Antidotes to Fear of Death
Rebecca Elson was a Canadian-American poet and astronomer. In the 1990s she was among the first researchers to study images. She passed away at age 39. "A Responsibility to Awe," was published posthumously. It is a volume of Elson's poetry and essays, ranging from her teenage years until shortly before her passing. What follows is, "Antidotes to Fear of Death," a poem from this collection, in whic... posted on Aug 15 2022, 8,105 reads

Thousand-Mile Walk Home
"Eight years ago this spring, I blew out a lumbar disc while running a jackhammer in the desert near my housean accident that was the result of simple bad luck, with the odds skewed by the fact that a jackhammer was the wrong tool for the job and that alcohol may have been involved. After a long, miserable recovery period during which I was as ornery as a walleyed mule, I finally mended enough tha... posted on Aug 14 2022, 2,720 reads

This Rising Up
This Climbing PoeTree music video highlights modern day freedom fighters and champions of justice by celebrating the beauty, power, talent, brilliance and humanity of Black people. Through powerful lyrics, music and dance, it is a triumphant acknowledgement that dignity, safety and self determination are all necessary to overcome dehumanizing terror and to ensure that justice prevails.... posted on Aug 13 2022, 1,428 reads

Gold is the Deepest Love
"'Gold,' the title of my book, is a word that recurs throughout Rumi's poetry. Rumi's gold is not the precious metal but a feeling-state arrived at through the alchemical process of altering consciousness, of burning through ego, greed, pettiness, and calculation, to arrive at a more relaxed and compassionate state of being. In sum, the prayer of Sufism is 'teach me to love more deeply.' Gold is t... posted on Aug 12 2022, 4,111 reads

Cooking in the Ainu Way
"Eiko Soga is a Japanese-born artist and teacher who has had a long-term interest in exploring new forms of relationship with the natural world.She has just completed a PhD research project at the University of Oxford which involved living with a community of Ainu people in Northern Japan. In this interview she speaks about what her experience with the Ainu taught her about ecologically-aware way... posted on Aug 11 2022, 2,093 reads

Peter Singer: The Life You Can Save
"Say you're walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning. Would you try to rescue the child?
That's the famous "drowning child" scenario that Peter Singer, the Australian philosopher, presented in his 1972 article "Famine, Affluence, and Morality." He points out there could be some minor inconveniences -- you'd get wet and muddy and would probably have to change your clothes. But, o... posted on Aug 10 2022, 2,353 reads

The Lost Art of Breathing
"After recovering from pneumonia for the third time, journalist James Nestor took decisive action to improve his lungs. He questioned why so many humans -- and only humans -- have to contend with stuffy noses, snoring, asthma, allergies, sinusitis and sleep apnea, to name but a few. James hears remarkable stories of others who have changed their lives through the power of breath. His deep dive int... posted on Aug 09 2022, 4,329 reads

The World's Hidden Harmony
"We've been blind-sided by our top-down approach. If the body is a bell, resonating to the
world around it, it's as though we have stuffed the bell full of cotton balls that stifle its ringing. The present is whispering to us, "Come and play, come and risk," whatever it may be. But we don't notice. We don't feel the present in that way. We don't feel its presence. We feel it as a collection... posted on Aug 08 2022, 1,858 reads

WoodSwimmer
This short film by engineer and stop-motion animator Brett Foxwell, in collaboration with musician and animator bedtimes, offers a mesmerizing look into cross sections of a piece of raw wood as it goes through a milling machine. The imagery produced captures the wood's unique growth rings, knots and weathered spots. Due to the speed with which the images are animated, the grains begin to flow in a... posted on Aug 07 2022, 3,008 reads

How to Be a Citizen of Earth
"One small country, in which 0.0002% of the worlds population lives in one of the planets most biodiverse habitats, has taken it upon itself to model for the rest of humanity an inspired step along the path forward. In 1981, just after a dazzling new species of nautilus was discovered in its turquoise waters, the Republic of Palau -- a tiny, vast-spirited Pacific island nation midway between Austr... posted on Aug 06 2022, 3,108 reads