🌀🐇 #247 lucid relaxation, whale spiral, meet strangers
Plus Wonder, Awe and The Intelligence of Nature
⚡️ Enlightening Bolts
✨ Unlocking Lucid Relaxation: A simple, daily seated meditation that cultivates receptivity and deep feeling, guiding you to remain fully “alive” and open in every moment. Read it here.
👁️ Wonder, Awe and The Intelligence of Nature: As the only filmmaker in the world who has been shooting time-lapse continuously, for over four decades, Louie Schwartzberg has perfected the art of shifting time and scale to bring our attention (and appreciation) to the natural world. Watch it here.
🍽️ Meet Strangers For Dinner: Free-fall into social possibilities without digital screens. Open up to the people around you without expectations. Learn more.
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🎇 Image of The Week
This stunning aerial image was captured by polar photographer and drone pilot Piet van den Bemd over Antarctic waters. It depicts two humpback whales executing a coordinated bubble‑net feeding maneuver, where one whale releases spiraling streams of bubbles while the other herds prey upward, forming this mesmerizing Fibonacci‑like spiral. Watch the video here.
👶 A Note of Gratitude
Today, I wanted to take a moment to share some heartfelt appreciation.
Thank you for reading these newsletters.
It brings me joy to weave each one together.
This process has become a cherished weekly ritual. It’s trained my brain to have an always-on wonder filter.
As I explore the world and the web, my eyes are constantly on the lookout for interesting things to share with you.
I hope you enjoy the hidden gems and pearls of wisdom I discover.
I can’t always reply, but I read every email and response I receive.
I believe it’s vitally important that adults rekindle their sense of wonder and develop a living relationship of enchantment with the world around them
It’s so easy to be pessimistic and cynical.
But beyond the barrage of dopamine-wasting brainrot and cortisol-raising ragebait, there is a garden of delights blooming with hidden beauties and precious perceptions.
I try to return myself to that garden with regularity and if I only bring a handful of you with me each week, then that edition is a success.
Truly, thank you for being here.
🌳 Repeating The Miracle
Reflect on this sentiment from anthropologist Loren Eiseley:
“I know that the world “miraculous” is regarded dubiously in scientific circles because of past quarrels with theologians. The word has been defined, however, as an event transcending the known laws of nature. Since, as we have seen, the laws of nature have a way of being altered from one generation of scientists to the next, a little taste of the miraculous in this broad sense will do us no harm. We forget that nature itself is one vast miracle transcending the reality of night and nothingness. We forget that each one of us in his personal life repeats that miracle.”
🤓 Learn This Word
Tokimeku: A Japanese word referring to the sudden flutter in your heart, or that feeling of inspiration if you’re anticipating something
⏳ From The Archives
A hand-picked link from a previous edition of 🌀🐇
The Paradox of Grief: 8 Gifts We Gain From Loss
“Heartbreak is how we mature; yet we use the word heartbreak as if it only occurs when things have gone wrong: an unrequited love, a shattered dream, a child lost before their time. Heartbreak, we hope, is something we hope we can avoid; something to guard against, a chasm to be carefully looked for and then walked around; the hope is to find a way to place our feet where the elemental forces of life will keep us in the manner to which we want to be accustomed and which will keep us from the losses that all other human beings have experienced without exception since the beginning of conscious time. But heartbreak may be the very essence of being human, of being on the journey from here to there, and of coming to care deeply for what we find along the way.”
David Whyte
Loss and heartbreak are inexorable challenges that we all must face in our lives.
We all are eventually forced to let go, often before we’re ready to say goodbye.
This is commonly accompanied by excruciating pain and utter devastation. The loss causes us to lose our compass. Our sense of direction is compromised as our imagined future has dissolved before our eyes.
We’re all awaiting this kind of grief-stricken destruction. But this is not a case for despair.
For as challenging as loss and heartbreak can be, the grieving process can be the birthplace of profound gifts.
The paradox of grief is that it is simultaneously world-ending and life-enchanting.
We might not know it at the time, but our letting go is not just that.
Letting go is also grabbing on.
Grabbing on to an opportunity.
An opportunity to discover the gifts previously hidden from view by the world that had come before.
Our plans go up in smoke as the rug gets pulled out from under us.
We fall. But into what?
🎬 Endnote
I hope you enjoyed this issue of Down The Rabbit Hole. Feel free to reply and tell me what you think.
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With Wonder,
Mike Slavin
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