⚡️ Enlightening Bolts

📖 Poetry as a Spiritual Practice: Can reclaiming poetry spark a second renaissance and wake us from our digital slumber? Watch it here.

❓The Big Here Quiz: 30 questions to elevate your awareness of the greater place in which you live. Read it here.

👤 Who are you? A poem by Marina Fraser. Watch it here.

🎇 Image of The Week

Via Nasa: “The Artemis II crew captured this view of Earth setting on April 6, 2026, as they flew around the Moon. As the astronauts flew over the Moon’s far side, the crew photographed and described terrain features including impact craters, ancient lava flows, and surface cracks and ridges formed as the Moon slowly evolved over time. They also noted differences in color, brightness and texture, which provide clues that help scientists understand the composition and history of the lunar surface.

The image is reminiscent of the iconic Earthrise image taken by astronaut Bill Anders 58 years earlier as the Apollo 8 crew flew around the Moon. The Apollo 8 mission was the first crewed spacecraft to circumnavigate the Moon.”

Find more Artemis II imagery here.

☀️ Rekindling Optimism

We live during a time where there is no short supply of things to be worried about.

Social media and broadcast news seem to be constantly flooding our minds with bickering and mudslinging.

It's a business model that profits from making you angry and anxious.

This information environment suffocates our sense of optimism in the harsh winds of digital chaos.

We cannot hear hope when it's drowned out by the noise of legions of lost souls shouting into the void of status boxes and comment sections.

There's an African proverb I quite like:

"A falling tree makes more noise than a growing forest."

I remember it frequently. It invites me to listen more deeply. To sense into greater subtlety.

The spectacle and hysteria of the 24-hour news cycle are the trees falling. And if this was all you ever saw, you'd have a pretty wicked image of humanity.

Pessimism is the only logical conclusion.

But humanity is more than the cartoonish characters on your 2-dimensional screen telling you what the world is.

The world is so much bigger than hot takes and scandals.

The snow fell today. A baby learned to walk. A grandmother smiled.

A single bead of dew on a withering leaf shimmered in the light of the first morning's sun.

These simple "mundane" moments are the delicate and fleeting sounds of the whole forest growing.

There is more goodness in this world than you can fathom.

There's also a lot of bad. You know that already.

You might also know that shouting at how bad the bad is doesn't make it better.

That's like setting the fallen tree on fire and accidentally setting the forest ablaze.

In trying to eliminate the bad we destroy the good.

Instead, embody goodness and elevate beauty.

Be the beacon that reminds people that although this world is filled with tragedy and suffering, it is still a world worth cherishing and nurturing.

Give what matters your concentration and focus.

This is how you rekindle optimism.

Listen to the trees.

They are growing.

And so are you.

🐳 The Magic of Whales

From the Movie Boyhood by Richard Linklater

🤓 Learn This Word

Transverberation: A spiritual piercing of the heart by divine love

🕸️ From Around The Web

How to get to know your neighbourhood

“Maybe you just moved to the neighbourhood or just started working there. Maybe you’re a visitor who’s staying awhile. Or a teen exploring on your own for the first time. You could even be a longtime resident. If any of these describes you, there are aspects of your neighbourhood that you don’t know. And because knowing each other, knowing our history and taking part in local institutions is what strengthens our communities, rooting ourselves in place has never been more necessary. This Guide offers some strategies for knowing your neighbourhood in a new and deeper way.

A neighbourhood is the product of people and culture. It’s as much a feeling as it is an area on a map: many people can sense it in their bodies when they cross into their own neighbourhood. No neighbourhood has just one story, nor even just one neighbourhood. People often disagree on its boundaries or names; there are overlapping neighbourhoods and micro-neighbourhoods. And throughout, there are multiple, even contradictory histories, imaginings, claims and meanings.

While neighbourhoods are often written about from an urban point of view, rural and suburban places have their own shapes of neighbourhood. These might be geographically larger than some urban neighbourhoods if they involve the reach of a car – though this can be true in cities, too – and they might intersect more with natural or agricultural spaces in addition to built ones. Wherever we live, most of us have a need to connect with the people around us, to feel that we belong where we find ourselves. I invite you to interpret this Guide for wherever you are, wherever you go.”

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