Be marveled suppose :

1. that we want to have: life is what we care enough? Are we rather curious as to desire to be surprised ?
   

Minimal appetite for life is required to be amazed. Rare are those who are completely lost ... even when depression is there.

There is always a background of hope and expectation in each of us ... but wonder involves conscious action, at least in the fact of let desire, to be available.

It is not to let the disappointment ... first by saying that we tried and that "we knew it would not work ..." it is important to be and remain in the existential desire.

Result is a second condition : consistency.

1. some constancy: the ability to marvel, is built step by step, sometimes with simple things, sometimes more important things, sometimes extraordinary, enriching experiences and gradually consolidate ... gradually feed all good times.
   

This involves awareness of the impermanence of life and accept that the world is changing, we live in a reality that is constantly changing, which is an invitation to remain attentive to everything that changes which also means that I adapt, I stop to see the world and how things banal or wanting everything to be predictable and under control, because I agreed to let me surprised by what I see what I hear, I feel ... which requires a quality of presence that is.

1. present consciousness and mindfulness: it is know how to be focused on what is happening here, right now. Without needing to make an effort. Is knowing not to be invaded by what we interference, in favor of what is here and now. One can not stop thinking, but we can avoid clinging to thoughts.
   

For example:

1. when people eat, they usually speak, and do not pay attention to what they eat ... when they are in front a dish they swallow it without taking time to look, taste, smell, to be present in this dish.
   

That does not mean they should be silent to eat, that means they must be less talkative ... or at least stop from time to time to enjoy with eyes, nose, tongue, with the heart ...

1. when people do the dishes, mow the lawn, do housework, play sports, they think about what they just saw on TV, what they will do after their last altercation with their neighbors, their spouse or their children, their work, their performance or their opponents etc ... they no longer feel the touch of water on the skin, the smell of soap, smooth plates and furniture, the smell of freshly cut grass, they no longer perceive the effort or parts of their body that send messages, they are not present to what is happening ...
   

1. when I speak, some people do not listen to me, they think what they will answer me, they judge me already in their head, or they think the phone call they must go ... they are not present in what we say.
   

1. How many times a day we are outside the place where we are supposed to be? When I'm at work, I think my shopping list when I go shopping, I think Aunt Adele's birthday, when I'm at home I think the work that awaits me tomorrow at the office ....
   

The mindfulness is cultivated as a garden ... with the least effort, or rather just the effort. This is not a sport or a job, much less a requirement.

Begining by cultivating the garden of the senses: taste, smell, hearing, touch, sight ... all day long our senses are solicited, how often are we aware of it? How many times are we free to manage the intensity and effects?

Our senses are the subject of a huge financial market. Phenomenal amounts of money are invested in advertising and other ways to capture our senses format them without our knowledge.

So much so that we often "do" what is fashionable (expected) finding it quite normal and natural (spontaneous)!

The conscious presence led to choose what is good for us and not what is good for business. Whether in fashion or not. This is free will, consciousness and self-esteem.

To be free, I think it is important that people learn to disobey, resist, just a little!

1. a little dissent: in the sense of refusing to submit to a will, a system pressure, a manipulation. Ability to say NO.
   

It is not a rebellious disobedience, but an action which is to clean up habits, thought patterns, constructed or acquired or imposed, in addition as filters how we see or being.

It's clear the way we look at things and on people being aware of automation and habits, is to give the chance to see otherwise.

It is first, look for what makes sense to find yourself ... free will and regain independence ... spiritualy, philosophicaly, psychologicaly, financialy, emotionaly ...

This quest involves having free access to information, education, feelings ...

How many times have I heard that boys should not cry, the opera is the "great music" classical ballets that are the "reference choreography," such artist is unavoidable, such as singer, actor, director are "the best of their time" ... Everyone has in mind the different festivals and ways that highlight a number of artists, many of the same ... until the posthumous tribute that never ends.

These "obliged passages" would be labeled sources of sensory education that pushes many of us to adopt reference criteria that are not ours. How many young artists feel obliged to quote or sing Brel, Piaf, Brassens Caruso to assert their belonging to the world of entertainers?

Who has not known a relative, a friend, a teacher, the media who want to impose their cultural references at all costs: opera, Jazz, classical music, with their cohort of value judgments on your preferences, when you are not directly treated as uneducated.

The media never ceases to highlight artists like Pierre Soulage, presenting him as the artist of the century, using words created for the occasion: the great painter of minimalism, the reference of Tachism, then that he is only an artist who spreads black paint on canvases that will be worth millions thanks to this brainwashing.

Paradoxically the same people would not tolerate being imposed a belief, a religion, a way of thinking!

And no! The sense of wonder does not pass through these channels: there are so many marvel topics that marvel people, and nobody has a monopoly of wonder contrary to what some are trying to make us believe.

The wonder is shared, but not required.

Hence the importance of remaining vigilant. We are not obliged to marvel at Carmen or La Traviata, in front of Béjart's ballets, in front Brel, Gainsbourg, Piaf or Bruel, nor mother Teresa. Don't vibrate in front of a Rembrant, on a Bach toccata, or the latest novel of Yourcenar is not a defect, or an indicator of a lack of education.

One can as well marvel by listening Pink Floyd as a play by Beethoven or Wagner. In terms of writing, composition, arrangements, creation, apart from subjective criteria little separates them.

One can as well experience wonder before the folk group of his village, the concert by an unknown artist or amateur, in front the subway accordionist, some street artists are well worth those of showbiz, Playing for Change is a shining example .

