.

Have fun with all of them.  Expand them and add your own special twists. 

And remember, it’s important that when death finds you, it finds you alive. 

So go.  Go live. 

Live a life full of Wonder.

1). Breathe deeply each breath.  Fill your belly and then exhale slowly.  This clears the mind and calms the body thus awakening your senses to the world around you.

2). Drink plenty of water.  This keeps the works clean and free and lubricates the body in such a way that it’s simply more open to the water of life flowing around and within you.

3). Get plenty of sleep.  Night descends for many reasons, foremost is to nourish the soul through sleep and dreams.  A well-rested you experiences the world with a heart cleansed with dew and starlight.

4). Sing.  Sing without judgment of your own voice.  Make up little tunes.  Hum them.  Enjoy the feeling of humming on your lips and in your chest.  Sing out loud or in whispers and let the music fill you with joy.  Try singing everything you say today in dramatic, operatic fashion, or maybe like a church liturgy.  Whatever, just sing.  If you need to, begin by singing in the shower or the car.  Then branch out and burst into song when you see someone you love.  Sing praises to the Divine and to yourself and those around you.  A heart filled with gratitude sees the world with the eyes of the heart and listens to the world with the ears of the soul and tastes the world with the appetite of desire.

5). Play.  Play with yourself, play with children, play with your family, strangers, co-workers, and pets.  Play with words, rules, and ideas.  Play with your dreams, your beliefs, your religion, your fears, your joys.  Play wherever and whenever possible.  Make time to play every day.

6). Move through the world at all times as if you are dancing, because you are.  The world leans into its daily revolution gracefully, with a heart full of music, and flirts with the sun as she passes.  So dance.  Take everything in suggestion number 5 and replace the word play with dance.

7). Enjoy food.  Really.  Love what you eat, and eat foods that nourish your body and senses.   And every now and then eat a lollipop or cotton candy, or blow really big bubbles with a mouth full of bubble gum.

8). Sit in the grass.  Lay down in the park.  Look at the sky during the day or the night.  Stand in a field of fireflies.  Sleep in a garden.  Make snow angels.  Try and catch falling leaves.  In other words: get outside.  Look at trees, birds, and dirt.  Listen to the sounds of the forest.

9). Say nice things to yourself and others.  Like: “Wow! You are awesome!” “You are amazing.”  “I love how you do that (did that)”.  Etc.

10). Do secret niceties for others.  This quickens the mind and opens the heart.  The soul needs mischief sometimes.  Give it mischief of the random-acts-of-kindness variety.

11). Light a candle during a meal, or when praying or making love.  Lighting a candle changes everything.  Oh, and remember to blow it out when you’re through.  Blowing out a candle changes everything too.

12). Write someone you know a poem.  Can’t write poetry?  So what? Write them a poem anyway.  It can be prose or metered, free verse or a haiku, rhymed or not….Find a sentiment you want to share and simply couch it with really deep or flowery words.  Then stick it in a nice card and then stick that card in a lunch box or a mailbox or under someone’s pillow.

Who says spiritual practice can’t be fun? Wonder is spiritual practice of the highest order.  Have fun.  Let me know how it goes, and please share your own wonder-inducing ideas with us.

Cheers,
Joseph