Glimmers and Glows

Psychotherapist, artist, and wilderness guide, Cara Lai talking on this theme for the Ten Percent Happier podcast: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/cara-lai-265

“We  succeeded in taking that picture, and, if you look at it, you see a  dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard  of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives.

The  aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident  religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager,  every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations,  every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child,  every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of  morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader,  every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there — on a  mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The  Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers  of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory  and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a  dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one  corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other  corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they  are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our  posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have  some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point  of pale light . . .

To  my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human  conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it  underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately  with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the  only home we’ve ever known.”

CARL SAGAN

(To watch Carl Sagan's speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgQ1PtkZvGU)

If you'd like to listen to the whole discussion between Ezra Klein and Nicholas Carr (I'd very much recommend it, a fascinating chat) that you can do that here: https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2020/7/1/21308153/the-ezra-klein-show-the-shallows-twitter-facebook-attention-deep-reading-thinking

The solace of feeling the Earth beneath our feet without any shoes, socks or stockings getting in the way of that contact.

GLIMMERS: those moments or micro-moments when we feel safe and connected, calm and social (Deb Dana).

GLOWS: a slightly extended version of the above :-)

For more Deb & her wonderful work on emotion regulation through the lens of polyvagal theory: https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Befriending-Your-Nervous-System-Audiobook/168364462X?qid=1593863155&sr=1-1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=c6e316b8-14da-418d-8f91-b3cad83c5183&pf_rd_r=VBBG3D7MYM5NJH70QCAT