forestriver

In response...

1. I wonder if amygdala responses in meditators would be similar. The Nautilus article mentions the control of his prefrontal cortex as a possible way he mediates the amygdala's response, and meditation often shows modulation in PFC activity. As a meditator, I also have a strange lack of fear response—for example, it's almost impossible to startle me.

2,3 I have only climbed a few times, and I too felt an unspeakable relationship with the rock itself that I have rarely felt while doing anything. The closest I can relate it to is indeed a deep meditative state, but one that comes with motion. Totally understand these points.

You sound like a really good parent. I wish My Dad had been like that

Reminds me in an oblique way of some of Hanshan's poetry:

  I usually live in seclusion  
  but sometimes I go to Kuoching  
  to call on the Venerable Feng-kan (pickup)  
  or to visit master Shih-te (big stick)  
  but I go back to Cold Cliff alone  
  observing an unspoken agreement  
  I follow a stream that has no spring  
  the spring is dry but not the stream

- Hanshan, #44, The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain by Red Pine

Relevant: https://www.outsideonline.com/1928266/we-dont-need-no-educat...