“Distracted from distraction by distraction”

Look around: we’re in an inescapable loop of distraction.

How do we liberate ourselves from this endless cycle?

Borrowing from the great poet TS Eliot, this episode offers some advice.

I hope that it’s helpful!

Check out my sister channel Finneran’s Wake for profound, long-form conversations.

Like, subscribe, and share with friends!

“As I in hoary winter night stood shivering in the snow,

Surprised was I with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;

And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near

A Pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear.”

Robert Southwell

I hope that you enjoy this bite-sized Pneuma Nugget!

Please consider sharing this episode with a friend and subscribing to this channel for more sleep stories, meditations, and soothing content!

Visit my YouTube page @pneumabydanielfinneran.

Email me at pneuma.finneran@gmail.com

Instagram: @danielethanfinneran

X: @DanielEFinneran

“A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it”.

- George Moore

I hope that you enjoy this bite-sized Pneuma Nugget!

Please consider sharing this episode with a friend and subscribing to the channel for more sleep stories, meditations, and soothing content!

Visit my YouTube page @pneumabydanielfinneran.

Email me at pneuma.finneran@gmail.com

Instagram: @danielethanfinneran

X: @DanielEFinneran

And visit my sister project on YouTube/Podcast platforms, @finneranswake, where you’ll find endless great conversations.

“We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our own being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others…”

Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, inventor, and philosopher, came to this realization about humankind in the 17th century.

It remains as true today as it was back then.

In this episode, we discuss living an “imaginary life” in the mind of others, as opposed to embracing our real existence in the pursuit of truth.

I hope that you enjoy this meditation!

Please consider subscribing to this channel for more sleep stories, meditations, and soothing content!

Visit my YouTube page @pneumabydanielfinneran.

Email me at pneuma.finneran@gmail.com

Instagram: @danielethanfinneran

X: @DanielEFinneran

And visit my sister project, @finneranswake, where you’ll find endless great conversations.

Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski) was a Polish-English novelist.

He was born in 1857 and died in 1924.

His twenty years spent as a sailor in the British merchant navy inspired many of his literary works, among which Heart of Darkness is most highly acclaimed.

In this episode of “Fall Asleep with Me”, I read this work’s opening scene. It takes place on the tranquil waters of the River Thames.

Please consider subscribing to this channel for more sleep stories, meditations, and soothing content!

Visit my YouTube page @pneumabydanielfinneran.

Email me at pneuma.finneran@gmail.com

And visit my sister project, @finneranswake, where you’ll find endless great conversations.

Sweet dreams!

The inspiration for this episode is a sonnet–a Shakespearean sonnet–with which you’re unlikely to be familiar;

Sonnet 30, you see, isn’t commonly ranked among Shakespeare’s finest works. It’s neither read to romantic lovers, inscribed on elegant tombstones, nor quoted in popular films.

Indeed, you’ll very seldom hear a recitation of its fourteen forgotten lines.

And yet, to our purposes, my dear friend, I think it’s ideally suited.

I hope that you enjoy this meditation on loss, regret, remorse, failure, and–that by which all sadness in life is wiped away–friends.

Do me the honor, my dear friend, of “liking” this episode, subscribing to this channel for daily doses of mindfulness, and sharing it with a friend.

“How interesting (it is) to trace the history of a single raindrop!”

In this guided meditation, we’ll join the American outdoorsman, conservationist, and writer John Muir as we contemplate the dramatic life story of a single raindrop.

Muir was a man of extraordinary depth.

In this episode, we’ll accompany him to lofty poetic heights–high, in fact, as the craggy summits atop which he made his home–before following him and his raindrop down to the oceans, rivers, puddles, and flower cups in which they came to rest.

I don’t know about you, but there’s nothing I enjoy better than watching the rain fall. It’s a divine spectacle of nature, a beautiful production of sound and movement than which there’s simply none more wondrous in all the world.

Hopefully this mediation enhances what is, quite without my meager contribution, a transcendent experience.

If I succeed, please give this episode a “thumbs-up” or a “five-star” rating.

Share it with friends, colleagues, and loved ones.

Return to it any time you’re stuck inside on a rainy day.

And subscribe to this channel!

You can now watch this episode on my YouTube channel. Just search, “Pneuma by Daniel Finneran” and immerse yourself in the stunning images.

With affection,

Daniel

Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888 - 1965) was an Anglo-American poet.

A devout Christian, Eliot was an important figure in the Modernist movement that sprang to life in the first quarter of the 20th century.

"Four Quartets", a uniquely sublime work by which all his other poems are eclipsed, addresses the theme of time.

It's a theme on which, as you doubtless know, so many of our meditations here on Pneuma are based.

I think that you'll enjoy it.

Subscribe, like, leave a five-star rating, and share this with friends. Send me poem recommendations at pneuma.finneran@gmail.com

Thank you!

Daniel

Time Stamps:

0:00 - Burnt Norton

11:35 - East Coker

29:52 - The Dry Salvages

46:45 - Little Gidding