Episode 10: Why is the Fish So Small & Other Questions from the Wonder Box

Welcome to the Carousel of Happiness Podcast. On today's episode, host Allie Wagner answers some of your carousel-related questions from the Wonder Box. Like “why is the fish so small?” and “how fast is the cheetah?” You'll also learn how many riders we see each day, as well as how the music in the carousel works. Plus, we’ll explore what the fish and cheetah can teach us about how to accomplish our goals with ease and grace.

* Check out the cheetah and the fish on our website here.

The Carousel of Happiness is a nonprofit arts & culture organization dedicated to inspiring happiness, well-being, and service to others through stories and experiences.

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider visiting the Carousel of Happiness online (https://carouselofhappiness.org/), on social media (https://www.facebook.com/carouselofhappiness), or in real life; or consider donating (https://carouselofhappiness.app.neoncrm.com/forms/general-donation) to keep the carousel and its message alive and spinning 'round and 'round.

If you have a story to share, please reach out to Allie Wagner at outreach@carouselofhappiness.org

Special thanks to songwriter, performer, and friend of the carousel, Darryl Purpose (https://darrylpurpose.com/), for sharing his song, "Next Time Around," as our theme song.

Transcript

Welcome to the Carousel of Happiness Podcast. I’m your host, Allie Wagner. 

On our last episode, I dug into the Wonder Box, and fished out some of your questions and musings about life, love, joy, and peace. We discussed the healing power of wonder and awe – how it connects us to one another, the world around us, and something larger than ourselves. We learned how awe improves our physiology, our communities, and our overall well-being. 

On today’s episode, we’re still digging around in the Wonder Box. Only this time, I’ll answer some of your carousel-related questions – like “why is the fish so small?” and “how fast is the cheetah?” I’ll also tell you how many riders we see each day, as well as how the music in the carousel works. Plus, we’ll explore what the fish and cheetah can teach us about how to accomplish our goals with ease and grace.

Let us begin with today’s story.

GONG

I had so much fun playing in the Wonder Box last week, that I decided to extend that episode to this week as well. If you missed last week’s episode, go check it out. I’ll put a link in the show notes. This week, I won’t answer any existential questions, I promise, but I will do my best to answer some of your carousel-related questions. And, of course, because I just can’t quite help myself, we’ll fish around for some life lessons courtesy of the fish and the cheetah.

First questions: Why is the fish so small?

For those of you who haven’t been to the carousel, be sure to head over to our website or to Facebook to check out a picture of the fish. It is the littlest riding animal on the carousel; about knee-height on an average adult. 

And the reason Scott carved the fish so small was because he wanted to offer a seat on the carousel to younger riders who might be ready to ride by themselves, but a bit intimidated by the bigger animals.

Typically, we’ll see babies and infants ride seated with their parents on the swan bench or next to the gorilla. But pretty soon, those babies grow up and they’re ready to ride an animal on their own. And some of those big kids hop on the cheetah or the zebra, no problem. But others need a bit of a stepping stone. They are SO ready to be on their own, but the idea of getting on the big, scary pony or the peacock is entirely too much. They’re moving up and down. What if I fall? Why do the lights seem so bright now? Everything feels so big. And so scary all of a sudden. 

How many of you can relate to that? How many of you have wanted something so badly, but been equally terrified by it? How many of you are living a life that feels entirely too small – you want off of the swan bench already, you want to be on your own – yet the idea of someone putting you on the big scary pony makes you want to kick and scream?

I know. Me too.

Enter the wisdom of the fish. The fish welcomes you to have a nice, easy seat at the table. right now. The fish doesn’t care that you’re not ready to go up and down. It doesn’t matter to them. They don’t go up and down. It’s an irrelevant question for the fish. The fish tells you not to stress. The fish encourages you to go for what feels easy right now. Hop on. This minute. Enjoy your freedom now. In the way that feels easiest to you, as you are, right now in this present moment. The fish encourages you to gently nudge your comfort zone wider rather than taking a stick of dynamite to it. 

So often, as human beings, we do this to ourselves and others. We see something that we want, and instead of preparing ourselves gently for it, we fling ourselves into the abyss despite every fiber of our being screaming “no, no, no!”

Why? To prove something? To justify worthiness? Why?

What if we could take a lesson from Scott and the fish? What if we could recognize, no matter where we are, no matter who we are, there is one easy thing we can do – right now – to feel more empowered? One thing that we can do in the direction of our goals that doesn’t feel scary. We get it, you’re not ready to get on the pony right now. That’s fine. Quit beating yourself up and hop on the fish already.

Because, what tends to happen with the fish, and the kids who ride them, is that they ride together for a couple of spins. The big kid learns how much fun it is to be on the carousel by themselves, how good it feels, how the wind blows their face, how their mom waves every single time they pass, and pretty soon, the music isn’t too loud. Pretty soon, everything feels easy and normal and the next time that kid rides, without even thinking about it, they just climb on up onto the cheetah. No worries. No stress. No tears. Because they’re ready. Because it is time. And all of a sudden, on the back of the fastest land animal on earth, the whole world opens up. Now, 34 rideable animals are at that kid’s disposal. Now, they have 34 different choices to explore and enjoy. Because they took the one easy step they were ready for at the time. 

And that is why the fish is so small.

CHEETAH

So, there’s been all of this talk about the cheetah and that is because we also had a question about the cheetah in the Wonder Box. 

Question Number 2: How fast is the cheetah?

The unbiased, scientific answer to that question is super fast. The cheetah is officially the fastest animal on the carousel. If you want to win the race, you must get on the cheetah. Particularly, if you want to beat the pony. If you don’t believe me, come in and prove it to yourself. But I guarantee that no one behind you will ever come anywhere close to you. Not if you ride the cheetah.

For those of us less fascinated with the speed of the cheetah, did you know cheetahs hold deep spiritual significance to people across various cultures and traditions? They are often seen as symbols of intuition, divine guidance, and the power of noticing the subtle details in the present moment.

Think about it. A cheetah is a predator. She stalks her prey across the savannah by sensing subtle changes to the environment. When a gazelle has been separated from the herd, she knows. When the monsoons are about to come, she knows. She is so tapped in to what’s going on around her, she is able to stalk her prey within 200 feet before she chases it. Cheetahs might be fast, but they are equally perceptive and equally patient.

No wonder communities have associated the cheetah with the otherworldly powers?!

The question I want to ask you today is how can you embody the energy and spirit of a cheetah? A cheetah is fast, but she doesn’t always move fast. She doesn’t always move fast because she knows she doesn’t need to. She has her goal in her sights and knows what she needs to do to get there. She’s confident in her ability to get there. She trusts her instincts. She trusts her gut. She relies on her deepest knowing to move closer and closer to what she wants because that’s how she’s gotten it every single time. Not by grasping, not by reaching, not by taking. By waiting and trusting and then acting.

How can you do this in your daily life? Figuratively, of course. Please do not take down a gazelle in the park, but maybe explore a way you can slow down a bit. Pay closer attention. Listen to your intuition. Trust yourself. Follow the little winks and nudges. Know that you don’t have to grasp for the thing you want just yet. You don’t have to grasp it because it is already yours. Start acting like it.

Question Number 3: This one comes from Theo Supic who wonders “how many people ride a day?”

Well, Theo, it depends. In general, we see more carousel riders during the summer months than the winter ones. In 2024, July was our busiest month. We had 11,488 riders in the month of July. That’s just riders, not visitors. We saw 155 riders this Christmas Eve and 406 on the 4th of July. Our slowest day last year was in November when we spun only 23 riders, and our busiest day last year was on an absolutely gorgeous Sunday last fall when we saw 977 riders in one day. Most recently, on the 17th of February, we welcomed 179 riders who wanted to spend their President’s Day holiday spinning round and round and round. 

MAINTENANCE

Many of you had questions in the Wonder Box about how the carousel works. You had questions about the mechanism and how the carousel is able to move and spin. And ordinarily, I’d direct those questions to our maintenance team, who we affectionately call the “grease monkeys,” but they are busy with a big maintenance project this week at the carousel. As many of you know, we are closed until Friday when the work will be complete. So, I will leave these mechanical questions for a later date when I sit down with maintenance supervisor, Paul Andrews, to get your answers.

But one of you did have a question about how the music works at the carousel, and that is something I can answer without grease monkey guidance.

The music you hear when the carousel is spinning comes from an original Wurlitizer 125 Military Band Organ. It’s a hybrid machine – part old-time player piano and part pipe organ – that was originally built in 1913 for the exact job it has now – which is providing accompaniment to a carousel. 

The player piano part of the mechanism runs on a vacuum, which reads a paper roll, and opens valves that direct air pressure to the organ pipes to make different sounds. The Wurlitzer 125 has 99 pipes, made up of brass pipes, accompaniment pipes and melody pipes. And the brass trumpet pipes in the front and the drums on the sides make it sound a lot like a festively brassy German band.

As many of you know, we regularly change out our music rolls and right now we’ve got the country roll going. If you’re curious what Ring of Fire or 9 to 5 sounds like on a 1913 band organ, I highly recommend you stop in. The results are pretty magical.

I’m going to wrap up today’s episode with two questions I think are really important to talk about. On two separate cards, in what appears to be adult handwriting, were the questions:  “why is this place so scary?” and “I wonder if I will ever be able to sit in there.” There being, of course, the carousel house.

The Carousel of Happiness is a place of love and joy for many of us. But the truth is, there are people who visit the Carousel of Happiness and don’t feel good while they’re here. They’ll walk through the door and something about this place feels like too much. Maybe it’s because there are too many sounds or too many colors. Perhaps it’s because someone is feeling too many intense emotions. For those sensitive to sensory information, those who have experienced trauma, for empaths and deep feelers, sometimes a visit to the carousel can feel like too much.

And that’s okay. Because one day it won’t feel like too much. So, sit outside at the Wonder Table and doodle, knowing one day you’ll be ready. To hop into the carousel house and on to the back of the cheetah. 

And she’ll be right there waiting. Ready to teach you a lesson about trusting your own instincts and abilities. Ready to teach you about the power of being patient and confident; of tuning yourself to the subtle energies around you to accomplish your goals. The cheetah is ready – whenever you are – to welcome you onto her back and teach you how to access that deep inner knowing within you.

And if that feels like too much, that’s okay too. You can sit on the benches and wave at the riders as they go round and round. And, maybe, one day, pretty soon, sitting on the benches feels easy and normal and the next time you come in, without even thinking about it, you’ll buy a ticket and climb up onto the carousel. No worries. No stress. No tears. Because you’re ready. Because it is time. 

And all of a sudden, when you do, the whole world opens up. Now, 34 rideable animals are at your disposal. Now, you have 34 different choices to explore and enjoy. Because you took the one easy step you were ready for at the time. 

In the meantime, dear listener, take care. Be well. And, as we like to say at the Carousel of Happiness, “don’t delay joy.” And we’ll see you next time around.