Category: Awe

Posted in Awe, Circle of Life, Life-narrative

The Circle of Life 2.0 — Predator and Prey

Posted on by Rhonda Wiley-Jones

AFTER EUTHANIZING MURPHY

I did not expect to return to this subject after writing about it last week, in The Circle of Life: Life and Death. The baby Barn Swallows’ arrival had been a joy, after having put down our sweet sixteen-year-old Shih Tzu, Murphy. The distraction of baby birds turned sadness to contentment.

 

THEN THEY WERE FEEDING

I could observe their daily feedings from my kitchen window. They’ve sprouted a few pin feathers on the top of their heads, making them look like cartoon characters.

MORE OF THEM THAN WE THOUGHT

 

We counted three, then discovered another begging beak. We’d only had clutches of three before.  This created a larger-than-usual family of hungry babies. They appear to be singing in this photo.

FATEFUL MORNING – THE PREDATOR

The parents of the babies were swooping and diving around the porch, in and out, up and down. Rather manic. Since the babies were not showing their heads, I thought, the mama and papa were trying to awake them.

The next time I caught a glimpse of their nest, I saw a large dappled creature. I could NOT imagine a snake had made it to their nest. I opened the front door to check. I indeed saw a snake lounging in the nest and witnessed two baby birds on the porch floor.

Incensed, Lynn grabbed a pole to knock the snake out of the nest. As we prepared to do that, one of the babies on the ground moved. I rescued it so the snake wouldn’t go after it, using utensils, so I didn’t leave my scent on it.

Lynn poked the long pole at the predator. The snake hissed each time Lynn attacked it, until finally the predator took a fall to the ground and slithered off.

Lynn googled how to rescue barn swallows safely. As he researched, I was keeping an eye on the baby. I didn’t want the snake returning to finish the little one off.

While I surveilled the surviving chick, the female Barn Swallow flew around and lit on an emptied Barn Swallow nest that clung to another patio wall. I took that as a sign.

Lynn’s research results told him that Barn Swallows would not reject a baby if handled by humans. We hoped that was true. I transplanted the baby bird to the nest Mama had chosen.

WE SAVED ONE

The Mama came back to the nest and seemed to be bobbing her head into the new home.

Later the porch was quiet. No baby bird chirping for food. No parents swooping in with insects. No life apparent.

I guessed we had failed. We did what we thought were the right things.

Then later in the day we saw both feeding, Mama with a white breast and Papa with a russet breast. The little one was flapping its wings. Chirping for more and more. Deprived for a while this morning and now starving for attention, comfort, and food.

My prayer: May the adult Barn Swallows return again to offer another clutch after this baby fledges.

OBITUARY

August 22, 2026

Our rescued-from-the-ground Barn Swallow led a short and eventful life. A snake invaded the nest. The nestling was the only one of four that survived. After being rehomed to another nest it lived another week. As a fledgling it made its first fearful flight and fell to the ground just below the nest. There were no signs of damage to the creature, just a broken neck. We are saddend to lose this one, but we did what we could.

My prayer still stands: May the adult Barn Swallows return again to offer another clutch this summer.

Posted in Awe, Circle of Life-Life & Death, paying attention

The Circle of Life — Life and Death

Posted on by Rhonda Wiley-Jones

Each of us can recall the soaring music of composer Elton John and lyrics by Tim Rice in “The Circle of Life” written for the Disney movie, The Lion King, when it is simply mentioned.

We hear the crescendo of a piano and symphony, recognize the Zulu beat and chant created by Lebo M., and feel our hearts expand with the message.

We’re All Connected 

We, and not just we humans, but we as in all living beings, including plant and animal, wind and rain, flora and fauna, water and mountain are all connected. At least that’s been my experience this week.

One End of the Circle — the Sad One 

Yesterday, my husband Lynn and I experienced the circle of life come to an end for our Shih Tzu Murphy. You can see our forced smiles in this picture just moments away from putting him down.

He was an old man, 115 years old by human years, if we multipled his age, 16.5 x 7 = 115. He was blind and deaf, tired and achy from arthritis, and weary from a persistent cough due to a collapsing trachea.

MEMORIES

Murphy was a champ for not barking at other dogs penned up behind gates and fences. He was rather arrogant, when he turned his head in the opposite direction from a barking dog, as if to say, “You are not worthy of my attention or response.” He never barked at the golfers that played on the 4th green just out our back yard. Yes, he barked, but not impolitely.

