From Bullets to Bangles
"I am happier now, after the angst of my earlier years. Those years were rough. I started life in a factory as a coiled mix of copper and zinc being pressed into a small, cup-like shape. Then I was pulled mechanically into a cylinder and stretched to form a tight tube. Even the memory is painful: in order to be stretched without breaking, I had to be heated, annealed, pickled, rinsed, and measure... posted on Dec 13 2021, 2,143 reads

Ten Ways to Make Your Time Matter
"As a recovering 'productivity geek,' I know how it feels to become swept up in the idea of discovering the perfect system of time management. But I was eventually forced to accept that my struggles to achieve a sense of perfect control or mastery of my time were counterproductive, leading not to a life of more meaning but one of more overwhelm and stress. I came to see that I needed to give up th... posted on Dec 12 2021, 13,622 reads

Breaking Free From the Tyranny of Positivity
Ever been told to 'just be happy' or, to 'lighten up'? Does that really make you feel happier? For many, this advice leads to the opposite effect. Author of Emotional Agility and leading Harvard Medical School psychologist Susan David recently teamed up with award-winning journalist and author Maria Shriver for a unique conversation on why positivity doesn't necessarily lead to happiness. Read mor... posted on Dec 11 2021, 30,878 reads

While I Yet Live
The quilters of rural Gee's Bend, Alabama, many of whom are descendants of slaves, learned to quilt from their mothers and grandmothers. They also learned, sitting under the quilting table as small children, valuable life lessons, and the hopes and dreams their families had for them. Their brightly colored quilts speak of love, peace, joy, and the value of hard work. Like their mothers and grandmo... posted on Dec 10 2021, 2,302 reads

Her Imagination is a Beautiful Garden
"My winter garden is quiet and lovely, with snow piled onto the shrubs and outlining the trees. For me, this is a time for resting and reflection, reading, drawing, and planning next year's garden. Gardening has always been a part of my life. As a child, I spent summers playing in my grandfather's stately and formal garden in Rochester, New York, where my great grandfather had managed the Ellwange... posted on Dec 09 2021, 6,320 reads

Time to Shed Our Skins
Nils Kercher and Kira Kaipainen are life partners and unique world musicians who simultaneously draws listeners into the stark realities of our greater world, while also drawing them inward into the dazzling potentials of the human spirit. Theirs is a music that believes deeply in our fundamental interconnection, and the capacity we have to heal together. In the music they create together, the int... posted on Dec 08 2021, 4,906 reads

Tell Them What We Have Learned Here...
"There has been an emerging awareness of a body of work that arose during the Second World War. Fragments of it have been known for some years to disparate groups of academics and their students, but it is as if now, in the 21st century, these writings are forming themselves into a body, steadily enjoining us to give them our attention. The group has become known as the 'Death Cell Philosophers' a... posted on Dec 07 2021, 3,218 reads

Born On Third Base
At age 26, a powerful experience defined multi-millionaire Chuck Collin's path. Realizing that "there was no rationale that could justify this disparity" whereby his inherited wealth was increasing through no sweat of his own, but wages were going down for so many, he decided to give away his wealth. "I wrote my parents a letter thanking them for the tremendous opportunities this wealth made possi... posted on Dec 06 2021, 6,685 reads

How An Apple Tree Transformed My Life
"I was in between creative projects and feeling the need to do something more dynamic with my energy than sitting at the computer sending and receiving emails, so I followed an impulse to a local biodynamic farm and got a job picking apples during the last six weeks of harvest. The notion was quite romantic initially...I'd spend my days wandering the orchard rows connecting with my Muse, and my ev... posted on Dec 05 2021, 4,059 reads

The Power of Giving
"Fariba Safai and Ashley Smith were still students at CCA when they decided to do something radical. They decided to prepare a large batch of home made soup (from a favorite recipe of Faribas mother), to construct a cart able to wheel a very large stainless steel pot along a sidewalk, and to make their way to Union Square in San Francisco on Black Friday[the day after Thanksgiving and largest shop... posted on Dec 04 2021, 1,702 reads