Cooperative Ways to Weather the Silver Tsunami
When Baltimore's Common Ground Cafe abruptly shut down in mid-2023, it wasn't just the loss of a beloved coffee shop, but a devastating jolt to the 30 employees who relied on it for their livelihood. But they weren't ready to give up. Rallying together, the baristas raised thousands of dollars and leaned on each other's strengths. They formed a worker's cooperative and took control of the cafe the... posted on Dec 26 2023, 1,633 reads

The Giving Tree in Nova Scotia
From the beginning, it was literally something sweet. "I just wanted to put some candy canes up for the little ones," Peggy Feltmate recalls the first year she put up a "giving tree" outside her home. It was cold outside, and she saw children reaching for the candy canes without any gloves or mittens on their hands. "Okay, I'm a grandma, I'm going to add some mittens and things to the tree," Feltm... posted on Dec 24 2023, 2,176 reads

The Living Sculpture Made by 90 Generations
While walking outside your home, or on a familiar street in your neighborhood, have you ever wondered who -- what kinds of people and life journeys -- walked those very same steps before you? The land has a way of connecting us across time, and a 3,000-year-old natural sculpture in Oxfordshire, England is a living embodiment of such interconnection. The Uffington White Horse is a football-field si... posted on Dec 14 2023, 1,693 reads

Unlocking the Mysteries of Time
"We construct the experience of time in our minds, so it follows that we are able to change the elements we find troubling -- whether it's trying to stop the years racing past, or speeding up time when we're stuck in a queue, trying to live more in the present, or working out how long ago we last saw our old friends. Time can be a friend, but it can also be an enemy. The trick is to harness it, wh... posted on Dec 12 2023, 20,148 reads

How to Bless Each Other
"Every once in the bluest moon, if you are lucky, you encounter someone with such powerful and generous light in their eyes that they rekindle the lost light within you and return it magnified; someone whose calm, kind, steady gaze penetrates the very center of your being and, refusing to look away from even the most shadowy parts of you, falls upon you like a benediction.
That we can do th... posted on Dec 11 2023, 6,125 reads

Gems of Wisdom from Small is Beautiful
In 1999 Paul Hawken wrote, "What seemed so evident to early readers of "Small is Beautiful" still seems painfully opaque to the world today. When the book was first published, many thought that change would come about through insight, logic, compassion, and reason. Increasingly, it seems that change will come about after we have exhausted every other theory of greed and gain, and the winds of chan... posted on Dec 10 2023, 2,195 reads

Light & Danger Through the Crack in the Door
"Multiplicity of viewpoints, described, prayed over, celebrated, sung, danced, and debated by practitioners of many spiritual practices drove the five-day convening of the Parliament of the World's Religions, held August 14-18 at Chicagos McCormick Place Lakeside Center. There are those who think of religion as a lofty preoccupation, divorced from the sorrows and suffering of the real world. But f... posted on Dec 09 2023, 1,224 reads

The Unlikely Success of Wingspan
"We begin by angling a lamp toward the wall, allowing just the perfect amount of warm light to fall on the table. Windows are flung open, inviting the night air inside. Then, the careful act of removing each bag, box, and card. We fill clear, shallow bowls with small pastel eggseasily mistaken for Cadburys at first glance. Other bowls brim with cardboard tokens. And as I neatly unfold each players... posted on Dec 07 2023, 2,071 reads

Nick Cave: Loss, Yearning, Transcendence
"Here are some experiences to which Nick Cave gives voice and song: the "universal condition" of yearning, and of loss; a "spirituality of rigor"; and the transcendent and moral dimensions of what music is about. This Australian musician, writer, and actor first made a name in the wild world of '80s post-punk and later with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He also underwent public struggles with addic... posted on Dec 06 2023, 3,646 reads

How Language Shapes the Way We Think
There are about 7,000 languages spoken around the world -- and they all have different sounds, vocabularies and structures. But do they shape the way we think? Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky shares examples of language -- from an Aboriginal community in Australia that uses cardinal directions instead of left and right to the multiple words for blue in Russian -- that suggest the answer is a r... posted on Dec 05 2023, 2,390 reads