Wendy Sussman: Painting as a Search
"Just gravitate to the thing you can easily do. Then all that baggage of being the great artist just flies away and you're just doing it! That's really the important thing. But you shouldn't feel ashamed of yourself because you have an image of what you want to be. The thing is to find a way into it. To get in is real important -- not just to stand at the door, over and over, for years and years. ... posted on Jul 20 2022, 1,908 reads

Timefulness: A Geologist's Story
"Geologist Marcia Bjornerud's latest book, Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World, can easily capture your inner philosopher, scientist, activist, and writer. When I received this book from Princeton University Press, I was immediately intrigued by the books cover. Ive always been fascinated by ideas that necessarily mix up life's ingredients into creative nature storie... posted on Jul 19 2022, 1,662 reads

Perceptual Intelligence: Gathering Deep Knowledge
"One cannot know a forest by walking it only once. It takes several full cycles of the seasons, and regular explorations during that time, preferably daily, to even begin to know a place. Where are its berry trees and when are the berries ripe? Where are its meltwater ponds in the spring? Where is the nearest raccoon den, and how often do you normally see them out and about? When do the maple tree... posted on Jul 18 2022, 2,102 reads

Watching My Friend Pretend Her Heart Isn't Breaking
"On Earth, just a teaspoon of neutron star
would weigh six billion tons. Six billion tons
equals the collective weight of every animal
on earth. Including the insects. Times three.

Six billion tons sounds impossible
until I consider how it is to swallow grief--"

Read the rest of Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer's exquisite poem here.... posted on Jul 17 2022, 9,573 reads

Tolu Ilesanmi: Cleaner and Life Artist
"Tolulope Ilesanmi was a cleaner. He left banking in Nigeria and came to Montreal, where he did his MBA and then started a company, Zenith Cleaning. Tolu considered everything about that company a mystery its people, its practices, its purpose. He said to himself, I will contemplate this thing with awe and curiosity and gratitude until it is done with me. Eventually he wrote down this sentence: C... posted on Jul 16 2022, 1,991 reads

David Whyte: Blessings
"David Whyte's "Blessing" poems are interpreted through a visual journey across the Irish landscape in this short film by Emmy-winning filmmaker Andrew Hinton. Musician and composer Owen O Suilleabhain, who has collaborated with David Whyte for over a decade, offers a reflection on the music that inspired the creation of this short film.... posted on Jul 15 2022, 3,880 reads

Ada Limon: Trust Poetry
"I am most free when I am writing poems. Theres a quote from C.D. Wright that says It is a function of poetry to locate those zones inside of us that would be free and declare them so. There is so much we hold in every day. Going to the post office and smiling through the small aches of human existence, trying to acknowledge the suffering of the world while still buying dinner and admiring the win... posted on Jul 14 2022, 1,984 reads

Woodworker Anoo Kulkarni: Answering the Heart's Call
"For many years, I wondered what it really meant to 'follow one's heart'. I was very curious to know what it felt like. I was certain it would be extraordinary, with an air of mystery. Something lofty and noble, a higher purpose. It would be a dramatic turning point after which all the pieces of the puzzle would fall neatly in place. I would no longer feel torn, there would be no guilt or self-dou... posted on Jul 13 2022, 4,033 reads

Bringing Back the Delight of Poetry
"The American poet William Stafford was often asked by friends, readers, students and colleagues: When did you become a poet? The response he regularly offered was: "The question isn't when I became a poet; the question is when other people stopped." Stafford was articulating what many poets believe: that the roots of poetry (rhythm, form, sound) go far back -- both personally and culturally -- "t... posted on Jul 12 2022, 2,968 reads

Agnes Callard: A Philosophy of Change
"We can all think back to a time when we were substantially different people, value wise, from the people we are now. There was a time when we were not even aware of the existence of some of the people, activity, institutions and ideology that now figure so centrally in our lives. Maybe we had different political views or no political views at all. Maybe we used to be religious or used not to be. ... posted on Jul 11 2022, 2,087 reads