⚡️ Enlightening Bolts

🎶 The Tune of Things: Is consciousness God? Read it here.

👁️ Two Prophets of American Faith: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Abraham Joshua Heschel were from different centuries and traditions. They both speak clearly to our dispirited world. Read it here.

🛝 How To Connect To Your Future Self: One of the disasters of our culture is that we think play is only about fun. Read it here.

🎇 Image of The Week

Above is an image of The Giant’s Causeway. About 60 million years ago, intense volcanic activity sent molten basalt flooding across what's now the northeastern coast of Northern Ireland. As this lava cooled and contracted, it cracked into roughly 40,000 interlocking columns, most of them hexagonal, though you'll find some with four, five, seven, or eight sides. The hexagonal shape emerges naturally because it's the most efficient way for a cooling material to relieve stress—the same geometry shows up in honeycombs, turtle shells, and dried mud.

👶 A Letter To My Son

My son is turning 1 soon. I’m thinking of this piece I wrote when he was 11 days old:

A proper capstone to a summer day replete with ice cream cones and red wagon rides—watching you witness the fireflies.

I hope to see their brilliant buzzing beneath the stars spark your little eyes with wonder.

There’s so much of the world to see, my son. So much I want to see with you.

To be there as you gawk upon majestic firsts and to return to certain sights and scenes you might remember as traditions.

What will you reflect on with nostalgia when you’ve grown? What of this world will be beyond reach after the slippage of some decades?

I used to ride bikes and knock on doors, uncertain if my friends were home. We’d get lost in the outer reaches of neighborhood lawns, hiding and seeking til the sun almost set.

Now phones triangulate our location wherever we go. Even from within the cathedral of the forest, newsfeeds feed us news.

It’s hard to get lost anymore. And trust me, I appreciate the GPS but sometimes it feels like the dry turf we travel once rushed with such serendipity. What did we lose in all this power we’ve gained?

And it’s not that I don’t love technology. I do. It’s a marvel that any answer can be found within a pocket’s reach.

But I hope that doesn’t keep you from pondering the weavings of this world and inventing your own answers. Not everything is settled. Maybe nothing is.

So I pray that within this technosphere, you don’t become reluctant to wander. Both physically and spiritually. Both aimlessly and aimfully. Both cautiously and courageously.

So you might discover what’s meant for you in this flash of light called life.

You have been stitched into existence.

Your birth is a knot in time. You are a mind tangled up in matter.

Through the passing grains of sand, it seems that we unravel.

A mystery into mystery.

My boy, I don’t know who you are. You are too young to try and tell me.

But on the other side of an arc of time, I imagine you reading these words.

So while I have the chance, let me tell you..

My heart erupted on the day you were born. Tears streamed down my face as you entered into outer Earth and were placed in your mother’s arms.

There’s a love I have for you that precedes anything you’ve done, anything you could do.

Accomplishment or performance is not a prerequisite for this love.

I will do my best to demonstrate this love to you as you grow so that in any attempt you might make, you can only fall as far as this foundation.

I know I will fail at times. Forgive me. But I will not fail completely.

If I do this right, I will light little lanterns of love—memories of warmth and compassion—to accompany you as you travel this wild, messy world.

Son, I hope to be in your life in such a way that you always remember…

Your father loves you.

☀️ For Your Health

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⌛️ Slipping Through Time

Sit with these words from David Whyte

🤓 Learn This Word

Desir: A Malaysian word that refers to The sound of sand driven by the wind

🕸️ From Around The Web

Why your brain needs everyday rituals

A few years ago, during a particularly chaotic period at work, I started making my morning coffee the exact same way every day: same mug, same timing, same two minutes of silence while it brewed.

It wasn’t intentional; I was just too overwhelmed to think about it. But something interesting happened: Those two minutes became the calmest part of my day. Even when everything else felt out of control, I had this one predictable moment that somehow made the rest manageable.

I had just experienced the power of rituals completely by accident, and it wasn’t until I left tech to study neuroscience that I understood why that simple coffee routine had been so effective.

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