⚡️ Enlightening Bolts

👁 The Spiritual Practice of Awe: “Wonder requires a person not to forget themselves but to feel themselves so acutely that their connectedness to every created thing comes into focus. In sacred awe, we are a part of the story.” Read it here.

🦋 Andy's Unifying Theory of Personal Transformation: After a decade of work on his mental health, and the personal transformation that followed, Andy decided to put pen to paper and retrospectively document how his process of emotional healing unfolded. Read it here.

🌱 For Rachel Carson, wonder was a radical state of mind: “We might recover a little bit of enchantment, opening ourselves to experiencing radical amazement at the fact that any of this exists at all, and that something will continue to exist long after our lives cease.” Read it here.

🎇 Image of The Week

This absolutely stunning photo was taken by Mari Jääskeläinen in Finland. She’s a professional Aurora hunter and it shows. See the original post here.

💎 You Are Valued

I wrote this back when I sent issue #53 and many of you have not read it. For those who have, it’s worth a reminder:

It is easy to believe your value is defined by what you can provide to the marketplace. That you matter only because of the roles you hold in society. That your worth is defined by the skills you possess and the exact manners in which you can help people.

This is an extremely utilitarian way to define value.

You are not an automaton who exists solely to regularly complete certain functions.

Your existence has greater significance and depth than that.

You are a fundamentally unique expression of the human spirit inextricably embedded in this ever-unfolding symphony called life.

This unique stitching into the fabric of being is what makes your life, your moment, inherently valuable.

As well as all the lives and moments cascading through your field of experience.

Life changes when we hold this as true and move from this place.

It asserts a form of completeness without denying the process of becoming.

That we may still transform but where our transformation is not a prerequisite for being wholeheartedly valued.

When we use our jobs, skills, gifts, or anything else as a measuring stick that justifies our right to exist, it puts us in status competitions with all others who operate in a similar domain.

This thrusts consciousness into endless comparison. We end up seeing our value as existing on a hierarchy.

This is a game where everyone is climbing everlasting ladders fearful of falling, striving to grab the next rung, and always keeping our eyes on where we are relative to other climbers.

The truth is, value is incomparable. You can't be any more or less valuable than anyone else.

Of course, you can grow in capacity and mastery in many domains. You can gain competence. You can be better and worse at things. You can compare your skillfulness to others.

But the aggregate of all comparisons across all domains of participation does not situate you on some hierarchy of universal human value. No such thing exists.

All of the skills and gifts you possess are embedded in a complex weaving of experiences, values, and tendencies that interact with your particular social ecology in a way that has never happened before and will not happen again.

This might feel untrue because we chronically, reflexively scrutinize ourselves (especially our shortcomings) while hardly ever acknowledging our true radiance.

When you really let this in, you can participate in the unfolding of your life with a spirit of reverence.

Your story and your life aren't imbued with value because of what you accomplished yesterday or what you might accomplish tomorrow.

It is already a jewel shimmering in the light.

🚪 Reverence of Approach

I’ve found a deep resonance with John O’Donohue over the last few months. I hope you like this quote as much as I do:

“What you encounter, recognize or discover depends to a large degree on the quality of your approach. Many of the ancient cultures practiced careful rituals of approach. An encounter of depth and spirit was preceded by careful preparation. When we approach with reverence, great things decide to approach us. Our real life comes to the surface and its light awakens the concealed beauty in things. When we walk on the earth with reverence, beauty will decide to trust us. The rushed heart and arrogant mind lack the gentleness and patience to enter that embrace.”

🤓 Learn This Word

Apricity: the warmth of the sun in winter, a subtle warmth that kisses the skin with a softness unexpected in the season's chill

⏳ From The Archives

A hand-picked classic HighExistence article.

42 Joseph Campbell Quotes to Help You Conquer Your Hero’s Journey

If you’ve been reading HighExistence for any amount of time, you’ve likely come across our affinity with the Hero’s Journey — the epic monomyth that describes an individuals journey through awakening, emerging the hero of their story and a warrior to their culture.

The Hero’s Journey, among myriad other contributions to collective psychology and literature, is the brainchild of Joseph Campbell. Campbell was a legendary American author and comparative religion scholar.

From studying Sanskrit in Europe, to spending 5 years reading 9 hours a day in a wooden shack in the forests — Campbell had a unique vantage on world religions, the familiar underpinnings of life and meaning, and the academic prowess to pull it all together.

He elucidated the journeys that we all share, building upon the foundational frameworks laid down by Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, and many other depth psychologists.

In fact, George Lucas, the visionary creator of the Star Wars saga, credits the hero’s journey as helping create the narrative arc of the series.

Also widely credited with dispersing the idea of ‘following your bliss’, one of the core tenants here at HighExistence — Campbell was a true mastermind of tapping into the collective unconsciousness, the depths of the psyche, and emerging with sacred gems of insight that carry through over millenia.

The master of mythology, the sultan of story, Campbell has dissertations to share with anyone willing to listen, to absorb, and to dive in on their own hero’s journey.

So if you’re ready, read along with us, as we have 42 quotes to give you your own PhD in heroic drama and equip you with the weapons you need to go out and slay your dragons.

​[Continue Reading]

🎬 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