Our Mindful Nature: Meditation Inspired by Nature to Soothe the Overwhelmed Mind and Ease Anxiety Astronomical Mindfulness: Meditation for Anxiety, Connection & Cosmic Calm With Sarah Scoles {REPLAY}
The Mindful Minute has a NEW NAME and NEW LOOK! After 8 years, I have updated the name to more accurately reflect the content offered here. Welcome to Our Mindful Nature!
“Back when humans lived in communal caves and tribal encampments, we told stories about the stars. When we started sailing, we used these same pinpricks of light to estimate our own location. When we began planting, we relied on the constellations and the Sun to plant and sustain crops. Yet today, most modern humans have lost this deep connection to the cosmos that was once central to our daily lives.” ~Sarah Scoles
Today’s episode is a replay of a 2022 interview that is still one of my favorites and is a perfect fit for our astronomical focus this month. Enjoy it!
I have devoted more episodes to the night sky and the cosmos surrounding us than any other singular topic, and today’s interview with science journalist and author Sarah Scoles perhaps best sums up why the skies above serve as such a powerful connection to our meditation practice and our deepest selves.
Sarah, along with astronomy professor Chris De Pree, wrote a unique guidebook (and a perpetual guest on my nightstand) titled Astronomical Mindfulness.
In today’s episode of Our Mindful Nature, Sarah and I talk about the power of the sun, moon, stars, and planets to offer engaging exercises that deepen your knowledge of the solar system, help you take necessary pauses every day, and foster a renewed sense of presence in the universe. The focus is on short, simple practices that immediately create a sense of connection and provide context for the hectic moments of our day-to-day lives.
Whether you look up at the night sky or not, the skies above us are perhaps the most central, ubiquitous element of human storytelling and identity. Humanity has looked up for as long as we have ever found a record of. The earliest cave drawings and the earliest indentations carved into the earth were made in reference to the sky above.
What we experience through the cosmos surrounding us tells us about ourselves.
Join me for this exploration of the cosmos, mindfulness, and some new practices you can try tonight. At the end, I offer a 10-minute guided meditation inspired by this conversation.
Sarah Scoles is a freelance journalist and contributing editor at WIRED. She is the author of Making Contact: Jill Tarter and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence and They Are Already Here: UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers. Learn more about Sarah at: https://www.sarahscoles.com/
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Thank you to Brianna Nielsen for production and editing support. Find her at https://www.instagram.com/brianna_podcastpro/
This podcast explores meditation, mental health and the power of connection, offering guidance for caregivers, healers, and therapists facing compassion fatigue, burnout, and other mental health struggles through self-care, self-compassion, and resilience. With a focus on anxiety, depression, and overwhelm, each episode provides tools like meditation, mindfulness, breathwork, and grounding to cultivate clarity and reduce stress. Listeners can also experience nature-inspired guided meditations, designed to bring peace and balance in times of distress.