He greeted company at our house with enthusiasm and a sniff at their feet. Then he would settle back to his living room bed (Or throne, should I say?). He never jumped up on guests or begged at the table.

He was good with other dogs on the street. Sniff one end, then the other, then go on his way. We walked with different dogs on the street, sometimes 4-5 of them at a time. He was the elder of the street and perhaps “King.”

Murphy was a very polite little boy, turned old man.

He was active in his younger years. When we’d toss a ball from one of us to another, Murphy would take off in that kind of “running close to the ground” die trying to catch the ball from us.

He tried to chase the squirrels, but darn it all, he couldn’t climb that dog-gone tree. He even took off after a small herd of deer on the golf course one day. I was worried he’d get hit by a soaring golf ball, while he was single-mindedly focused on the white tail of those deer.

But he was a bossy little guy from early on. It took me 2 weeks to potty train our first dog in 1985 but 9 months to train Murph in 2009. As a smart boy, he learned all the commands and would hesitatingly conduct them.

The command that was key to his safety, COME, was the one he refused to honor. He’d plant all 15 pounds of him, as if he had four-wheel braking power, and yank my arm off, if on lease, or sit stubbornly on the other side of the street from me.

Some neighbors called him independent, reluctant, a dog with a mind of his own. I called him, my stubborn little shit. I loved him, but found him more recalcitrant as the years went by.

He has been our little buddy for 16.5  years and we missed him dearly this morning, when he didn’t arrive in the kitchen for his splash of milk and dry food, his trip out to potty and to gain his first treat.

The Other End of the Circle — the Cheerful One

Earlier this summer the barn swallows returned to our house after providing us 3 sets of babies last year after the tragic July 4th, 2025 Guadalupe River flooded here in Kerrville, Texas. Those baby birds gave me solace after the community’s loss of lives and river landscape.

In recent weeks, the barn swallows have built a new nest, laid eggs, and the female has nested deeply in the home they created for their new family. This specie of birds mate, but others also help out. The male and female share the load in varying ways.

A GIFT

Today, 24 hours after we gave up Murphy, the female barn swallow that had roosted deeply in the nest is sitting higher. I see more of her profile.

And then I see her and her mate taking turns depositing nourishment to apparent new baby birds. Their little becks have yet to tower above the side of the nest.

What a gift of nature, of our connectedness to the natural world.

God knew Lynn and I needed something to distract us from the loss of Murphy with the start of new life just outside our kitchen window. We are grateful!

Posted in Awe, Paying Attention, Time, Wonder, Wonder-bringers

The Art of Stretching Time: Wonder Slows the Clock

Posted on by Rhonda Wiley-Jones

WONDER CAN S-t-r-e-t-c-h TIME 

Today, I delight to the breeze on my face and arms, while sitting outside on our back patio. Paying attention to this tactile sense slows down time for me. I read a book, scroll my phone – or nap, which I’m particularly fond of doing. I relax and regenerate energy.

Looking back in time, I also experienced this same phenomenon years ago. In temperate weather, I would walk to work – about 30 minutes door to door. My day would move more slowly, more calmly. How odd it felt them. Now I know science supports this connection between nature and our sense of time.

Then as now, I enjoyed the feel of wind on my face, arms, and legs. The motion of walking that pumped my heart, also pumped my soul. When I walked to work, time moved in slow motion, compared to other days. I accomplished more on those days. Therefore, double the pleasure.

A GUIDE TO WONDER

Monica C. Parker’s book, The Power of Wonder: The Extraordinary Emotion That Will Change the Way You Live, Learn, and Lead, brings together research on topics such as the magic of wonder, our awareness andThe Power of Wonder: The Extraordinary Emotion That Will Change the Way You Live, Learn, and Lead attention, and the resulting awe and its benefits. Paying attention to all our senses and staying in the present, in my opinion, supports her theme and claim that wonder will change the way we live, learn, and lead.

In her book, Parker tells us that wonder doesn’t materialize in our fast-paced lives with grueling schedules. Hence we miss chances to experience wonder, because we don’t slow down. It’s a must.

TIME AND PERCEPTION

Time isn’t a fixed or simple concept. The way we preceive time can make it feel like its speeding up or slowing down. We often hear about a state of “flow” when we lose track of time. Like when we’re having a good time or so engrossed in what we are doing that time flies. This happens to me when I work on a chapter of my work-in-progress or a creative nonfiction essay. Six hours pass and I barely notice.

THE NEED FOR WONDER

We crave wonder (without knowing it) with overwhelming news cycles, hectic work schedules, the demands by our social, religious and civic organizations. We are constantly bombarded and distracted from the simple things in life.

