Mary Reynolds: The Garden Awakening
Mary Reynolds has designed award-winning gardens and landscapes across the globe. She is a nature activist and reformed landscape designer, because, in her words, "Everything must change. Including me." Her book, The Garden Awakening: Designs to Nurture Our Lands and Ourselves, is"a step-by-step manual to creating a garden in harmony with the life force in the earth, addressing not only what the p... posted on Sep 18 2022, 0 reads

The Power of the Bittersweet
"The bittersweet is...an authentic and elevating response to the problem of being alive in a deeply flawed yet stubbornly beautiful world. Most of all, bittersweetness shows us how to respond to pain: by acknowledging it, and attempting to turn it into art, the way the musicians do, or healing, or innovation, or anything else that nourishes the soul. If we don't transform our sorrows and longings,... posted on Sep 17 2022, 2,052 reads

A Brave and Startling Truth
Science and poetry come together in this moving reading by Astrophysicist Janna Levin of the poem "A Brave and Startling Truth" written by Maya Angelou. The poem, inspired by astronomer Carl Sagan, actually flew into space on the Orion spacecraft. Angelou dedicated the poem to "the hope for peace, which lies, sometimes hidden, within each heart." As she points out the contradictions of our making ... posted on Sep 16 2022, 2,165 reads

Andy Couturier: Writing Open the Mind
"People talk about "freewriting." Free. Writing. What would it be to write totally free? To be liberated from all the niggling habits, the tendency to adopt a certain stance? What might your mind do and say if it weren't in the office drafting memos? A sassafras hickey zowie brainstorm. Writing discovers your own life. Don't box it. Don't expect it or force it to be this or that. The way most of u... posted on Sep 15 2022, 4,128 reads

Four Ways to Cool Down Your Defensiveness
"Years ago, when I had my first media interview about my research on humility, the interviewer was curious whether studying humility actually made me any humbler. She asked me to poll my wife, to see how humble she perceived me to be. When I solicited my ranking from one to 10, my wife gave me a four." More in this post that shares four ways to counteract one's own tendency towards defensiveness.... posted on Sep 14 2022, 6,203 reads

Make Like A Neuron, Be As Connected As Possible
There are more neurons packed into the expansive confines of a human skull than there are human bodies jostling together on this swirling sphere we call Earth. How many neurons is that exactly? Dedicate a few billion of your own brain cells, if you will, to imagining the colorful millions of Calcutta; add to them the commuters careening through Bangkok, the campesinos picking coffee in Guatemala, ... posted on Sep 13 2022, 1,655 reads

How to Be in Awe
"Trees, writes Aimee Nezhukumatathil in her debut book of nonfiction 'World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments,' have been known to form alliances and send signals to one another. "And what a magnificent telegraph we might send back," she says, "especially if other humans have ever made you feel alone on this earth." With wry, warm-hearted, bizarre, and beaut... posted on Sep 12 2022, 1,624 reads

The Politics of Play
"Indigenous philosophies of childhood overwhelmingly agree on one thing: that a child should not be forced into obedience but should have liberty of body, mind, and will. Inuit children have traditionally experienced extraordinary freedom and would become 'self-reliant, caring, and self-controlled individuals,' an Inuit person I met in Nunavut told me. By the age of ten, their self-control is 'alm... posted on Sep 11 2022, 1,723 reads

Charles Foster: Against Nature Writing
"There's a wood near us. I can't see the wood for the words. Probably the wood is wonderful. My intuition tells me it is. But unless intuition is knowledge, I really don't know. And even if intuition is knowledge, all that I get from my intuition is the generic assertion, "This wood is wonderful." I cant see any particulars. I can't get an uninterrupted view of a flower petal or the hair on a cate... posted on Sep 10 2022, 1,465 reads

How Drawing Helps You Think
You don't have to be an artist to draw! Drawing is something all of us have successfully used with a pen or pencil on paper to plan, show or imagine what we are thinking. Being good art doesnt really matter as long as ideas are being shared. In this beautifully illustrated talk, Ralph Ammer shows how drawing your thoughts can be a powerful tool for improving your thinking, creativity and communica... posted on Sep 09 2022, 2,803 reads