Wonder into the New Year

By Gail Hamilton
For The Windham Eagle

What better time to talk about wonder than during the holiday season and to start a fresh new year!

Gail Hamilton created a new
driveway for an accessory
apartment to be attached to her
home and a stone wall alongside
it became a functioning piece of art
for her. SUBMITTED PHOTO 

Where do you feel wonder? Is it when you’re wandering in the woods, enjoying the fresh air and mother nature surrounding you? Is it when you’re welcoming a newborn baby into the world or watching a cat finally come flying out from under a bag to grab a dangling shoelace?

I love that feeling and started noticing what’s shifting in me when I feel that way. Openness. Beingness. Presence to the moment. Innocence really. So now I’m choosing it more deliberately.

Here’s an example of wonder that I’ve found. I live in the woods of Windham and enjoy that nourishing beauty, so when I created a new driveway for an accessory apartment to be attached to my home, it cut sharply into a big banking.

I wanted to heal that disruption in the land, with rocks of course because I love all that granite in my yard, and I stashed all sizes of rock in piles off to the side as the drive was formed through the woods.

What grew is a wonderous functional artwork, self-expression with loved materials. And it grew and it grew, and it grew.

After a sizable chunk of wall had formed, I was really enjoying the wavy shape of the current highest edge, so chose to build in a narrow ledge which I could line with pieces of slate topped with moss, preserving the wonder of that line. About 75 feet later, I had a wall that looked like a riverbed on its side with a beautiful wavy line through it.

What a wonder to see the wholeness.

As this new year dawns upon us, would you resolve with me to see and hear with new eyes and ears and enjoy the wonder of our creation? <