The Relief of Wonder in This Worried World
Notes from the book tour road...
Hello from the book tour road! I have news to report…and it’s good. In fact, it’s wonder-full!
I’ve been going across the US reading from my book at indie bookstores, being interviewed by journalists and authors, and taking questions from eager audience members. Here’s what I’m finding, and it’s a grand experiment so far:
People are starving for their wonder. They’re starving for hopeful messages of creation not lack. They’re scared. But they’re strong. And they’re showing up. Every event has been packed. Hands go up fast during the Q&A. There are tears during my readings. There are deep, soulful thanks during the book signing when I get a moment, one-on-one, with people who say over and over “I need this book so badly right now. You cannot imagine.” And the tears come.
At some of my events, I’ve begun with this:
“Before I do a short reading and Q&A from the book, I’d like you to imagine, close your eyes if it helps, the most wonder-full moment that you have recently experienced. A moment of wonder when the world asked you to stop in awe and curiosity. And you did. And if you can’t come up with one from your recent history, go back to a moment from anywhere in your whole life where wonder came after you and wouldn’t let you go. Not a long stretch of time. But a moment in time.
Was it a tickling feeling stirring in your belly when you thought of what the day before you held? Was it digging in the sand and your fingers scraping against something and then digging around it until you pulled up a shell? A big shell? A whole shell with not one dent or ding in it, like it was put there just for you? Like you’d discovered treasure? Was it the first time you held a puppy and smelled its ears? Felt its tongue on your cheek?
Now, as I read, hold onto it. That image of wonder is about to turn into a whole discovery of your wonder. It’s time.”
Then I read and tears flow and smiles spread. When is the last time you entertained this notion of wonder? When is the last time someone asked you to entertain wonder at all? An eighty-five-year-old woman came up to me and said, smiling, and with, yes, tears in her eyes, “I finally figured it out while you were speaking. I’ve lost my wonder. That’s it! And I want it back!”
I’m watching this book give its healing salve to this worried world.
And people are saying wonder-full things about it:
· Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper wrote:
“Munson has a way with words. And that is why we are thrilled over the release of her new book, The Wild Why. Rich in lessons to help us lean into wonder and find our inner authentic voice, this book is a soul guide leading us to beauty and self-expression.”
Catch her new book of poetry I Am Maria, which she is currently promoting across the country. Its messages are so congruent with mine.
· The best-selling author Maggie Smith, who too is on book tour right now for her book Dear Reader wrote of The Wild Why:
“This book is an open-hearted invitation to explore the connections between wonder and empathy, intuition and serendipity, self-compassion and creativity—and to live a bigger, braver life.”
· My friend Lee Woodruff, #1 New York Times best-selling author and journalist, interviewed me at Athena books in Greenwich, Connecticut and said:
“The Wild Why is part memoir, part self-exploration, workbook, and tutorial on how we can reach inside and use our own sense of wonder to remove barriers, quiet naysayers, and enrich our lives.”
· Chris Dombrowski, creative writing professor and author of The River You Touch wrote: “This wise, generous, and dazzling craft-book for the soul does just that, and in so doing resurrects in the reader the state of wonder that is so vital to our survival.”
A wild and wonder-full WOW! When you sit alone writing a book for years, you just have no idea how it will land, or if it will land, in people’s hearts. I just received this email from a reader this morning, and it went straight to my core:
“I felt compelled to write to you. Yesterday, I believe it was around page 18 of “The Wild Why” that I started to cry. You. Speak. My. Language. And this book is amazing. Several years ago when I was doing my yoga teacher training, we were guided through a meditation to find our “soul vow” - one word from one moment in our life when we felt most alive. The one word to guide us. My word was “Awe.” As I researched this word, found quotes about this word, etc., I began to realize that I wasn’t quite ready for Awe. I was still healing from a lot of inner turmoil and what I really needed was “peace.” So peace became my soul vow and for the past few years I have been working on finding inner peace. As I’m reading your book, I’m realizing that I have come a long way in finding inner peace (for the most part!) and I now may be ready for “awe.” (I do believe you can have moments of awe while healing, but I now feel like being at peace with my true self and accepting my story, I can bring more focus to awe.) I want wonder and awe to take over me and guide me. Peace brought me grounding and security and now awe can set me free. Thank you so much for writing this beautiful book.
Today I am on page 25 and I am going slow, savoring every word, every idea, and also taking time to write.”
So what is wonder?
To me wonder is curiosity and awe put together, heavy on the awe. It’s what’s behind our self-expression. Behind our creativity. And of our essence. Wonder is what connects us with our intuition. Our deepest self-knowing.
Here are some quotes from the book that capture this essence:
· “My wonder did not make me wrong. It made me powerful. And that power could be isolating and alienating because when the world got tired of being asked too many questions, it outwardly deemed wonder dramatic. And impractical. And foolish. And even rude. Also, untoward, uncouth, inconvenient, too much. Inwardly, however, the world thought wonder was dangerous in its all-too-transparent nature. People didn’t want to look into water that clear.”
