⚡️ Enlightening Bolts

✅ What’s one “boring” habit that quietly transformed your life? Gathered the best, less than common habits from a reddit thread with 677 comments. Read them here.

🤖 I used to be a high-performing robot: Freedom is a skill you can build. Read it here.

🌊 When the grasses thrash like crashing waves: An eye-popping video of the hills of Bologna, Italy, captured by photographer Dorian Pellumbi. Watch it here.

💌 Want More? Down The Rabbit Hole readers also enjoy these awesome (and completely free!) newsletters. Explore

🎇 Image of The Week

This photo of the surface of Venus isn’t particuarly spellbinding but the contrast does speak to the presence of abounding beauty on the planet we inhabit and the good fortune we have to be earthlings: “If you could stand on Venus -- what would you see? Pictured is the view from Venera 14, a robotic Soviet lander which parachuted and air-braked down through the thick Venusian atmosphere in March of 1982. The desolate landscape it saw included flat rocks, vast empty terrain, and a featureless sky above Phoebe Regio near Venus' equator. On the lower left is the spacecraft's penetrometer used to make scientific measurements, while the light piece on the right is part of an ejected lens-cap. Enduring temperatures near 450 degrees Celsius and pressures 75 times that on Earth, the hardened Venera spacecraft lasted only about an hour. Although data from Venera 14 was beamed across the inner Solar System over 40 years ago, digital processing and merging of Venera's unusual images continues even today. Recent analyses of infrared measurements taken by ESA's orbiting Venus Express spacecraft indicate that active volcanoes may currently exist on Venus.” Source.

 🙏 The Minuscule Gratitude

A disposition I find that deeply nourishes and fortifies us against the harsh winds of life is one that entrains the attention to focus on the almost microscopic aspects of our experience that are deserving of gratitude.

What are some examples of these moments?

The next inhale. The sun on your face. The smile of a passing stranger. The first sip of coffee in the morning. The warmth of shelter after being outside in the snow. The wag of a dog’s tail. A vivid moon in a night’s sky. An erupting laugh with a close friend. The whimsical skittering of a fallen leaf. The flicker of a candle flame. The next exhale.

There are so many things that are a joy to drink in through the senses if we can get out of our heads above the torrents of thought enough to truly appreciate them.

It’s so easy to be fixated on finding something more or something else that we completely miss the little details that can fill up an ordinary day with otherwise invisible treasure.

👶 Teach The Children

Savor these words from Mary Oliver:

🤓 Learn This Word

Madrugarse: To stay up until the wee hours of the morning

⏳ From The Archives

A hand-picked link from a previous edition of 🌀🐇

The Psychedelic Emotion: Why We Need More “Awe” In Everyday Life

I stood there with my toes in the sand gazing at the endless expanse of water.

I was a little boy and it was my first time seeing the ocean in person.

It gave me goosebumps. My jaw was left hanging wide open, stunned by what I was witnessing.

I was experiencing awe.

Awe is a profound self-transcendent feeling.

It is the wellspring of the mystical experiences through which religious traditions have emerged.

Keep reading this article and you might find yourself struck with awe before you finish.

I’m going to share an exercise with you that will help you tune into the awe-inspiring experiences all around you.

But before we dive, why is awe so important?

Astonishingly, we only began researching this emotion rigorously in 2003 and we are beginning to discover that awe carries with it powerful benefits that could help recenter a world off balance.

[Continue Reading]