Words of Wonder: On being a dreamer, feeling what hurts and moving beyond ignorance

What are the texts, books or songs to which you return, in which you seek solace, comfort, wisdom or direction? What are the sources you’d rather not live without, the ones you turn to over and over? Maybe it’s long cherished ones or perhaps the allure is seasonal.

For me lately, I’ve found myself going back to a few trusted paper-mentors and shelved friends. I find it to be an act of meditative resolve and restraint, as much as a reminder of essential wisdom – because the truth is I have multiple stacks of books, almost as many unread as read, fiendish as I am with this addiction to gathering words.

So when I go back to ones I’ve already read, it’s a way of being reverential and intentional in my consumption, of calming the exuberant desire for more and more, and choosing instead to ground myself in what I already know, via the wise words of others.

I remember reading an essay by Zadie Smith where she talked about the disservice we do as readers when we don’t pay slow and careful attention to the words of writers we profess to admire. In other words, better to really sit and contemplate rather than feverishly consume without full regard for what’s in front of us.

That’s the invitation and the intention behind the offerings in this edition of Words of Wonder – pick something, sit with it, stay a while with it, linger in it, and see what it has or helps you to reveal or feel into. Because that, I think, is what the best books, songs, poems, programmes do – they prod at something we know intuitively, or have the inclination to feel but just needed the inspiration to know how.

With that, here are my shares in the spirit of invoking and cultivating the same spirited approach to life: