What does it mean to Savor?

photo ©A.Rutherford

Even though it was snowing, today in the flower shop at the Kroger, I looked eagerly to see if there were daffodils.  January is a little early, but usually about this time of the month or a little later, there will be small bunches of cut daffodils at a very inexpensive price.  And there were—five bundled together for $2.99!  So much brightness for such a small amount!

I’ve done this for years, looked for those early harbingers that Spring is indeed around the corner.  And they “come up” in the grocery store long before they emerge in my yard.  Is that cheating to buy a bit of Spring?

Anyway I brought them home and put them in a crystal vase to place in front of the stained glass window in my small library room where I could savor them.   They are sitting there beside me as I type this. 

savor |ˈsāvər| ( Brit. savour)

verb [ trans. ] taste (good food or drink) and enjoy it completely 

• figurative enjoy or appreciate (something pleasant) completely, esp. by dwelling on it : I wanted to savor every moment.

How do we activate the ability to savor in our lives? How do we make the most of the good things that happen to us or that we see or experience?

How do we take in the wonder of the owl as it sits high in the tree branch out in our yard . . . the inexplicable exchange that occurs at the very moment that we become aware that the owl is aware of us,  and that it is experiencing us as we are experiencing it.

Or when as on that early morning last summer, the beauty of the way the fawn turned his neck in the dappled sunlight at the edge of my lawn, and then looked at me, made me hold my breath.

Is there more to savoring the experience than just seeing it?

Does it have something to do with being Present to the moment or to the experience in a way that most people who have the same experience are not present to it? And is that very being Present—or savoring it—what impels the poet to write about it, the musician to create a song or a symphony expressing it,  the artist to paint it, or the photographer to record it?

The poet William Wordsworth had the gift of taking ordinary moments and experiences and turning them into timeless moments in time simply by savoring them, by paying attention to their beauty or significance.  He wrote one of the most famous poems in the English language one day when he and his sister Dorothy were on a walk, and they came upon a large drift of daffodils along their path. 

I wander’d lonely as a cloud

  That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

  A host of golden daffodils,

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

   And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretch'd in never-ending line

  Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

  

The waves beside them danced, but they

  Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:—

A poet could not but be gay

  In such a jocund company!

I gazed, and gazed, but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

   In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

  Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills, 

And dances with the daffodils.

Wordsworth also understood the inroads that the materialistic world around us can make into our peace of mind and our spiritual joy, when we give it too much of our attention:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not.--

We would have thought that living in the Lake District of England in the 1800s, a materialist culture would not have been a problem of Wordsworth’s times, but apparently human nature was the same then as now.  We humans long for “stuff” and activities to fill up our lives, rather than paying attention to the bright gifts of Nature around us, and by savoring them thus magnify their ability to give us contentment.  And we can become far too invested in the comings and goings of the movers, shakers, and entertainers of our society than in making the most of our relationships with our friends and families.

A good prayer might be, “Lord, grant me ability to see and savor the daily gifts You place along my path.”

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