Wonder may be free, but it isn’t always easy to slow down.

Simple ideas may include to get outside, touch the bark of a tree, smell the pungent scent when trimming a lantana plant in Texas, to distinguish bird songs, feel the vibration of a bee buzzing, observe the various flight patterns of birds. Now these are moments of wonder and awe that can slow down time–expand and stretch it.

We may find wonder in writing a simple poem, sketching a scene, playing a favorite tune on the piano or listening to it on Spotify or iTunes. Wonder can be discovered in hearing a friend tell of a discovery in their field of science. We can marvel at the news of those from around and outside the country who came to conduct rescue and recovery efforts after a disaster occurs. Just as it has in my hometown, Kerrville, Texas, in the July 4th, 2025  Guadalupe River Flood that took over one hundred lives.

Wonder comes in many guises.

WHAT BRINGS US WONDER?

However, Monica Parker encourages us to find our own “wonderbringers,” those experiences that can bring wonder. We have to discover those things and pursue them with purpose and intent.

Wonder is the catalyst to build the social and emotional competencies we need to make us more open, more curious, more compassionate … more human. (Monica C. Parker) 

 

Her wonderbringers include travel, fellowship with friends, and Trey Anastasio’s guitar. Mine are nature encounters, meals with friends, travel, and reading.

What are your “wonderbringers?” What lights you up? What sets your senses alive?

CHALLENGE

Set yourself up to pay attention to each of the five senses every day this week: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch. This experiment could open a new way of paying attention to our daily lives and shape your sense of wonder. (Weeks ago I suggested another way to pay attention. Here’s a reminder. “Look up, look down, look all around.”)

Please share you experiments, your thoughts, your sense of wonder with us. We can learn from each other.

Thanks for reading and responding.

 

To learn more about my books in which young women are experimenting with ways to pay attention to their lives from the ups and downs, adventures and misadventures. In which young women build their personal psychological agency through travel—to become the authors of their own lives.

FICTION

In Song of Herself, Fiona Weston, an Iowa horsewoman in work boots and trousers, sails to India in 1906 to discover her journey is not the quest for which she had yearned, nor the escape from those who ridicule her unconventional ways. In Song of Herself, Fiona experiences a journey fraught with obstacles that creates a sturdy sense of self in which she comes to accept irreconcilable differences and still can sing her song of self.

NONFICTION

Rhonda’s memoir, At Home in the World: Travel Stories of Growing Up and Growing Away,  portrays her growing up in rural Arkansas launched by an empowering mother to journey into the world as tourist, missionary, and independent young woman. These forays mirror her spiritual life, while telling a mythic story of a mother-daughter relationship and a missionary-church conflict that will be resolved through healthy development.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Awe, Creative Nonfiction Narrative, Paying Attention

Awe’s Dual Nature: Terror and Tenderness

Posted on by Rhonda Wiley-Jones

INCONVENIENCED CRIES FOR COFFEE 

July 4th, 2025, the Guadalupe River in Kerrville, Texas, broke records and hearts. I awoke about 6:30 a.m. to find a newly formed lake on the golf course behind our house. Out the front kitchen window, the dry creek had filled and overflowed into the end of the street. The cul-de-sac featured a raised island, curbed with pebbled ground, large decorative rocks and 3 concrete benches. Water was 3-4 feet high and climbing up the street toward our house. Two houses away from ours. Only the flag pole and the crepe myrtle were visible on the cul-de-sac island.

Electricity was off, which meant no coffee, no TV, no Internet, no way to see and hear what was happening. However, we discovered through Facebook we could read about the disaster. A massive wall of rushing water had encompassed summer camps in Hunt, Texas, then made its way downstream.

My husband Lynn and I live about half a mile “from the way a crow flies” to the Guadalupe River. When it runs high, which is rare, it overflows into a nearby creek. It then fills the dry creek that runs through Riverhill Golf Course that our house sits on. Between 7:00 and 8:00 that day, the water began to recede. How odd, so soon.

The news was spotty and episodic. Lynn and I continued to cruise Facebook for more tidbits. All the while whining about not being able to make coffee. We didn’t make coffee until just after noon. Only when the electricity came back on. It was only then on the news we saw the mass destruction and heard the horrific stories. Then we regretted our petty, inconvenienced cries for coffee.

TERROR AND TRAGEDY

I cannot provide you any better photos than you have seen on television of Kerrville’s previously lovely and tranquil but now ravaged Guadalupe River. A wall of water brought terror and tragedy, but also generated a response of awe of what it can achieve or destroy. The county was devastated by a deluge that stripped and uprooted hundred-year-old trees, washed vehicles and homes down river, and pulled debris from the flood plain and left rubble in its wake for 100 miles. However, as you might expect, nothing compared to seeing it in person.

RESCUE AND TENDERNESS

So many people came to the rescue of survivors, homes, pets, and the river itself. The citizens of Kerr county were surprised and admiring of all the help we have received.  Residents were asked to stay home that day and in the week following, if not volunteering, to be out of the way of those “working” in ways one should never have to work. It has been a busy several weeks since the 4th and the work continues.

GRIEF AND LISTLESSNESS

In the hours and days following, grief sat over this town like a ghost. Unseen but heavily felt.  Overwhelmed and grateful, but worn down. I sensed grief pressing on my skin for a week or more, like invisible water in the air. I was listless and found it hard to focus. And I hadn’t even been directly impacted by the raging river.

TWO BARN SWALLOWS NESTING

On the other side of terror is tenderness. Just weeks before the flood, two Barn Swallows had make their messy nest just outside our front door. I wished they had chosen another location instead of our front porch. They tenderly laid their eggs, then defended the nest swooping and careening trying to keep me away as I came and went, walking the dog.

I fussed at them. “You could have picked another spot.” I began paying attention to their comings and goings. Each night when I took out Murphy, our Shih Tzu, before bedtime, they sat atop the eggs. The two parents perched facing in different directions. It was so sweet to see them nurturing their nest.

EGGS HATCHING

One night they seemed to be sitting higher in the nest. Had the babies hatched? The swallows sat higher and higher each night. I listened for chirping, which was faint. Or was I just wanting to hear them?

One day I saw three pointy beaks up over the top of the nest, like little hay stacks from Monet’s paintings. The next day, the beaks were in full view, then the next, their little hooded eyes peaked over the nest’s edge. Before long they were sitting on top of each other.

Barn Swallow fledglings -- a healing distraction after the July 4th, 2025 Guadalupe River Flood in Kerrville, TX
Barn swallow after fledging

THE FLEDGLINGS

It wasn’t long until they fledged.

They flew from their nest to our Jasmine bush, then to the Crepe Myrtle, all under the tender watch of parents. In the following days, they made it a little further to the gutter of the house next door. They looked just like mom and dad, blue and golden, except their tails were not yet as long.

The fledglings returned to the nest each night, until one night they were gone.

THE TENDERNESS OF HEALING

The Barn Swallows pulled me through the days and early weeks following July 4th, 2025.

