Spider Joe's Spirituality of Wonder

He threw his arms around the tree trunk, gently bit off a small piece of bark and ate it, passionately kissed the tree, and ran off laughing.

My nephew is two years old.

Why did he do this? His world is a mystery to me. There seems to be no future and no past. Things from the past -- learnings, beliefs he's already formed, fears, expectations -- do influence his life. But he doesn't live there.

That's what the Spirituality of Wonder (my new favorite term, coined by my friend Spider Joe) is all about, at least in my current interpretation: flinging yourself into the present moment so thoroughly that you shake off the past and the future, and you look up to see a hawk flying overhead. For that moment, only the hawk exists. And that present moment is full of causes-and-effects that may or may not make sense, but they arise from somewhere most of us long to visit. And some of us long to live.

We use the word "spirituality" because it's hard to find a word that expresses what we're talking about. Think about the last time you were pleasantly surprised. Maybe someone actually planned a surprise for you. Or maybe you were given a gift you didn't expect. Perhaps something random happened, which turned out to be good for you.

Let yourself be absorbed in the feelings of being pleasantly surprised. It's a nice time to linger, isn't it? What were you seeing and hearing? Where were you? Seeing the events through your own eyes, notice the people around you. What were you feeling?

That's the spirituality of wonder, too. It's being completely absorbed, however briefly, in something that brings you wonder, awe, and curiosity.

When do you experience the spirituality of wonder?