welcome down the rabbit hole
if you're new around here, read me 👋
what is this place?
Rabbit Holes is a hand-curated publication which compiles psychoactive internet rabbit holes that explore this question: What does it mean to live a life of meaning and beauty?
In today's frenetic world, Rabbit Holes is a sanctuary for people to pause from the world of doing and pass into the world of wonder, self-reflection, & aliveness.
The themes curated here are broadly: philosophy, art & poetry, architecture, personal development, spirituality, & world-building.
In each issue I experientially guide you into the depths of self-reflection, wonder, and emergent vistas. Paired with music, meditation, and an iching reading, each issue holds content to open your mind and move your heart into reconnection with your deepest knowing.
My goal is for you to not only feel more alive and see the world as deeply enchanted, but also transmute that spark into tangible growth and creation in your own life.
🕳️🐇 For a non-paywalled issue check out issue no.44 of The Rabbit Holes.
who’s behind it?
I’m Patricia Mou and my main occupation is following my curiosity and wherever my heart tugs me. That currently seems to translate into some amalgamation of being a curator, writer, and builder of physical and digital spaces to help people pause between stimulus and response. Currently, I’m a graduate student at Harvard's Graduate School of Design studying urban design and philosophy. I’m also the co-founder of a fourth space called The Commons in San Francisco. By night, I love curating for Rabbit Holes and sharing reflections on personal growth, place-making, and philosophy in my other newsletter, Wellness Wisdom. Other than that, I’m usually found on meditation retreats, people watching at cafes, or snuggling my french bulldog.
how does it get created?
Very painstakingly. But I love every minute of it.
Each month I spend around 30~ hours curating content from academic journals, art & architecture publications, 500 substacks and essayists I admire, and random things that get thrown my way throughout the month. I go through a meticulous process of condensing it down to about 70~ articles I read end-to-end, and then I share a smaller subset of those articles into the publication.
For each thing I curate I ask:
did this move my heart?
did this change my mind?
did my body feel expansive?
does reading this make me want to become a better person?
do I want to send it to close friends asap?
is it earnestly-written, heart-felt, and thoughtful?
will I refer to it over & over again later?
how to best read it?
Rabbit Holes is not exhaustive consumption, it’s a slow unfurling ritual. A place to step out of horizontal time and into vertical time. Here’s the routine I recommend:
1. 💻 open the issue in your web browser (not phone) at a time where you have at least 30 mins to read.
2. ☕ grab hot tea or coffee
3. 👚 change into something comfortable and ideally sit against some fluffy pillows, with your computer on your lap at a 45 degree angle
4. light a candle 🕯️
5. 💨 take 5 breaths and listen to this meditation (a new one gets curated each issue)
6. meditate on a question you have and run it by this tarot reader
7. 🎵 press play for music. Listen while you read this issue. (I always provide a soundtrack to pair with the reading)
how will this improve my life?
Great question! I will let my readers answer that one:
“"Actually, if you asked how much I’d pay to keep it if you threatened to take it away I’d probably pay close to $500, and that’s while being quite money constrained as an early stage founder rn. But 2-3x is how much I’d pay without even hesitating.
And no it doesn’t really have anything to do with the insights I don’t think, even tho I do get lots of wonderful and valuable insights from it. For me, it’s a way of channeling my curiosity and wonder.
I usually set it aside for a Saturday around midday, play the music you put, and spend probably 2 1/2 hours going all thru it and command clicking tabs open. I don’t go thru the tabs until after I’m finished or sometimes the next day. But I get into a total trance and don’t even go to the bathroom or get up while I’m reading it. It reminds me of the way I feel while watching a really great movie that you get lost in and forget that you are even watching a movie and you feel like you’re inside the story.
I think it’s about the way it makes me feel - introspective, curious, smiley, grateful to be a part of this world that’s full of so much wisdom and beauty (like the knowledge equivalent of looking at the ocean or a starry sky and both noticing how small you are and simultaneously how grateful you are to be a part of this universe).
The beauty part of it is especially wonderful, I save a lot of the aesthetics and send them to friends who that particular aesthetic reminds me of.I always finish it with a contented smile on my face and go for a walk or a quick meditation to just let it all soak. I also finish with like 15-20 new tabs open of interesting things to explore. Also I often end up with some notecards of interesting ideas, quotes, poems that I put into my notecard pile of concepts I want to continue to steep myself in" - David Glass
“RH is one of maybe three sources of online reading material I depend on. Over the past year I’ve migrated away from social media due to negative impacts on my mental health (at least, that’s the theory). But I don’t want to miss out on reading cool long form stuff - so I depend on RH for a way of getting the best of what’s out there without being devoured by the psycho fauna stalking the Twitter plains.” Dan Barrett
“Rabbit Holes has helped me rediscover and nurture the introspective and spiritual part of myself that does not naturally get enough attention in my day to day.
It takes me to a slightly transcendent and soothing state that feels like medicine for my meeting and notification filled schedule - i guess similar to meditation.
i'm a patron because getting that ^ was so obviously worth more than the patronage fee that i was happy to pay it and want to make sure you keep doing it! i'd be so bummed if you stopped. i even bought the book to memorialize it a bit and to be able to share in person (or even just give myself another path to go into that state)” - Jordan Furlong
“More than almost any other content I consume online, Rabbit Holes feels like a place and a mood and a state of mind.
The music, imagery, composition, etc. all contribute to this. I save 20-30 things from each edition. You're plugged into all of these wonderful communities and corners of the internet, and while you're willing to share the source code for that and pass along links, knowing that you're curating it for me and I'm all good if I just read through your monthly summary is a great feeling.
You also identify and discuss things that don't really come up in my own day-to-day conversation, so RH indulges that part of my brain and makes me feel less alone.” - Adam O’Kane
how do I sign-up?
You can sign up on The Rabbit Holes website or via subsatck
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