Wonder is the feeling of being drawn towards something you don’t yet fully understand, with curiosity, surprise or a sense that your familiar explanation isn’t the whole experience.
It can happen around art, nature, a question, another person or an ordinary detail you finally noticed.
Not knowing can be interesting, too.
You don’t have to convert every striking image into an answer. A scene may keep offering something because you haven’t finished seeing it, not because you have failed to decode it.
The Hidden Hero’s Journey gives image, story and imagination space alongside explanation. Its landscapes can invite curiosity without claiming a secret world that replaces the one you share with other people.
The Creative Hero’s Journey also begins with the permission to be interested before you can prove where an idea will lead.
There is a difference between abandoning judgement and allowing experience to be larger than your first account.
Curiosity turns interest towards a question. Imagination makes other possibilities available, while discernment keeps wonder from being mistaken for proof.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on imagination explores the capacities involved in imagining possibilities. It is a thoughtful next read when an experience has opened a question you would rather understand than reduce to a slogan.