{"id":2860,"date":"2025-04-27T18:15:24","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T00:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/?p=2860"},"modified":"2025-04-29T15:53:52","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T21:53:52","slug":"the-visual-evidence-of-inadvertent-awe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/27\/the-visual-evidence-of-inadvertent-awe\/","title":{"rendered":"The Visual Evidence of Inadvertent Awe"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The awe-inspiring Very Large Array. Charles R. Wolfe photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Today’s Substack post explains how visible landscape changes can facilitate awe:<\/em><\/p>\n

Awe is a popular focus for those seeking new and different ways to feel alive or replicate the sensation of being a kid in a candy store without traveling too far.<\/p>\n

The experience of awe spans academia, self-help workshops, and podcasts. I understand that awe and urbanism have recently teamed up in Charlotte<\/a> through the work of the noted Berkeley psychology professor Dacher Keltner<\/a> (author of AWE: The New Science of Everyday Wonder<\/a><\/em>), the Gambrell Foundation, and Gehl Associates.<\/p>\n

The short message: Caring cities produce awe in their residents. And local governments should act accordingly.<\/p>\n

None of which detracts from our paths to inadvertent (and non-urban) awe, as I discovered yesterday\u2014an example of all possible in just a day, with some research and motivation.<\/p>\n

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Focusing on the Cosmos. Charles R. Wolfe photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>
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With only the cost of time and gasoline, I rediscovered awe under the pretext of the Spring Open House of the Very Large Array<\/a>, which enhanced the message of the short essay<\/a> I wrote last October about the best places to observe change. I wrote the essay to fend off a fair amount of critical questioning about how I ended up moving to New Mexico.<\/p>\n

At that time, I was engaged in a friendly litany: \u201cAre you no longer an urbanist? I thought you were married to Seattle. Why did you move to Santa Fe? Why not go back to England? You never struck me as the New Mexico type!\u201d I heard all this and more.<\/p>\n

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The New Mexico landscape. Charles R. Wolfe photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>
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In the October essay, I referenced a seminal piece about New Mexico landscapes written 40 years ago by J.B. Jackson, who, as a reminder, said, \u201c[F]or Americans, the place where we see most clearly the impact of time on a landscape is New Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Kelly, today. Charles R. Wolfe photos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Back to yesterday, as illustrated above and below. In just a few hours, I transcended multiple dimensions: a powerful radio telescope array, a noted, vanished mining town above Magdalena (but the church remains in Kelly<\/a>), and the roots of the Hilton hotel empire<\/a> in Socorro.<\/p>\n

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For the Hiltons, after Norway was New Mexico. Charles R. Wolfe photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>
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There were no candy stores, but for someone who was a history major and had once aspired to be an astronomer, an archaeologist, a writer, and a photographer, there was plenty of awe to go around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s Substack post explains how visible landscape changes can facilitate awe: Awe is a popular focus for those seeking new and different ways to feel alive or replicate the sensation of being a kid in a candy store without traveling too far. The experience of awe spans academia, self-help workshops, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[1173,1172,21,1096],"tags":[985,24,18,995],"class_list":["post-2860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landscapes","category-new-mexico","category-blog","category-photography","tag-context","tag-culture","tag-landscapes","tag-place"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sustainingplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/8d09400d-040e-40d4-b4ba-50084d737731_1_201_a-scaled.jpeg?fit=2560%2C1920&quality=89&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pc03Hh-K8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2860"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2864,"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2860\/revisions\/2864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainingplace.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}