Anam Cara

WONDER

“So many people are frightened by the wonder of their own presence.”

In 1997, I devised a summer series for RTÉ Radio—“Webs of Wonder.” Each program would comprise moments of wonder—archive pieces, poetry, music—but I also needed some philosophical pieces to act as the threads that held the web together. So I went to John O’Donohue. We met in the bar of a hotel in Kinvara, Co. Galway, and talked for an hour about many aspects of wonder—imagination, transience, landscape. In the course of the conversation, John came up with the lovely phrase that gave me the title for this book—“the pastures of wonder.” It was a quiet evening in the bar. Nobody disturbed the recording. Just two fellows chatting in the corner of a bar. It was wonderful. Wonder-ful.