About

My mind often goes out of tune, one part with another, and  I become impatient, going into private conversations with myself, forgetting to experience the world. And  then from time to time I walk in the woods, while the play of light and water amaze me and it seems like I am on the verge of understanding the language of birds. – I say to myself, “Has this been going on all along?”

-Then I fall out of tune again, living according to the names of things, not  seeing what is in front of me. Things are falling apart and it seems pointless to be compassionate or remain engaged. Then I need to  remind myself that the world contains beauty as well as sadness and horror; I need to remember things which tune my mind like the concertmaster’s “A” sounding before a performance begins.

Perhaps I am the only one who feels this, but I don’t think so. Thus  I have created a site devoted to delight and wonder, with the hope that people might visit from time to time and be reminded of the things beyond words which sustain us.

Some God  or Goddess created this terrifying and beautiful world to make it impossible to come to conclusions.  That is how She tricks us into opening our hearts.

But, I suppose I should  introduce myself; I am a psychologist by trade, though I have done many other kinds of work (including bartender and brakeman). I have been passionately married for more years than most readers have been in the world. I love to kayak on the river, ride my motorcycle on long journeys, walk in the woods, travel, read, and put thoughts into words.

I chose the title “delight and wonder” because I think the ability to feel these are the best part of me and the best part of all of us. Wonder is an intuition that some thing points beyond itself to stillness.  When you feel wonder you sense you are at a thin place where just beyond, you can see your own “great smallness.”

Joseph Campbell said, “The chief lost art of antiquity might be said to have been the art of living in the realization of the sheer wonder of the world.”

Delight is the sparkle on surface of things at peak moments in the experience of love, beauty, or in the act of creation where you oscillate back and forth rapidly between being your self, and something you can not name..

The categories listed on the opening page have been ongoing sources of delight and wonder. I will post weekly.

FYI: I have an author website: http://thomasbreiten.com