It does different things to me. Like when I visited St Peter's Basilica years ago, I was overcome with emotion at the size and beauty of it. It was almost too much for my sensitive soul to take in.

Sitting out in the desert one night with my drumming friends, all of us looking up at the stars in wonder, the awe I felt that particular night was filled with a sense of connected-ness, we-are-one-ness, with everything - my friends, the creatures out among the cacti singing their night-songs, the stars, the moon... looking at the stars in particular also makes me feel just how small I am in comparison to all of the universe, and by extension, how small what I perceive as my problems are, which gives me perspective.

Last month when I was spending a lot of time reading poetry, there was here and there a feeling of awe at the way someone so perfectly described my own feelings about some thing or other - that connected-ness thing again.

Every now and then the magnificent colors in a southern arizona sunset will fill me with that sense of wonder and beauty that to me is awe.