Returning to the Village
For those of us who live in urban areas, what does returning to a life in the village really mean? What is the impulse that moves folks to reverse the direction of migration of their recent ancestors to the city? What can living on the land, growing your own food, and using your hands to make clothing and shelter offer souls hungering for a real connection to the Earth? Here, Hang Mai, a Vietnames... posted on Jul 08 2021, 3,622 reads

100 Thank Yous
For a year and a half, artist Lori Portka painted her gratitude through individual pieces of art for 100 people who have made a difference in her life. In her effort to truly live a life of gratitude, Lori learned that gratitude grows, and grows, and grows. "The more that I focused on gratitude, the more I was grateful for." This beautiful film captures Lori's motivation and some of the reactions ... posted on Jul 07 2021, 2,938 reads

A Story Waiting to Pierce You
"A true encanto, an incantation, this book is pure music. It sings to the reader. This is the real thing. In each paragraph of the book, the Spirit is there. This is what the native people of the Americas have been trying to say, but were never permitted to. This song is the song of wisdom that we native people have not been allowed to sing." These words by Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow) a... posted on Jul 06 2021, 2,493 reads

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, 5,260 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, 1,440 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, 7,271 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, 7,782 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, 4,019 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, 3,934 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, 5,551 reads