The sun’s rise and the sun’s retreat bookend our days with awe.

While so much of our self-exploration today is hash-tagged #wellness and displayed, it became obvious to me in the far reach of sacred lands, encircled by campfires and eucalypts, that sometimes the best way to pay attention to country is to keep your mouth shut, open your eyes and just listen.

when dwarfed by an experience, we are more likely to look to one another and care for one another and feel more connected.

What can be done to nurture our inner lights, and guard them as jealously as an Olympian does a burning torch?

The beach there was unspoiled, untamed, brimming with wildlife. We’d park our cars and run into the black sea, diving and swirling under the moon, watching a silvery, sparkling ribbon of phosphorescence trail behind our limbs. The tiny little sea creatures that absorbed the light of the sun were stirred up by our thrashing; we were streaming sequin

Something happens when you dive into a world where clocks don’t tick and inboxes don’t ping. As your arms circle, swing and pull along the edge of a vast ocean, your mind wanders, and you open yourself to awe, to the experience of seeing something astonishing, unfathomable or greater than yourself. Studies have shown that awe can make us more patie

resources conferred by social connectedness can act as a ‘social cure’ for psychological ill-health’.

a theory put forward by co-author Michael Tipton: ‘If you adapt to cold water, you also blunt your stress response to other daily stresses such as road rage, exams or getting fired at work.’

We spend a lot of time in life trying to make ourselves feel bigger — to project ourselves, occupy space, command attention, demand respect — so much so that we seem to have forgotten how comforting it can be to feel small and experience the awe that comes from being silenced by something greater than ourselves, something unfathomable, unconquerabl