⚡️ Enlightening Bolts

🔎 The Art of Looking: Eleven ways of viewing the multiple realities of our everyday wonderland. Read it here.

📻 Musical Time Machine: Listen to hit songs from different countries in different decades. Try it here.

❤️‍🔥 Becoming Love: Nourish the world around you. Watch it here.

🎇 Image of The Week

Andrew McCarthy took this photo of the sun from his backyard: “Here's a detailed look at the violent active region on the sun that has continued to flare for several weeks now. This was captured from my backyard just a few moments ago. This Sunspot is now Earth facing- so any CMEs produced are more likely to impact Earth's magnetosphere.”

🌎 An Intro Guide For Earthlings

Welcome to our weird wide world.
It can get pretty crazy around here.
It’s been that way for a while. Maybe the whole time.
You’ll run into lots of people who speak confidently.
That doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about.
Best to witness their conduct, their day-to-day behaviors.
Then decide whether to heed their words.
There can often be great chasms in speech and action.
Certain folks love their high-horsing and grandstanding.
But that doesn’t mean you’re beneath them.
They just like to feel like you are.
You don’t have to play their game.
You can opt out.
There are a lot of things in culture that seem to demand your participation.
But you can unsubscribe.
You can build your life à la carte.
You don’t need to mirror the images in pop culture.
Speaking of pop culture, there’s something we invented you should know about.
The screen.
We love it around here.
People spend their days interacting with pocket screens, desk screens, and lap screens.
Jumbo screens are even bolted to our walls.
We learn about the “world” this way.
Algorithms will tell you this place is filled with terrible people.
There are some for sure.
But so many kind souls exist outside the blinding light of attention-seeking screen games.
The world portrayed on the flashy-light-boxes is not the whole story.
Always remember that.
These devices are often used by competing and hidden forces.
They seek to capture your attention and wield it for their own means.
Don’t let anyone tell you what you need to care about.
Let your care be a natural eruption from your inner depths.
Let it be the product of cultivation. Soil tilled over time with roots clawing into the earth.
Grounded.
There’s a breed of care that is like fast fashion.
That rapidly refreshes with news cycles and viral memes.
This form of care is mostly social signaling.
Very little effective action.
It’s about being seen as a certain type of person.
Rather than being it, independent of who sees.
It’s not all humdrum though.
There are lots of ways to experience joy in this world.
You’ll no doubt find that out.
The wonders abound.
This planet is teeming with life.
The natural sights will make you dizzy with awe.
With an archive of human art sprawling millennia.
But I’d be remiss not to point out the cruelty and suffering.
I don’t know why the world is like this.
There are different theories.
We live in a fallen world pervaded by evil.
Or we’re evolving out of a brutal state of nature.
Or we’re a bored god playing hide-and-seek with oneself.
The why can be endlessly debated but the what cannot.
The suffering is real.
But by embracing our natural inclinations for care.
We can become unique healing balms for particular pockets of pain.
I encourage you to tune into the greater forces of benevolence and compassion.
Even if only imagined.
Because the consequences of the actions they inspire are very real.
There’s so much more I wish I could say.
But time is short.
I’m sorry if this message got to you decades too late.
It’s good that you’re here.
Thank you for being here.

 🌞 The Sun

Enjoy these poetic words from the inimitable Mary Oliver:

“Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower
streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any
language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–
or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?”

🤓 Learn This Word

Glimmer: Small miraculous moments that require noticing; moments that enchant you, open your heart, and make you come alive. Opposite of trigger.

⏳ From The Archives

A hand-picked classic HighExistence article.

28 Carl Sagan Quotes to Propel Your Mind Into the Infinite Cosmos

By Eric Brown

Carl Sagan was the space sage. The comic cosmonaut. He may have never gone to space, but it sure seemed like he lived there most days.

He was an astrophysicist, astronomer, cosmologist, and renowned author. However, he is likely most known as being a science communicator and science popularizer. He got us excited about space, about life, about humanity, and about the infinite potential we have ahead of us.

He wrote thrilling books, starred in feature TV series, and produced scientific papers with ease. He was a down-to-earth, head-in-the-sky, big-picture thinker, and humanity owes him a collective debt.

He was also part of the team who sent the Aricebo message, a radio communication blasted out into space with information about Earth and its inhabitants.

An active cannabis and space activist, the man had a lot to say, and he said it well. In his honor, we’ve pulled together some of his best thoughts. These Carl Sagan quotes cover everything from the smallest atoms to the further stars.

Buckle in, and blast off.

[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,

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