Xpress staffers Lisa Watters and Arenda Manning pose a question to our readers in this video. Have you ever experienced awe? Tell us the story in the comment field below.
Subscribe to XpressMail. Free Sneak Peek. Every Week.
Want to know what's coming out in Xpress this week before the paper even hits the stands?
We've got your free sneak peek, along with deals available in XpressMail, our weekly email newsletter. (It's the best we can do without time travel.)
-
Comments
-
Related Articles
-
Comments
Make a comment
About a decade back, I used to do a lot of cross-country car camping. It was on one of those trips -- headed vaguely towards Arizona -- that come to mind. It was very late at night, and I pulled into one of those tiny state park campgrounds in the middle of nowhere. It was one of those places where there's just a good-faith dropbox for payments, no electricity or running water ... just some gravel roads and a few roughly marked camping spots. It was a new moon, and by the time I got anywhere near the park it was completely dark, and I set up with only the stars and my car's headlights to help. The next morning when I woke up, I realized that I was at the foot of one of those GIANT stone mountains you see out West, and on a perfect, warm desert day. I definitely felt in awe of nature that morning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFtK1jEcWMU
By Steve Shanafelt
11/17/2011
Was that the time, then, when you saw that double rainbow and videotaped your several minutes of awe that went viral?
By Betty Cloer Wallace
11/17/2011
Double rainbows are pretty cool. And just to remind us all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI
By Steve Shanafelt
11/17/2011
The last time I found myself in awe of another human being was when Bernard Lagat won the 5000m USA Track and Field Championships in June. It's an amazing finish, by an incredible athlete. 37 years old! He whoops the competition -- these guys are ten years younger! If you haven't seen it, you should. YouTube: http://youtu.be/zjNFmEcPilU
By chops
11/17/2011
One time that I was in awe of nature was on an early morning hike when I reached the summit of a mountain in southern Maine. I believe it was Saddleback Mountain. Anyway, it was "first light", and still a bit dark out, and eerily calm.
I was planning on covering 20 miles of trail that day, and so my first thought was just to keep on moving along, but then it occurred to me that I had to stop and take it all in. It was a 360-degree view of pristine mountains and lakes as far as the eye could see. Not a sound anywhere, and just the slightest shimmering of sunrise reflecting off the most distant lakes to the east. It was truly a life-altering moment. I could not ignore it. Nature had gotten in touch with me.
By chops
11/17/2011
Chops-I know that range. 20 miles is quite a lofty goal on that terrain.
By bill smith
11/18/2011
Standing on a rock outcropping during a thunderstorm in a national forest outside Denver (after the forest service stopped us on the road & said whatever we did, DON'T get out of the car & stand on an outcropping...)
We could see the main thunderhead approaching from about ten miles away & thought we were safe, until we looked down at our sweaters & saw that the hairs were all standing straight up, & slowly turning around, like a satellite dish looking for a signal. We each heard a hissing sound, smelled something awful, and saw the color spectrum compress down into only pinks and reds. We freaked out & scampered down the rocks, thanking the heavens that we had escaped being struck by lightening by about 5 milliwatts...
By Barry Summers
11/17/2011
Moments of awe, you ask? So I am suddenly no longer logged in? I used to have an account here, so now why should I have to log in again? And you ask would I like to register? No, not yet again, since I have done that numerous times. Click here, you ask (click where?) to create a new account? Or use the form below (where below?) without registering? Why would I want to comment without registering after all this time? So "your comment will be moderated before going online"------
All that? Just to comment on this site? Why is it so hard? Double rainbows?
By Betty Cloer Wallace
11/17/2011
Wow I'm in awe that we can now upload video responses. Not that I have the camera or the bandwidth to do it...
Aren't we the poor cousins, Betty?
By Barry Summers
11/17/2011
LOL. 'Twas neither you nor I who uploaded a video response. It was MtnX.
By Betty Cloer Wallace
11/17/2011
Well, Barry, no, we are not the poor cousins. MtnX is. I could talk about dozens of awesome times that would put the double rainbows to shame, since I have lived my life that way (seeking awesomeness), but I really don't think that is the invite here.
By Betty Cloer Wallace
11/17/2011
It's just an open question. If you've experienced awe and want to share the story, that's all we're asking for.
By Steve Shanafelt
11/17/2011
Aw, come on, Betty. Give us a video reply. :)
By Jeff Fobes
11/18/2011
Cirque du Soleil - Pilobolus
Humans are actually capable of expressing and connecting to the divine mystery and beauty of the universe. It gives me hope when the darker side of man garners so much more attention.
By Christopher C NC
11/18/2011
Oh yeah! More Questions!
By Jesse Michel
11/18/2011
My moment of awe comes with just a little bit of guilt: About six years ago my parents invited me to join them on a cruise around the Mediterranean. The trip begin in Venice, where we stayed for two nights beforehand. On the morning of the day we were to take off my parents took a motorized waterbus with all our luggage from the hotel we had stayed in to the port on the other side of the city while I made my way through the maze of alleys and waterways that make up Venice. Several hours later I am standing with my parents on Deck 15 of the 17-story cruise ship. We have just been given glasses of champagne by one of the many roaming waiters. Italian opera is playing from the loudspeakers and as the ship pulls away we look out over this beautiful and ancient city. In that moment I was in awe.
