Stone by Stone
Facing a row of heavy sodden soil to be turned by hand, and looking up at the wider project of other rows; these moments come up in so many ways over and over in our lives. "How will this all get done?" we wonder. The choices to procrastinate, to look for a quicker or easier method, or to give up and walk away declaring "It can't be done!" are all possibilities. The approach we take in each of the... posted on Dec 02 2017, 11,254 reads

Wislawa Szymborska: The Poet and the World
Poets are Fortune's darlings according to Wislawa Szymborska. Despite the trials and tribulations, the frustration of not feeling comfortable calling oneself a poet and the real threat of claiming the title "poet" without official certification in some countries, poets are charged with answering the inner impulse of inspiration with "I don't know." The search for knowing leads poets inevitably to ... posted on Dec 01 2017, 8,718 reads

The Sound of the Genuine
"Cultivate the discipline of listening" for your genuine self. This is the advice that Howard Thurman gave in 1980 during his commencement address at Spelman College. How many of us ever take the time to do that? We spend our days in many pointless pursuits that distract us from our essential truth. Thurman says the world is waiting for this truth to pour out of us, it is of our own creation and c... posted on Nov 30 2017, 106,214 reads

Having it Out With Melancholy
With great care and attention, make a hot cup of tea. Take it to a room with a window. Sit down, take off your glasses and exhale slowly. Listen to this hauntingly beautiful recording of Jane Kenyon's poem read aloud by Amanda Palmer. Listen again. Let the understanding, pain and relief wash over you. Then, after a moment, explore the rich context of Maria Popova's introduction to this Brain Picki... posted on Nov 29 2017, 13,095 reads

Nipun Mehta on What It Means to Serve
In this interview at the Sun Valley Wellness Festival, Nipun Mehta, the founder of ServiceSpace, explores the nuances of what it means to serve. His talk affords a glimpse of various ServiceSpace projects like KarmaTube, DailyGood, Karma Kitchen, and more. Karma Kitchen works on an intriguing pay-it-forward basis. When patrons are done eating, the bill arrives with a total of $0.00, and a brief ex... posted on Nov 28 2017, 2,903 reads

Ken Cloke: There Is No Them. There Is Just Us.
"If chickens are playing on a playground and they're fighting, the very first thing that we tend to do is separate them. Separation works to stop the fighting, but it doesn't work to settle the issues that they're fighting over. So there are relatively primitive and relatively advanced methods for handling any particular type of conflict. And those are endless -- throughout our lives, we have noth... posted on Nov 27 2017, 14,940 reads

Guy Standing on an Economy that Works for Everyone
Through research and advocacy, economist Guy Standing has been fighting for an economy that works for everyone and for the environment for years. In his books and other publications, he argues that our current economic ideology has created an antagonistic world in which a small percent are "winners" and a large percent are "losers," resulting in an environment of insecurity and tension. In this in... posted on Nov 26 2017, 21,257 reads

The Art of Cleaning
Cleaning and doing chores aren't activities that our culture appreciates much these days, yet Sufi mystic Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee understands housework as being essential for a healthy spiritual life. "As within, so without. As above, so below," he seems to be saying in this article about 'The Art of Cleaning'. Sweeping becomes a metaphor for clearing away the debris that is blocking our progress. D... posted on Nov 25 2017, 25,720 reads

Training Our Trains of Thought
When negative thinking becomes habit, take heart. With compassion, mindfulness, and gratitude, it's possible to retrain our neural pathways for the better. To start, we become mindful of what's going on inside our heads. Thoughts and feelings come and go -- they don't stick with or own us. Realizing this gives us the space we need to observe them without letting them carry us away. By treating the... posted on Nov 24 2017, 19,424 reads

Brother David Steindl Rast: A Deep Bow
What exactly is gratitude and what does it mean to be grateful? Does gratitude require an exchange between people or can one be grateful to something more amorphous like nature? Can an anonymous gift be received with the same gratitude as one where the giver is known and acknowledged? While many of us believe we understand gratitude, Brother David Steindl Rast challenges us to consider its complex... posted on Nov 23 2017, 17,622 reads