Why We Should Take World Octopus Day Seriously
In 2011 author and naturalist Sy Montgomery wrote "Deep Intellect,"for Orion magazine, her piece investigated the inner life of the octopus. "Since its publication this feature remains the most-read Orion article of all-time. On this World Octopus Day, we reached out to Sy for an update on her continued relationship with these eight-armed, three-hearted creatures, and how they might help guide us ... posted on Oct 13 2020, 6,754 reads

Difficult Conversations: The Art and Science of Working Together
"According to a recent survey, if you're a democrat, theres a 60 percent chance that you view the Republican Party as a threat to the United States, and a 40 percent chance that you regard it as "downright evil." If you're a republican, the same odds apply to your perceptions of the Democratic Party. These are telling statistics, a warning that we've lit a fire under our divisive tribal tendencies... posted on Oct 12 2020, 11,347 reads

Peter Kalmus: The Question of Progress
"In every house, there were blue flickering lights going in synchrony because everyone was watching the same TV show. It was a quiet night and I was alone, just walking with the sound of the freeway and the blue flickering lights. And what had seemed normal to me my whole life suddenly seemed strange." This 2015 interview with a young climate scientist at Caltech feels more timely than ever now.... posted on Oct 11 2020, 18,147 reads

Charlie Chaplin: Let Us Free The World
Some call it the greatest speech ever made. This remix puts Charlie Chaplin's climactic address from "The Great Dictator" (1940) into present-day context, showing how the spirit of liberty, brotherhood, and equality that defeated fascism seven decades ago must be urgently reclaimed.... posted on Oct 10 2020, 3,223 reads

Is Philanthropy Really Changing Anything?
"What does philanthropy in India look like today, and what has it managed to do? Is it really changing the world and people's lives? Or is it simply an extension of capitalism and an opportunity for the super-rich to strengthen their stranglehold on economic activity as well as development and social progress?"This article shares thoughts on what philanthropists can do to ensure greater alignment ... posted on Oct 09 2020, 4,940 reads

Deo Niyizonkiza: Healing What Remains
"A young man arrives in the Big City with two hundred dollars in his pocket, no English at all, and memories of horror so fresh that he sometimes confuses past and present. When Deo first told me about his beginnings in New York, I had a simple thought: "I would not have survived." And then, two years later, he enrolls in an Ivy League university." In his bestselling book, 'Strength in What Remain... posted on Oct 08 2020, 4,472 reads

Embracing Groundlessness
"It's a fundamental fact of human life that we want our lives to be under control -- we develop plans, goals, routines, systems, tools, schedules, structure to our lives. But while developing some structure is a very helpful thing for most of us ... the truth is, there's so much that we don't control. Life is chaotic, out of control, shaky. It's what Pema Chodron calls "groundlessness" -- the feel... posted on Oct 07 2020, 9,956 reads

An Unknown World: Notes on the Meaning of the Earth
In 1926 Vladimir Vernadsky's pioneering book The Biosphere showed for the first time that the biosphere of the earth was an integral dynamic system controlled by life itself. The biosphere "receives from every part of celestial space an infinite number of other radiations... We have hardly begun to realize their fundamental importance in surrounding processes, an importance scarcely perceptible to... posted on Oct 06 2020, 1,929 reads

Meeting Our Pain With Compassion
"I'd like to explore the essential place of compassion in our lives in a very simple way. As human beings we have a conscious awareness that is open to what is. Our very nature is openness. On a feeling level this openness shows up as sensitivity, tenderness, rawness, as an exquisite receptivity and responsiveness. As a consequence of this delicacy, we are also easily hurt. Its like the softness o... posted on Oct 05 2020, 3,431 reads

Zen TV
""How many of you know how to watch television?" I asked my class one day. After a few bewildered and silent moments, slowly, one by one, everyone haltingly raised their hands. We soon acknowledged that we were all 'experts,' as Harold Garfinkle would say, in the practice of 'watching television.'"This short excerpt by Bernard McGrane provides a profound thought experiment that can help us "wake ... posted on Oct 04 2020, 0 reads