History and Mission

Wonder is a place, a set of programs, and an intention.

Through education programs, retreats, rites of passage, public events, and re-conceptualizing private property, Wonder is working to address urgent issues of climate change, ecological deterioration, and human separation. Our hope is to re-weave connections within community, ourselves, and with the earth. The land we steward and where our programs and events occur exists on ancestral southern Arapahoe and Ute land, at 8,500 feet above the sea in Boulder, Colorado’s foothills.

The term “Wonder” came to us, as most important things do, when we weren’t looking for it. On the land, while wandering early in our time there, we found horse corrals, mining debris, remnants of outhouses and, fantastically, a rusted metal Wonderbread sign, around 2.5’ by 4’. It must have been from the 50’s, from the glory days of the Eisenhower years, when processed foods truly were a wonder. The more processed, the more wonderful. We appropriated the sign. We made it “Wonder Enriched LAND”. It truly does build strong bodies in 8 ways, but not because of Niacin. It may also build strong spirits in 108 ways – not only this land, but all land. So we inherited the Wonderland, and on her belly we began to nurture wonder. Wonder Programs started the next year.

Wonder implies uncertainty and humility. It is a largely right brain activity. It requires a softness of focus, an openness to possibilities. It is notably unscientific and non-empirical, though every important scientific finding can be traced back to some variation of a state of wonder. The United States of Wonder. The Multiversal States of Wonder. It is a state, and one we move through, but which we should linger in and hold on to for just about as long as we possibly can, because it tastes a bit like rapture. It pairs well with bliss. It involves slowness, and it can rarely be planned. 

Wonder remains, but the sign has journeyed on. In the uncertain early moments of the pandemic, when folks were out and about in all the strangest nooks and crannies of Colorado’s front range, some folks took to camping on the land, and one of these folks took the sign. Let’s say that again – “they stole the Wonder Enriched Land” sign. Perhaps it was for the best though, as it would have been burnt in the Lefthand Fire of October 2021. Although if you, the thief, ever reads this, please return it.