Buried Treasure: The Story of a Marriage
"Like most marriages, I guess, we were a mixed bag of personality differences, varied preferences, unexamined childhood traumas, weaknesses and strengths, hopes and passions. I think he and I partnered each other with as much love and courage as we could, making every mistake in the book on a daily basis but trying to learn from them and carry on." After her husband's passing away, writer Carolyn... posted on Sep 14 2016, 19,727 reads

On the Relationship Between Failure, Humility and Wisdom
"Failure is like the original sin in the biblical narrative," according to philosophy professor Costica Bradatan, who is writing a book to be called "In Praise of Failure." He says that "regardless of class, caste, race, or gender, we are all born to fail, we practice failure for as long as we live, and pass it on to others. Yet failure gives us the chance to look at everything -- at the world, at... posted on Sep 13 2016, 9,062 reads

Breathing Love into a Community
Brothers Atman and Ali Smith, and their "brother from another mother" Andres Gonzales decided in college that after they graduated, they were going to do something about the suffering they saw in the world, in a holistic way. They moved back into the neighborhood they grew up in, and started an after-school program for the problem children in a school around the corner from their childhood home. T... posted on Sep 12 2016, 3,475 reads

Perseverance is Willingness, Not Will
"Persevering does not mean being rigid and fixed, but flowing like water, willing to meet the conditions at hand yet never giving up...Things happen all the time in this world that can make you feel as if the ground is giving way beneath your feet. Things that you think are solid and unchanging are not. The body that seemed so reliable, the relationship you thought would last for life, the narrati... posted on Sep 11 2016, 13,637 reads

A Special Kind of Grace: The Remarkable Story of the Devadosses
He is a writer and an artist whose captivating pen-and-ink drawings, books and greeting cards reflect the beauty of southern India. His wife helped compose his work. What makes their story extraordinary? Manohar Devadoss is near blind. His art is produced through a painstaking process of extraordinary will-power and dedication. His wife Mahema was paralyzed below the shoulders, the result of a ca... posted on Sep 10 2016, 21,129 reads

A Fun Way to Stop Buying Things You Don't Need
"A few years ago, illustrator and editorial cartoonist Sarah Lazarovic felt like she was buying too much junk. So she stopped shopping for a year, then documented her withdrawals and, eventually, all the lessons and tips and tricks she learned about not buying things. Instead of buying the items she coveted, she made paintings of them.During that time, instead of buying the items she coveted, she ... posted on Sep 09 2016, 18,815 reads

The Fine Art of Taking Time
"When I tell people I'm an artist they usually tell me they can't draw. I'm not sure when art became conflated with realistically representing things by making marks on surfaces, but I bet it was before cameras and copy machines. I carved this rickshaw for my friend to print onto fabric so she could have a rickshaw skirt. The lack of perfection is part of the art. However, transferring informatio... posted on Sep 08 2016, 14,339 reads

The Dream We Haven't Dared to Dream
What are your dreams? Better yet, what are your broken dreams? Dan Pallotta dreams of a time when we are as excited, curious and scientific about the development of our humanity as we are about the development of our technology. Pallotta asks us to "Imagine living in a world where we simply recognize that deep, existential fear in one another -- and love one another boldly because we know that to ... posted on Sep 07 2016, 15,831 reads

The Effortless Effort of Creativity
"Every good poem begins in language awake to its own connections -- language that hears itself and what is around it, sees itself and what is around it, looks back at those who look into its gaze and knows more perhaps even than we do about who are, what we are. It begins, that is, in the mind and body of concentration." Poet Jane Hirshfield shares more on creativity, concentration, the pleasures ... posted on Sep 06 2016, 11,217 reads

Elizabeth Gilbert: Choosing Curiosity Over Fear
Her name is synonymous with her fantastically best-selling memoir Eat Pray Love. But through the disorienting process of becoming a global celebrity, Elizabeth Gilbert has also reflected deeply on the gift and challenge of inhabiting a creative life. Creativity, as she defines it, is about choosing curiosity over fear not to be confused with the more familiar trope to "follow your passion, but ra... posted on Sep 05 2016, 17,128 reads