One can marvel at the naive paintings of children in Bamako, the drawings of our own children, to the dedication and creativity of thousands of anonymous volunteers around the world, in front the actions of a craftsman, in the pages of Gounelle (Lawrence) or Delerm (Philippe). One can take as much pleasure to dine with cooking enthusiasts friends as Trois GrosThree and other temples of food stars.

Because wonder is a vibration of the soul, the essence of being, not an intellectual process. Nobody has model or scale value vibration.

Refuse to be dictated what would be good for us requires a certain courage.

1. some courage: courage to avoid conformity and take the repercussions that entails, courage to face confrontation, to construct and asser tour own values (not those ofa parents, a boss,a pastor, or TV)
   

The courage to look again and to hold whatever happens because we deserve it...

This does not prevent moments of discouragement, but it is not abandoned.

It is important to recognize and accept the rhythms of life (impermanence) and get used to the idea that happiness is fleeting.

Many would like it to last all the time, it acquired once and for all, because it would be easier.

If the good times do not last, they return sooner or later, more or less often depending on the person and conditions.

It also means that misfortune is ephemeral, it does not last and it returns more or less often depending on the person and the conditions ...

This means having the courage to face and accept the reality, instead of trying to flee, change or idealize. It is learning to grasp as it is. Is to undo our habits, our interpretations, our evidence for open availability space to reality. Create a space for possible happens

Marvel has nothing to paradise. It's just a meeting raw (unfiltered) between what is inside you and what is outside the self (external reality) ... with the awareness that everything is experienced is amazing.

It is above all the ability to be surprised by what comes up: beauty of a look, a gesture, a face, a shape, a sound, atmosphere, a perfume, a light, a word of attention, a decoration, a situation .....

And sometimes "fate", the universe, God, call it what you like, get involved ...

1. a bit of synchronicity : are all those moments that make things seem to fall at the right time ... It is this feeling of being in the right place at the right time with the right person ... without really looking.
   

For example:

1. I watch a magnificent sunset over a desert landscape, lunar type ... it is captivating, at this time crosses a jeep raising a cloud of dust iridescent by the sun, creating a mobile veil that stretches to the horizon, it is even more magical,  at the same time I perceive the discreet scent of a person behind me, who gives a glow olfactory dimension to the scene, this is subjugating.
   

1. Another day I'm on the site of Gorée(Senegal) and I think a song of Bob Marley that goes well with this atmosphere between the traces of the slave trade and the emancipation's nonchalance, at that time, behind me, came a swaying  rasta with a radio that plays Bob Marley' song that I thought ... coincidence ....
   

1. I think someone I have not seen for a long time, and when I think of that person, the phone rings and it is this person calling me ...
   

1. There are days when everything seems to be for the better.  Impression that each person we encounter smiles, the person at the counter do enough for us, our boss appreciates what we are doing (which is rare!) .... Often one feels grow wings, convinced that it is we who are responsible for what happens.
   

1. There are days when everything seems to go wrong with the impression that everyone has conspired to make our hard day ... generally we tend to believe that life is hard, and that bad luck is bent against us ...
   

These are all moments that the universe staged, often our greatest pleasure, sometimes to make us think.

If you are attentive, We are full of surprises like that.

Synchronicity can not be learned as the conscious presence, since it contains an element of uncertainty that escapes us, but it can develop in asking for help to universe ... remaining open to the signs it sends us ...

This happens more often than we think, but we do not see these signs or we do not hear them, because we are so preoccupied with the noise that is around and within us ... because we are prisoners of our habits, because it takes so that everything is rational, predictable and under control ....

Maybe also because we lack gratitude ...

1. some gratitude: learn to say thank you to heaven, to God, to each other, to the universe to oneself. Thank for what happens, we have been able to make available to the present moment ... Give thanks in his most pagan connotation.
   

It's a way not to stay "attached" to what just happened to be open to what comes ... It is authenticate, certify, close the moment that just happened to break away and make it available again for the next to come.

Nostalgia and attachment are the worst brakes wonder.

Gratitude is often accompanied by the feeling of fullness that can lead to the donation. The sense of wonder has this ability to make us feel full of something that we could share without having to feel deprived. A bit like the source that is not afraid to dry up, because what matters is what it contains here and now. Before it was before, and after we'll see.

We are not obliged to make long journeys to marvel, this can be done in his apartment in his neighborhood, his city, his country ...

It is true that some countries, systems, religions, families, businesses (or job) where it is not easy to marvel ... especially in everything related games power and tyranny, with a single way of thinking or binary.

Yet I have read testimonies of prisoners who, in concentration camps and gulags, the wonder grew, often allowing them to hang on ... (Viktor Frankl, Soljenitsyne ...)

It is also true that there are countries, families, businesses (jobs) where it is easier to marvel, because people have a culture, a lifestyle, a state of mind feeding wonder or because the context is in itself a source of wonder.

" Beauty is a series of small winks to life together which suddenly gathered illuminate the moment "J Salomé - Vivre abec les autres - Editions de l'Homme - 2002

So why not try it?

If you do not try for yourself, at least let your kids do, so they have another version of the world than Nitendo, Playstation, X Games. Teach them to disconnect from time to time of their consoles, tablets, mp3, computer, smartphone, to be open to what is ...

"It is not enough to ask :  what planet we are going leave to our children we must also ask: what children are we going to leave to our planet." Pierre Rabhi - Towards a Happy Sobriety - Acte Sud - 2010

If all this sounds complicated, just dive into a book by Aurélie Valognes (Granny in the nettles), Philippe Delerm (The first sip of beer, The pavement in the sun), Laurent Gounelle (The man who wanted to be happy, The day I learned to live, Find the treasure that sleeps in you) Far from new-age gurus and intellos of well being, these authors will transport you where you agree to go.

©A.P - 2018