In our waking lives, we know what being connected means, but feeling connected is a much quieter, unphotogenic experience. I genuinely believe that to have true connection with others we must first experience true connection to self. The route out is via in.

This practice is of course about becoming a better, shinier version of self. Things like better sleep, clearer thinking, reduced mental noise, the rinsing off of fatigue, all the way to focus, productivity, adaptability, inspired intelligence and creative power.

However, these are all signs that we are more in tune with our brains, our spirits, hearts and bodies; and all of these offer a language that cumulatively expresses our plainest truths back to us.

This is the unphotogenic part. The part where we listen intently, understand what we’re hearing, and lead from that place. That’s the route to becoming self-led. And then we choose what we grow.

From a neuroscience model, the brain’s Default Mode Network is involved in our internally directed thinking — memory, imagination, self-reflection, mind-wandering. If it was a garden, meditation is one way we can tend to it. The brain grows what you repeatedly plant. If thoughts are seeds, attention is water and whatever is tended to will grow. To cultivate creativity, aliveness and intelligence we must turn the soil, pull the weeds and plant new species.

Tend it enough and it becomes a holographic wilderness — luminous, layered, fecund.

How intentional can we be with what we grow when we wander the prisms of our dreaming mind?