Journey of the Universe reads like a poem to the beauty of life. It tells, in breathtaking prose, the creation story of our universe. From detailing the Big Bang to the first signs of life to the evolution of mammals, humans, and the development of human consciousness, Journey of the Universe reads less like a textbook but more like a lyrical celebration of our world and how we got here. It was such a refreshing and moving take on a story we all may think we’re familiar with, but perhaps, as I learned, have never truly stopped to appreciate.

And the difference between Journey of the Universe and many other tellings of the same story, is wonder. While all great science is driven by curiosity and the desire to know, Journey of the Universe feels especially imbued with a sense of wonder and awe.

As a process – say photosynthesis – is described (as below), you cannot help but to feel the authors marvel and to marvel yourself at something you somehow never realized was so splendid.

[On photosynthesis] “After the emergence of life itself, one of the most stunning manifestations of this deepening communion is that of photosynthesis. The key construction, requiring perhaps tens of millions of years, was a molecular assembly capable of an elegant resonance with sunlight. Like tuning forks shaped to vibrate in the presence of certain sorts of music, these special molecules, called chlorophyll, glow with energy when the light from our Sun falls upon them. The photons, when captured, lift electrons to a higher energy state, which immediately sets off a cascade of chemical events leading to the creation of powerhouse molecules within every cell. Life thus found a process of feeding upon the Sun in a direct way, drawing in sunlight and using its energy to synthesize its component parts.”

And being in awe and in appreciation of a concept is what fuels a true desire to understand and to learn. In the same way that Bill Nye’s science experiments aim to ‘wow’ middle grade students in science class, authors Brian Swimme and Mary Tucker seem to aim to awaken us adults to ‘wow’ at our world. Understanding fueled by a sense of wonder is passionate, creative, and driven. Wonder marks the difference between the rote memorization, recitation, and regurgitation of facts versus self-led discovery fueled by one’s one curiosity.

Along similar lines, philosopher Hannah Arendt in The Life of the Mind wrote,

It is wonder that sends the scientist on his course of “dispelling ignorance” and that made Einstein say: “The eternal mystery of the world [i.e., the universe] is its comprehensibility.”

Authors Swimme and Tucker are patently aware of the role of wonder. Wonder, in their eyes, is what has made humans unique and is what has led us to seek to understand. They write,

“Wonder is a gateway through which the universe floods in and takes up residence within us. Consider the stars. They shined down on Earth for four and a half billion years. Then these new creatures emerged, these humans. What was different about them is that they were amazed every time they beheld the stars. Their amazement inspired works of art and science. Hundreds of thousands of years later, humans discovered that it was these stars that forged the elements of their bodies.

By dwelling in a world of wonder, humans were led to realize that they were children of the stars – something intuited in early myths and uncovered by modern science.”

On a deeper level, Swimme and Tucker argue that wonder is also what makes us human. And a continuing sense of wonder allows us today to move forward in further understanding exactly what being human in the context of our universe means.

“Wonder is not just another emotion; it is rather an opening into the heart of the universe. Wonder is the pathway into what it means to be human, to taste the lusciousness of sun-ripened fruit, to endure the bleak agonies of heartbreak, to exult over the majesty of existence.

The universe’s energies penetrate us and awaken us. Through each moment of wonder, no matter how small, we participate in the entrance of primal energies into our lives.

However insignificant we may feel with respect to the age and size of the universe, we are, even so, beings in whom the universe shivers in wonder at itself. By following this wonder we have discovered the ongoing story of the universe, a story that we tell, but a story that is also telling us.”

Similarly, I love these simple lines from the Tao Te Ching:

From wonder into wonder

Existence opens.