Beauty in the Natural World
"Do we always prefer the harmonious to the discordant, whatever that distinction might look like to us? It is not my place to say that the music youre listening to sounds terrible. On that note, harmony is very much its own kind of beautiful, and it looks and feels like different things to all of us. For me, harmony is found in the way tree branches will sometimes grow curving around to hold each ... posted on Sep 04 2022, 1,796 reads

Paul Salopek: The Out of Eden Walk
"The auditorium was hot and the acoustics were poor, but [Paul] Salopek's words were captivating. He explained that he had become dissatisfied with the standard method of international reporting, for which correspondents helicoptered into countries with little notice, reported, filed, and helicoptered out. Storytelling, he said, requires the writer to come in at ground level with the subject. His ... posted on Sep 03 2022, 1,734 reads

Walking Gently on the Earth
"Walking Gently on the Earth" tells the story of Annie Smithers, a chef based in Lyonville, Australia, whose life is dedicated to having a positive impact on the environment by treading as lightly as possible on the ground beneath her feet."... posted on Sep 02 2022, 1,926 reads

Women on the Road
"For a lot of its history, the road trip has conjured predominantly white, straight, masculine images (see literature from Homer to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to Jack Kerouac), but of course, thats never been true. Women have always voyaged, whether to follow seasonal resources, relocate or migrate, work to make a better life, or to make art and dream. The road is also one of our homes.[...]Elizab... posted on Sep 01 2022, 1,844 reads

Freestyle Rapper Harry Mack: Living Out My Purpose
"Freestyle rapper Harry Mack has received many kinds of reactions from audiences to his improvisation skills, but they all have one thing in common: utter disbelief. It's not far off from what he thought when he was introduced to freestyle rap as a kid. "What's the trick?" Mack recalls thinking. "I couldn't believe it was real." Freestyle rapping is the art of improvising lyrics and adapting them ... posted on Aug 31 2022, 1,073 reads

Out of the Head, Into the Heart
"When Unangan Elders speak of the "heart," they do not mean mere feelings, even positive and compassionate ones. "Heart" refers to a deeper portal of profound interconnectedness and awareness that exists between humans and all living things. Centering oneself there results in humble, wise, connected ways of being and acting in the world. Indigenous peoples have cultivated access to this source as ... posted on Aug 30 2022, 2,147 reads

Listening to the Thoughts of the Forest
"To speak of intelligence in a forest is, on its face, an anthropomorphism, a violation of the creed of ecologists and science writers alike: Don/t treat other species like charming little humanoids! Trees are not leafy people and forests are not woody brains. But just as dangerous as projecting human fairytales onto forests is the overzealous rejection of all analogy between human minds and the n... posted on Aug 29 2022, 1,815 reads

To the Logari Who Asked About the Sun
"In this essay, Jamil Jan Kochai takes us to a landscape he left behind years ago--Logar, Afghanistan, a river valley south of Kabul. His story unfurls in a field behind his grandfather's compound, set against the splendor of a Logari sunset. It's a stunning essay, teeming with the particulars of rural Afghanistan--the smell of woodsmoke, the mountains' dark silhouettes--while rendering a universa... posted on Aug 28 2022, 1,384 reads

Robin Wall Kimmerer: Returning the Gift
"Though we live in a world made of gifts, we find ourselves harnessed to institutions and an economy that relentlessly asks, What more can we take from the Earth? This worldview of unbridled exploitation is to my mind the greatest threat to the life that surrounds us. Even our definitions of sustainability revolve around trying to find the formula to ensure that we can keep on taking, far into the... posted on Aug 27 2022, 2,250 reads

The Nettle Dress
Over the course of seven years Allan Brown makes a dress by hand from foraged nettles. In the process, as he experiences the loss of two loved ones, he weaves his love into the fabric that he is creating. He spends seven summers harvesting the nettle and seven winters spinning it into fabric to make a dress for his daughter. The thread he creates carries his grief and his love, so that the cloth r... posted on Aug 26 2022, 2,950 reads