Leaf Seligman: On Redemption and Beautiful Scars
"As humans, we inevitably experience harm: we feel hurt, we get hurt, and we hurt others. We free ourselves from this experience not by imagining we can escape harm but knowing we can heal it--moving from wound to scar--and then learning to love the scars. This can, of course, be the work of a lifetime. Luckily, I have long loved scars. When I was four, I accidentally cut my left eye. As a result,... posted on Jul 04 2021, 5,196 reads

The City Planting a Million Trees in Two Years
As described so eloquently here by the mayor of Freetown, Sierra Leone, the loss of forest due to the impact of climate change is about much more than the loss of beauty and shade. Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr is leading her city's efforts to make Freetown a tree town by planting one million trees in two years, increasing the vegetation cover by 50%. The goal is to reduce the risk of landslides and fl... posted on Jul 03 2021, 1,427 reads

Discovering & Embodying One's Unique Life Purpose
"How does one discover and embody their unique life purpose? The subject of life purpose is addressed here in light of the following:
1. There are three distinct purposes: to wake up, grow up and show up.
2. A person is born with a unique purpose that is best understood in the context of their soul. 3. The key to becoming clear about life purpose is engaging in soulwork.
... posted on Jul 02 2021, 7,212 reads

The Clearness Committee: A Communal Approach to Discernment
"I want to describe a method invented by the Quakers, a method that protects individual identity and integrity while drawing on the wisdom of other people. It is called a Clearness Committee. If that name sounds like it is from the sixties, it is--the 1660s! From their beginnings over three hundred years ago, Quakers needed a way to draw on both inner and communal resources to deal with personal p... posted on Jul 01 2021, 7,684 reads

The Stillness of the Living Forest
""I need to get away for awhile." It's a recurring and persistent internal refrain for many of us. John Harvey did just that. And his book, The Stillness of the Living Forest: A Year of Listening and Learning is not only an insightful look into his experience but, perhaps more importantly, it's a call from the wild to the part in us longing to reconnect with something visceral and real; a promise ... posted on Jun 30 2021, 4,012 reads

The Biology of Wonder: Finding the Human in Nature
"In this book, I describe a biology of the feeling self--a biology that has discovered subjective feeling as the fundamental moving force in all life, from the cellular level up to the complexity of the human organism. I also describe how this discovery turns our image of ourselves upside down. We have also understood human beings as biological machines that somehow and rather inexplicably entail ... posted on Jun 29 2021, 3,868 reads

Daniel Goleman: Emotional Intelligence Now
"Daniel Goleman is an internationally known psychologist, science journalist, and the author of the books Emotional Intelligence (over 5 million copies in print in 40 languages), Social Intelligence, and Ecological Intelligence. Sounds True founder Tami Simon speaks with Dan about the insights in his landmark book, Emotional Intelligence, and where weve come since its publication in 1995. They dis... posted on Jun 28 2021, 5,486 reads

Echoes of the Invisible
A blind man runs alone through Death Valley. Journalist Paul Salopek walks 21,000 miles across the world to retrace our ancestor's migration, manifesting "slow journalism." Science writer Anil Ananthaswamy seeks out the silent places on earth where "extreme physics" is being done both by cosmologists and monks. Photographer Rachel Sussman struggles to capture the oldest living organisms on the pla... posted on Jun 27 2021, 6,913 reads

The Extra Mile
At 85 years old, Oom Hollie embodies the spirit of Ubuntu, "I am who I am because of who we are." Known as The Iron Man because of the strength and resilience of his body, mind and spirit, he and his family suffered great loss many years ago. With the support of their community they were able to move forward and thrive. He is in love with the land and with growing food, not for profit but to share... posted on Jun 26 2021, 2,202 reads

A Blessing for A Baby Coming Into This World
"Dear, dear tiny being before you are fully human,
remember the ether from which you came.
Hearken to that terrible squeeze
between the womb and the world,
that journey you willed and that willed you.

Then live your wild human time dancing
and grounded in the grand."

Read on for the rest of a lovely poem written by poet gardener, S... posted on Jun 25 2021, 5,265 reads