Hi everyone. I'm Josh, and this is The Emerald,

currents and trends through a mythic lens.

The podcast where we explore an ever-changing world and our lives in it

through the lens of myth, story, and imagination.

The Emerald. All that's happening on this green jewel in space. So I'm doing a New York Times crossword puzzle the other day, and it asked me for a four-letter word for totally focused.

What is it? Can you guess?

Rapt is the answer, as in rapt attention.

So enthralled by something that the rest of the world seems to disappear and we're captivated by that one thing.

As we focus on it, it transports us.

It takes us away, which is the verbal root of the word rapt,

which is why raptors, those birds that carry away creatures in their talons, are called raptors,

and also, of course, where we get the word rapture, as in spiritual rapture, a state of bliss,

perhaps, oneness, where we lose ourselves. But here's what's

interesting. We hear the word rapture and we think of some kind of out-there state, right? And of course,

the word does mean to take us away, but it also means totally focused.

So what is the state in which we are both transported and totally focused at the same time?

Where we get a universal view and a very specific view both at once.

Have you felt it, that lucid zone of consciousness?

Exhausted after hours of bicycling or dancing or singing the divine name and ritual perhaps? And there's a flood of rapture and we're taken beyond. And yet we're

gifted with a kind of one-pointed vision at the same time. Have you felt anything like it? This double meaning of

rapture simply and quickly gets at a very profound point. The trance state is a state of sublime focus.

It's not a drug-induced la-la land, what we're talking about here, or spaced out, or psychotic,

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