20-Year Reforestation Project Plants 2.7 Million Trees
"When celebrated Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado took over family land in the state of Minas Gerais, instead of the tropical paradise that he remembered as a child, he found the trees cut down and the wildlife gone. He was devastated. It was 1994 and he had just returned from a traumatic assignment reporting on the genocide in Rwanda. "The land was as sick as I was -- everything was destr... posted on Mar 10 2020, 2,055 reads

The Wanderer: Earth as Art
"There is this one extravaganza, already in production for five million years now, called Earth. Because it is so full of redundancies, so repetitious in its winters and fishes, we feel we have seen enough to get a handle on it; we would like to set out our critique of the planet's aesthetic merits and failures before we are toast like Tacitus. There was once a critique that it was "very good," bu... posted on Mar 09 2020, 2,351 reads

Stories of Kindness from Wuhan
"I want to dedicate a thread to regular Chinese people who stepped up to fill in the gaps, helping fellow citizens in this fight against the #coronavirus. These stories dont make international headlines. But they are still important." A journalist at qz shares stories of ordinary people and their extraordinary acts of humanity. ... posted on Mar 08 2020, 4,778 reads

The Beginner's Guide to the End
“If you knew that you were going to die tomorrow, would you still be holding on to those grudges? Have you healed the old wounds with people that you love in your life?” These are questions that Shoshana Berger asked a captive audience after her book, "A Beginner's Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death" was published. Co-authored by BJ Miller, the book exp... posted on Mar 07 2020, 3,835 reads

The Park Where Families Meet on the US-Mexico Border
Suketu Mehta, Associate Professor of journalism at New York University, offers us a look at what family separation really feels like in his book, This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto. Do not miss his moving narrative of the Park of Tears, “the patch of land between San Diego and Tijuana, where loved ones reunite across a mesh fence, poking pinkies through the holes to touch... posted on Mar 06 2020, 1,681 reads

The Nature of Gratitude
The Nature of Gratitude is a portable program that has been exported to a variety of venues in communities committed to co-creating an atmosphere of gratefulness. The project also enlists participating artists from within those communities to share their gratitude in words and music.... posted on Mar 05 2020, 6,082 reads

Artists & Nature
"Nature draws us out to explore, then gently sends us inward to reflect. Most often, we wind up feeling better as we gaze upon the moment-to-moment changes in the ocean, sky, mountain, desert, forest, meadow, or garden. We might be awed by the tiniest flower, bird, or insect, cheered by a profusion of color, intrigued by creatures looking for food or a mate, lulled by the incoming and outgoing tid... posted on Mar 04 2020, 3,033 reads

The Island's Only Taxi
Eigg is one of four small islands off the coast of Scotland, populated by sheep, dogs, and 109 local residents. Charlie Galli drives the only taxi on the island. He moved here looking to find a slower way of life, and a community who place greater value on relationships and conversation than they do on their mobile phones. "Sometimes I think there's too much technology involved in life," he says. ... posted on Mar 03 2020, 2,609 reads

Stress and the Social Self
"Relationships, Adrienne Rich argued in her magnificent meditation on love, refine our truths. But they also, it turns out, refine our immune systems. That's what pioneering immunologist Esther Sternberg examines in The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions--a revelatory inquiry into how emotional stress affects our susceptibility to burnout and disease." Maria Popova shares m... posted on Mar 02 2020, 6,418 reads

Davis Dimock: The Gift
" A guy came here once from some outsider art magazine. He was taking pictures and he asked, "Do you do anything else?" So, I showed him some of my drawings. He said, "These are great. We could use these." I told him I didn't want them out in the world. It seems pretentious to think of myself as an artist. I think of artists as people who are going through the angst of creating stuff, and then the... posted on Mar 01 2020, 2,674 reads