· “Wonder is truth’s voice. (ie: It’s a beautiful morning. That’s a comment about a truth you’re experiencing. But how did you come to this assessment? By being struck by the beauty of the morning. Being in awe of it. Wondering how its beauty surpasses other mornings that aren’t necessarily beautiful like this particular morning. And then assigning truth to it in words or thoughts of self-expression. “It’s a beautiful morning.” Wonder, then, is truth’s voice.)”
· “Wonder is kind. Only kind.”
A lot of this book, The Wild Why is about thinking.
A lot of it is about how to find your truth in the way you express yourself…and that starts in your mind. So I want you to think about something right now. I want you to think about your sense of wonder. I want you to think about what wonder means to you. Is it curiosity? Are there wild questions in you that you know you need to answer, or try to answer, but that just feel too hard or painful? Or is your sense of wonder more about awe—stopping and beholding something that is truly awe-some? Dropping what you’re doing to stand, or sit in awe. A flock of snow geese S’ing in the sky. A child playing in sand. A rainbow. But does awe feel too grandiose? Too committed or time-consuming for your busy life? Too silly or filly?
So, by my definition…and if you have a different definition of wonder, please humor me for the purpose of this potent exercise…I want you to answer this question, in your mind right now…and it’s a big one. An important one. Maybe even a dire one.
Here’s the question:
Have I lost my wonder?
Have I lost my wonder?
It’s an honest question.
It’s a pure question.
It’s a playful question.
An illuminating question.
AND…it’s a potentially tragic question.
In some cases…it’s truly a dire question. With the highest of stakes.
So please ask it. Right now. Maybe just touch its shadow, but initiate the question in your mind and heart. Open your mind to this question: Have I lost my wonder? Not in a shaming way. Not in an accusatory way. Just open your mind to this notion. Have I lost my wonder? If not, have you lost some of your wonder? Or maybe you haven’t but you feel that you are about to if your life keeps going the way it is. I want you to be honest with yourself about this.
Because without our wonder, our central ability to be full of, if not led by, curiosity and awe…then how are we to feel empathy? And without empathy, how are we to begin to understand other people, especially those who are different from us. And without understanding people who are different from us, how is civilization to thrive? How is it to continue? Again: wonder is not a silly or frilly concept. It is life-force. We need our ability to empathize to be in-tact human beings. We need our empathy in order to love. No one is the same as us. We are all, somehow, if not radically, different from one another. And that’s a wonder-full fact!
So let’s switch this from a question of lack, to the possibility of hope.
Of shifting our wonder-lessness into our wonder again. And I say “again” because if we were all children, I wouldn’t be talking about any of this. I’d be playing in the sandbox with you, connecting our castles by moats and filling them with water so that our dragons can play. We’d be trading shovels with each other, mine wider, yours pointier, both wonder-full tools in our eager and wonder-full hands. We’d be filling a bucket with sand to make another castle. We wouldn’t ask where the bucket came from. It was just here. In the sandbox. A relic of other children at play. Ours for a while until our mothers, over there sitting on the bench talking, tell us that it’s time to go. Or until we get called in for dinner, because maybe we’re playing in a community sandbox, in a neighborhood full of children, and we meet each day and play. And we never once talk about wonder. We are wonder.
Until we aren’t.
I have written this book to help you recover your wonder…
And in-so-doing, to understand where you might have lost it along the way. Because we all have, to some degree. Even those of us who feel like that light is alive in us, that it burns in us and has never stopped—even we still know that it’s faded and almost flickered out a few times in our lives. And that’s okay. Life lifes. There’s a lot that happens when we leave the sandbox, whether or not we even want to leave the sandbox.
So if you are nodding to yourself that yes, you have lost your wonder…take heart. I have a book that will become your friend. That can live on your bedside table, that you can carry around, travel with, live by. It is meant to help you, and believe me: it wants to. It wouldn’t leave me alone for nine years until it finally became the book that it is.
In short: This book is about returning to your wonder as a way of connecting with yourself and the world…especially when it comes to your self-expression.
We live in a very worried world right now. Let’s step out of this worry and into our wonder.
We need it! I hope that you will find The Wild Why at your local bookstore, or wherever you buy books (please support indie bookstores!), and that it will land in your heart and activate your wonder.
Yours,
Laura
Join me out on the road for my next book tour events:
April 28, 6:00, San Francisco: Book Passage (Corte Madera) with Brooke Warner
April 30, 7:00, Seattle: Third Place Books (Lake Forest Park) with Bill Kenower
May 14, 6:00, Dallas: Interabang books
May 16, 6:00, San Antonio: Nowhere Books with Gemini Ink and Naomi Shihab Nye
Haven Writing Retreats: still a few RARE spots on both June retreats!
And…the best way I know to activate your wonder and find your true self-expression is at a Haven Writing Retreat in Montana. Join me, no matter where you are along your writing path, this June. I still have a few rare spots on my June retreats:
June 11-15
June 18-22
You do not have to be a writer to come to Haven. Just a seeker. For more info and to set up an informational phone call with me, please email: info@lauramunson.com
I love that your book tour is going so well. I would imagine there is nothing like hearing from a reader who tells you how much your book is helping them.
I'm so happy for you! Looks like it's going great.