Instructions on Not Giving Up
"It was a hard winter. My whole body raged against it. But right as the world feels uninhabitable something miraculous happens: the trees come back. I wanted to praise that ordinary thing as a way of bringing myself back to." Listen to Ada Limon share her poem "Instructions on Not Giving Up."... posted on Apr 15 2021, 7,889 reads

Four Winged Poems
"This time of year, the birds catch my attention and hold it. The robins are back, or maybe they're just bolder. I see them most in this early spring season, when the worms are warming up out of the soil. The goldfinches are muted still, their diets not yet offering the delights that turn their plumage bright. And the mourning doves are crying all day long...I love the way that watching them helps... posted on Apr 14 2021, 4,041 reads

Left Behind: Surviving Suicide Loss
In the spring of 2017, Nandini Murali, a South Indian journalist and author, returned from an out-of-town assignment to an eerily quiet home. Typically, her husband would greet her at the front door, but that morning he hadn't answered her phone calls. It was Nandini who discovered his body, and confronted an unfathomable reality. T.R. Murali, one of the most prominent urologists in India, and her... posted on Apr 13 2021, 6,873 reads

Merry Clayton: Beautiful Scars
"When the Rolling Stones released "Gimme Shelter" in 1969, everyone recognized Mick Jagger. But at the time, no one knew who that voice -- you know the one -- belonged to.It was Merry Clayton, one of the most in-demand back-up singers of her day." In the decades that ensued she rose to prominence, but her ascending trajectory was put on hold when a car accident resulted in the amputation of both h... posted on Apr 12 2021, 4,865 reads

Thirteen to One: New Stories for an Age of Disaster
"Whenever an earthquake strikes Japan, the myth of the giant catfish Onamazu reminds people that the living world is full of complex meaning. In the face of repeated natural disasters, Marie Mutsuki Mockett looks to her mother's homeland to recall stories that could change our relationship with what we call 'nature.'"... posted on Apr 11 2021, 3,752 reads

The Way of the Heart
"According to the great wisdom traditions of the West (Christian, Jewish, Islamic), the heart is first and foremost an organ of spiritual perception. Its primary function is to look beyond the obvious, the boundaried surface of things, and see into a deeper reality, emerging from some unknown profundity, which plays lightly upon the surface of this life without being caught there: a world where me... posted on Apr 10 2021, 8,869 reads

Before You Know Kindness: A Poem by Naomi Shihab Nye
"Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth." Thus begins Naomi Shihab Nye's poem Kindness, animated poignantly by Ana Perez Lopez for the On Being Project. The poem, first published in 1980 and read softly here by the poet, contrasts strikingly with the typographical approach to the animation done during the pan... posted on Apr 09 2021, 3,346 reads

Hummingbirds and the Ecstatic Moment
"Birds have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and hummingbirds have held a special place in my heart for the simple reason that they, early on, became personal to me. On some level, you could say I became a writer because of hummingbirds, and they have appeared in my fiction since I was very young." Jeff Vandermeer shares more in this lovely essay.... posted on Apr 08 2021, 4,986 reads

What is Time and Does it Always Move Forward?
"While we take for granted that time has a given direction, physicists don't: most natural laws are time reversible which means they would work just as well if time was defined as running backwards. So why does time always move forward? And will it always do so?"... posted on Apr 07 2021, 7,040 reads

Marina Keegan & the Opposite of Loneliness
Marina Keegan's posthumous writings are moving, sensible and funny. Her parents, with the help of her college professor, put them together to honor Keegan's loving, compassionate spirit after her tragic death. By doing so, they transformed their anger, sadness and grief into a force for positivity and forgiveness that will inspire you... posted on Apr 06 2021, 59,819 reads