Death and birth, birth to death: two ends of existence. Life continued on!

~~~~~

MY BOOKS 

Song of Herself, a story of a young horsewoman in 1906 who travels to India to sell her uncles horses. It is not the journey she expected or wanted but gave her the chance to grow into her own skin.

At Home in the World: Travel Stories of Growing Up and Growing Away, my coming-of-age travel memoir that covers ages 10 to 27. It is the story of my church and my mom, wise beyond her own experience and ahead of her time, who encourages and prepares me for international travel opportunities. I become a world citizen  at a very young age and later in life leave home and the church that provided me growth opportunities.

Both stories suggest that travel can offer chances that help us build personal, psychological agency by which we become the author of our own lives.

If you read either or both books, I’d appreciate it, if you left a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or your favorite book platform. 

 

 

 

Posted in adventure, Awe, Details in Writing, Mindfulness, Paying Attention

3 Simple, No-cost Ways to Pay Attention

Posted on by Rhonda Wiley-Jones

Is This You?

Are you the last one in a group out for a walk to notice what’s happening in the environment? Are you the one who says, “What? Where is it? I don’t see it?”

  • Do you want to be the one who notices?
  • Do you wish to immerse yourself in the inexplicable?
  • Do you yearn to find the mysterious and clandestine elements in life?
  • Do you ache for the freedom of release and relaxation from feeling awe?
  • Do you believe you can experience the “ah!” in nature or the “awe?”

Paying attention is a habit, not some sophisticated study, though it can be.

Bird Watching Was My Starting Point

Once upon a time, I was one of those who wanted to be adept at experiencing the ineffable.

I took up birding, purchasing the Golden Guide to Field Identification: Birds of North America. Sure, I knew my birds, a robin, cardinal, and blue jay. I was familiar with the basic sparrow that was everywhere. But I did NOT know how many variations of sparrows there were until I started studying the book. Oh my goodness!

My First Identification

I observed a small grey bird with a white, round belly, which I’d never seen before. (Or had I seen it but not noticed it?) I saw it pecking in the snow in Wisconsin where I lived at the time. It looked like its belly had been dusted by snow. So in my mind I called it a snow bird, and so it is called by other birders. But in fact, it was one of the many kinds of sparrows listed in the bird book, called the slate-colored junco. Never had I heard of a junco.

A Friend Tried to Dissuade Me

A friend of mine suggested I study vegetation, flowers, trees, wildflowers – anything that didn’t move like birds that flit from limb to limb. She said, “Why don’t you decide to identify things that sit still, instead of birds that you have to follow around in a screen of leaves? Learn the skill of observation first?”

I was determined. “I’m not interested in those, but I’m in love with birds.” She shook her head and threw up her hands. “Okay. Start the hard way.” We laughed together.

Your 3-Step Guide to Paying Attention

For those of you who want to build observation skillls to pay attention, I suggest 3 simple ways. They come from a song most of us have heard before. Three ideas from a 1990s British TV children’s show, Come Outside, along with the theme song by the same name. Here, I want us to use these unpretentious words to the theme of the kids’ show:

Look up, look down, look all around.

STEP 1: LOOK UP

Yesterday, my three friends and their four dogs including Murphy and me had a brief 2–3-minute walk in a shower.  I looked up to see a rainbow in full display. Not horizon to horizon, but the vivid color spectrum grew out of a cloud. It sailed across the blue expanse and ended abruptly mid-sky. 

Jim Putnam's photo during an evening walk in the rain
Pay attention by looking up to find treasures in the sky.  

Layla said, “Make a wish. A rainbow is good luck. Look at the end of the rainbow and make a wish.” For me it was more of a prayer than a wish, “Make my husband Lynn stronger after cancer radiation.”

None of us, except Jim had a phone. “Jim, take a photo.” I was thinking of another post on paying attention when I repeated the request he had not heard. “Jim, please, take a picture. Send it to me.”

 

STEP 2: LOOK DOWN

Also yesterday morning as I walked Murphy home, I sensed movement in the grass. I looked down to two cicada killer wasps mating. They were end to end, vibrating as if they were enjoying it. I wondered whether without the emotions of a human, how they experienced the act of mating. One of the two had its face burrowed beneath the grass. Its stinger end attached to the other one hovering over the top of the grass. (After a web search, I learned the female has the stinger and the male does not.)

It was a moment for me. Was I interrupting? No, they did not notice me taking pictures of their intimate act. Was I rude to take their picture? I don’t know. Nonetheless,  it did make my day to get to see nature at work, at play, creating life!

STEP 3: LOOK ALL AROUND

Again yesterday I lounged on the porch loveseat, where I could feel the breeze tickle my skin. The golfers on the course beyond my yard probably gawked or sneaked a peek at me scrolling on my phone, listening to a course online, reading a book, and of course napping. (I’m recovering from surgery and 2 procedures in less than 6 weeks – nothing life threatening, merely an annoyance.) All this for the healing process.

I don’t usually take this kind of time each day to sit on the porch and watch the geese and the squirrels coexist. Sniff the freshly cut grass or listen to the birds and the chimes clash. I do however notice the black cat slink by in its ritualistic daily walk about. When I look all around and take in the world with all my senses, there’s a relaxed sense that neutralizes the anxiety of the news and life.

See? Simple. No-cost. Sing the song as you start out to work, to pick up the kids, to garden, clean the house, or go out with friends. You can apply this song to any part of your life, travels, or writing. These 3 steps can enrich our lives in so many ways. 

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

How do you pay attention to the world around you? How does nature speak to you? While you go about your day, what shows itself to you? I, along with many others, I presume would like to know. Share your stories, your thoughts with us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please check out my books on Amazon. After reading one, please leave a review. Thanks!

Song of Herself, a story of a young horsewoman in 1906 who travels to India to sell her uncles horses. It is not the journey she expected or wanted but gave her the chance to grow into her own skin.

At Home in the World: Travel Stories of Growing Up and Growing Away, my coming-of-age travel memoir that covers ages 10 to 27. It is the story of my church and my mom, wise beyond her own experience and ahead of her time, who encourages and prepares me for international travel opportunities. I become a world citizen  at a very young age and later in life leave home and the church that provided me growth opportunities.

Both stories hold that travel can offer chances that help us build personal, psychological agency by which we become the author of our own lives.