The guilt plays in because Venice is a city forever in danger of sinking back into the sea and 17-story cruise ships chugging in and and out of its shallow port probably doesn't help matters much. But if I hadn't gone my folks would have just invited someone else and I'm truly grateful I experienced that moment.
By Lisa Watters
11/18/2011
Well, Jeff, here are a few of the many experiences that have left me in awe for various reasons—some good, some horrible, some beautiful, and some, even in hindsight, almost unbelievable_____
Flying over the Norton Sound in Alaska with a “cowboy bush pilot” when he circled really low (within a few feet of the water) over a huge pod of orca whales feeding on a school of fish in such a frenzy that the water was churning like a pot boiling, making me feel as if I were in it, or soon would be.
In the home of an Eskimo friend, Lena, in Wales, Alaska, eating the softest clams imaginable, slicing them (shell and all) with a handmade ulu and dipping them in seal oil, and eating them, shell and all. When I asked Lena how she had cooked them, she said they (about a bushel of them) were already “cooked” in the stomach acid of a walrus that her relatives had “caught” at Diomede Island earlier that day. No need to do any more cooking after that, she said, the clams were a delicacy because they had been removed at exactly the right time, after being softened in the walrus’s stomach but not yet dissolved.
Watching the Seetook family Eskimo crew in Wales (Kingikmiut) in open boats bring in a 60-foot-plus whale onto the ice-covered beach; and when the whale began cooling, she expelled a steaming eight-or-nine-foot fetus.
Watching several dozen polar bears feeding at the garbage dump outside Barrow, Alaska, not the beautiful fluffy white ones you see in National Geographic, but the hungry dirty scarred ones just trying to survive climate warming. Also, watching a rabid Arctic fox gnawing the seat off a snowmobile before being shot; and seeing the still-warm heart of a polar bear brought into the village by an Eskimo hunter for the high school science students to dissect, as well as the fresh heart of a ton-plus-pounds moose, which the students explored by hosing water through the heart valves and arteries to see how they functioned.
Eating fresh sturgeon roe in Hoonah, Alaska, by scraping it with my teeth directly off sprigs of hemlock branches that were submerged underwater around the edges of Hoonah Bay.
Submerging my aching body into the hot springs at Chena, Alaska, and at some of the other unnamed hot springs that bubble out of the frozen tundra all over Alaska.
At a village feast in Golovin, Alaska, dipping into a huge stock-pot of delicious boiled salmon roe that looked like a million little pea-sized chicken eggs; having the traditional chief (“Bobby” Amarok) of Golovin, Alaska, welcome me to the village with a fresh hindquarter of caribou; figuring out how to cook the lobsters, crab, salmon, and geese that followed without looking like a total culinary idiot; and watching a man cut up a frozen two-ton moose with a chainsaw and dispense it in chunks to all of us gathered around and salivating.
Watching numerous full-spectrum northern lights, especially in Fairbanks, and waiting out frequent awe-inspiring earthquakes.
Driving alone in my Jeep Wrangler up the ice road north of Fairbanks, and learning only later how naïve and lucky I had been.
Growing up on a farm in WNC and watching numerous animals being born, always a miracle; and giving birth to a child myself, the greatest of all miracles in this life.
Watching more than a dozen crows alight in a tree outside my home last spring and carry out a battle that went on for almost an hour. About four of the crows were actually fighting, beaks and claws and flapping wings, while the others sat and cawed loudly as if cheering them on, a sight I had never seen before or since.
Watching trees and other vegetation respond to the coming of spring in WNC when things that you really thought were dead miraculously come alive.
Watching any kind of seeds sprout, one of life’s greatest miracles.
Watching Susan Boyle wake up the world with her famous rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” (still unsurpassed for shock and awe), Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, and Jack Ruby’s killing of Lee Harvey Oswald, all of which I saw on live television.
As a teenager, while working as a waitress at Hartsook Inn in Garberville, CA, when one of the cooks shredded the face and hands of a maintenance man in a frightful and absolutely gruesome knife fight. Also, while working there, hearing the stories of many of the kitchen personnel who were on parole from the Sacramento State Prison and watching many of them (quite regularly, in fact) succumb to DTs, swatting at imaginary monsters and such.
Actually, Jeff, not many days go by, even now, that I am not in awe of something—the wireless lives we now live (it’s magic, it’s magic), the nose of my favorite hound dog Elvis sniffing out little furry burrowing animals a foot deep underground and digging them out with his sharp toenails made for just that purpose, the amazing brain and language development of my grandchildren, the flying acrobatics of the birds around my dozen bird feeders as yet unparalleled by mankind, the amazing taste of heritage foods in season, the survival of our young country in light of what’s happening in the rest of the world, and so much more.
But, Jeff, if you really want a video of recent awesomeness, here’s one from a local musician, Ian Moore, who is, in my opinion, awesome on many levels.
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/NcPfCY4OghA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
By Betty Cloer Wallace
11/18/2011
It's my turn to be awed by your magnificent response. Thank you.
By Jeff Fobes
11/19/2011
Maybe this will work:
http://youtu.be/NcPfCY4OghA
By Betty Cloer Wallace
11/18/2011