Vocal Bursts of Transcendence
In the summers, I get to lead trips for high school students through programs like Smithsonian Student Travel. On one of those trips in the summer of 2022, while some students and my co-leads and I were in Shenandoah National Park and stargazing along with NASA Solar System Ambassador Greg “Sky Guy” Redfern, we were entreated to a phenomenal cosmic sight—among the spangled ebony of the night’s sky, a burst of light streaked across the sky, expanding from a white to powerfully bright green flare. We witnessed a fireball.
A fireball is a form of meteor that occurs when material enters our atmosphere and then burns up, but becomes far brighter than a regular meteor. A fireball can be as bright as the planet Venus in the night’s sky or even as bright as the Full Moon! And, in some cases, you can get exceptionally lucky, and see some color as well—much like we did.
The video below was taken from a Nest camera (and shared online) of the same fireball from near Arlington, Virginia (about 100 miles away from where we were that evening).
And the video above was on a well-lit street in a highly populated (and bright) area—imagine seeing that fireball burning green and brighter than Venus in a dark area like Shenandoah National Park.
Likely originating from the Delta Aquariid meteor shower, this fireball in the summer of 2022 lit up the sky and dazzled our senses. I recalled having a tingle shoot down my spine and hearing our students in various transcendent moments, articulating “oooh” and “aaaah” and “whooaaaa”.
Incredible celestial events can do that to us.
Eclipses, “shooting stars”, aurorae, alignments of human-sculpted structures with solstice risings and settings of the Sun, comets we can see in the sky… They all inspire the profound and the transcendent.
Such events also often inspire us to feel the “body electric” (to use Walt Whitman’s phrasing). We feel tingles and shivers and we feel mixtures of openings and closings around us, like blankets being added or layers being peeled away. We can feel warmth and cold just due to our reactions of events occurring around us. We can also feel forms of collective effervescence when we experience such events with others.
It’s also very normal to be so moved to experiences of awe when seeing such events to have vocal bursts. The “ooohs” and “aaahhs” and “whooooaaas” and other vocal bursts that come out of us when we face something bigger than ourselves.
As Dacher Keltner points out:
“Before the emergence of language some 100,000 years ago, we were saying whoa to our kith and kin to join together in facing the vast mysteries of life.”
When I came upon this quote in his book, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it Can Transform Your Life, I couldn’t help but think of the Bill & Ted films.
Sometimes the sheer act of experiencing something hits us so hard that we can almost only resort to our most ingrained responses that have come down to us through our lineage of time: vocal bursts of transcendence.
If you’ve been using the internet for any prolonged period of time then you might well remember the “Double Rainbow” video that went viral and had lots of us remarking online and in our personal lives with friends with the “double rainbow!!!!” exclamation.
The Yosemitebear Mountain Double Rainbow 1-8-10 video went viral after Paul “Bear” Vasquez shared it on YouTube on 8 January 2010 (and as of today it has over 51 million views).
Filmed outside of Vasquez’ home near Yosemite National Park, it captures his own emotional and ecstatic reaction to seeing a double rainbow—as he marvels, cries, screams, and wonders aloud, “What does it mean?”
The video gained rapid popularity, especially after Jimmy Kimmel shared it on Twitter, leading to millions of views and features on CNN and Tosh.0. It inspired the Gregory Brothers’ viral "Double Rainbow Song" and appearances by Vasquez in commercials and movies. Vasquez, who lived a spiritual and creative life, said the video reflected his connection with the divine. Sadly, Vasquez passed away in 2020 at the age of 57—but he left behind one moment in history that might have inspired a lot of jokes, but also brought a lot of joy to people and a solid reminder to slow down and revel in some of the incredible experiences we get to share.
Such moments of awe and wonder are often also reminders of what it is to feel and to be and to live in the moment.
As much as I like to think that when I get a chance to travel into space and see our Earth from the outside that I will instantly have powerful and poetic words to share with everyone watching from back on Earth, I imagine one of the first things I will feel is the need to go “whoa”.
I can only imagine the intense emotional and impactful feelings that were racing through William Shatner when he returned to the Earth after his Blue Origin flight.
He certainly experienced what Frank White had observed many other space travelers to have experienced when their responses to his questions in interviews led him to coin the term The Overview Effect. These are also the kinds of transcendent feelings that have led me to coin the term The Panzoic Effect in my recent TEDx talk.
Moments where we are so impacted by our experiences of living that all we can say is “ooooh”, “aaaah”, or “whoooaa” can drastically alter our perception of ourselves and our relationships to others.
I still think back fondly on that summer in 2022 when there was a group of us together stargazing in Shenandoah National Park and together experienced a fireball event (such an event that many humans will never experience in their entire lives). Hearing my students remark with “ooooh” and “aaaah” and “whooaa”, feeling the tingles of experience run up and down my own spine, and feeling a togetherness with everyone else witnessing the event… Even now it makes me feel just a little bit of wonder and awe in my day to think about it.
A fun challenge for all us: the next time you feel so moved by something, be it funny or sad or monumental or tragic or inspiring or challenging or whatever… but so moved by the moment that all you can feel is a vocal burst rise up inside of you and emit out into the void—harkening back to our distant ancestors and their recognition of their experiences—take some time to be aware of the vocal burst and some reflection afterward on how you were so compelled. Live in the experience of awe and wonder. Enjoy that vocal burst of transcendence. It connects us all to each other and to all of the tapestry of existence.