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, 3,850 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, 1,720 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, 6,195 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, 3,044 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, 2,624 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, 6,496 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, 2,685 reads

The Monkey and the River
"The simplest and hardest thing to do each day is to be here --fully, completely, without turning away. There's a story I love about a master who sends his apprentice to meditate by a river until he's learned all the river has to say." Mark Nepo shares more in this short piece.... posted on Feb 29 2020, 11,629 reads

A Window as Wide as the World
"One afternoon, my two-year-old daughter and I idled around our apartment complex in Bangalore, watching a dragonfly hover over a thorn, when suddenly she began pointing toward the fringe of lawn below. There, a cat leaped at a wiry viper hatchling as it peeped out of its hole..." This evocative short piece describes a mother and daughter's glimpse of urban wildlife.... posted on Feb 28 2020, 2,493 reads

What Baby Boomers & Millennials Can Teach Each Other
For the first time ever, we have five generations in the workplace at the same time, says entrepreneur Chip Conley. What would happen if we got intentional about how we all work together? In this accessible talk, Conley shows how age diversity makes companies stronger and calls for different generations to mentor each other at work, with wisdom flowing from old to young and young to old alike.... posted on Feb 27 2020, 7,258 reads