the natural world. We'll come with a design challenge and we find the champion adapters in the natural world, who might inspire us. 2:40So this is a picture from a Galapagos trip that we took with some wastewater treatment engineers; they purify wastewater. And some of them were very resistant, actually, to being there. What they said to us at first was, you know, we already do biomimicry. We use bacteria to clean our water. And we said, well, that's not exactly being inspired by nature. That's bioprocessing, you know; that's bio-assisted technology: using an organism to do your wastewater treatment is an old, old technology called "domestication." This is le... posted on Aug 19 2015 (9,806 reads)

are you a morning person or a night person? If you’re a night person, you’re not setting yourself up for success [to get] up early to go for a run. That’s probably not going to work for you. But often, people just decide what they think their habit should be, or they look at what Benjamin Franklin did, or what their brother-in-law did, and try to copy it. But in fact, what you have to do is ask, “What’s true about me? What do I notice about myself? What’s my nature?”  Mogilner: I, like many others, want to improve my eating habits. But boy, that is a hard thing to do. Are there any habit-changing techniques that you would suggest to me and o... posted on Sep 6 2015 (20,077 reads)

legacy of Howard’s work than Goethe. Goethe at age 79 (Oil painting by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1828) Around the time of Howard’s rise to fame, Goethe had grown increasingly interested in science in general and morphology, the study of forms, in particular — a rigorous fascination that produced, among many other things, his theory of the psychology of color and emotion. But meteorology, perhaps because it was a science of contemplation celebrating the inherent poetics of nature, enchanted the great German philosopher and poet more than any other scientific field. When Howard came under criticism for using Latin rather than the spoken English of the era in his class... posted on Nov 5 2015 (16,151 reads)

of all life. Humans are considered equal to all other entities. In accordance with the philosophy of Pachamama, it states, “She is sacred, fertile and the source of life that feeds and cares for all living beings in her womb. She is in permanent balance, harmony and communication with the cosmos. She is comprised of all ecosystems and living beings, and their self-organisation.” The passing of The Law of Mother Earth has established 11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the righ... posted on Jul 15 2016 (31,776 reads)

be open to that is taking this risk. To meet what we encounter. Let me give you one other ancient example. TS: Please. MN: And that is in the story of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is this wonderful—[it’s] one of the oldest narratives we have. It is a Syrian tale about an empty king who is not close to life. He’s bored. He befriends a man who becomes his only friend, Enkidu, who was raised by animals, who is much closer to life. So the bored king declares a war on nature, on the nature god. In the war, his one friend is killed, [so] he journeys to the god of that culture, Utnapishtim, to ask for his friend to be brought to life. And he’s told, “OK, ... posted on Dec 10 2016 (26,463 reads)

in an urban American white guy. I was not only adopted into the nuclear family, I was told to introduce myself in Navajo as part of their clan. As I hesitatingly took on the role they offered me, it began to dawn on me that I could, through the clan system, have an unlimited number of mothers, fathers, sisters, or grandfathers. And my newfound relatives were not only human beings. I was taught and shown that I was also related to the fire and the air, the earth and the water, and all of nature. Indeed, I learned that I am always surrounded by relatives, and it still gives me a feeling of incredible support. Within a few years I was hired as a principal in the first tribally contro... posted on Feb 11 2017 (19,508 reads)

a bold smiley face. I helped her carry the bike down the steep steps of our brownstone and place it under the streetlight, the sign taped to the seat. Lying in bed that night, her face shone with happy anticipation. Things appeared and disappeared on the street all the time, but it was different being part of it. In a way, this was what I wanted her to understand: meaning is an action; we make meaning through our actions. You exist in a web of life: this was the message. You are part of nature and part of the human community. And when you give, you receive something. A good friend of mine once told me that her father took her and the other kids in the family to Coney Island to loo... posted on Feb 18 2017 (20,574 reads)

He explained, “Change is the dots, not the entire picture”. What makes this revolutionary at the end of the day isn’t the whole picture, but the little dots, the decisions that are made moment by moment, day by day. It’s each person, each soul that works, not just the dirt, plants, and wood. This work is not measured in money, power, or title. It is loudest inaudible. Nobody sees it but you. The epicenter of Tommy’s work revolves around the belief that the true nature of humans is goodness. As we grow older, we define each other by our bad habits and actions rather than the goodness we see when we hold a baby for the first time. As he pointed to the baby pla... posted on May 8 2017 (9,585 reads)

a little isolated at times. I never wanted to share my personal issues, but I would have a quick conversation about sports. And whenever I did, it put me in a better place to deal with whatever personal situation was upsetting me at the time a little bit. I felt connected with somebody. And that always stayed with me, as I’ve grown up. BS: And you’re also an avid reader, particularly with Steinbeck and Thoreau. In what ways did these authors inspire your understanding of human nature and how we relate to one another? Especially growing up, as you describe feeling isolated at times? DL: With books, you read and enjoy brilliant thinking by these brilliant people. It’... posted on Aug 7 2017 (9,498 reads)

of sanctuary—and of sacred places—in the context of our lives and creative pursuits? We recognize certain locations on earth, and even within our own spheres of activity, as special and consider them sacred by virtue of a resonance that suggests a living intelligence. We often long for contact with these places that have the capacity to help us return to ourselves. We may be attracted to the locations of our childhood; or cities where there is an enormous reservoir of human nature and activity, such as New York, London, Benares, and Tokyo; or places where energy is impregnated in the land itself, regions of power and grace, such as Mount Fuji, Canyon de Chelly, Mauna Kea... posted on Oct 5 2017 (9,647 reads)

It almost is ingrained in their personality as they come into the world. Is that the case? “If you’re a curious person, then you ought to also be curious about curiosity itself.” Livio: Of course. Most psychological traits, and curiosity is no exception, have a genetic component to them. The fact that some people are much more curious than others largely has to do with their genetics. But, as in all cases, genetics is never the whole story. In the same way as nature versus nurture question, the two of them play a role. You can enhance curiosity by doing certain things, by asking questions, by encouraging people to be curious about things. Or you can suppre... posted on Sep 25 2017 (12,144 reads)

My body shares in an expanded cycle that I call growth and decay. The air I breathe contains water molecules that have cycled on the earth for millennia. What then of my mind? What of that sense of self that I carry of someone inside my body who is me, and is not the deer munching on broccoli florets at the bottom of the garden? Is this sense of identity an illusion? Is everything cycling in a ceaseless flow of change? These questions carry a memory of teachings that speak of the illusory nature of existence. Constant change, they remind us, is the condition. Something exists in any given moment, but the form is not permanent; it is ceaselessly changing. The broccoli of yesterday&rsquo... posted on Dec 18 2017 (10,230 reads)

start is for you to describe to our listeners what it means to you to live from a place of surrender. Michael Singer (MS): Very good. Like with most spiritual topics, they get very deep, but let's see how simple we can keep it. If we pay attention, we will realize that every moment around us, there is a world that we did not create that's been there for 13.8 billion years, and there's trillions of cells in your body that are doing what they're supposed to do, and all of nature, everything. You wake up and you realize, "I'm not doing any of this. I didn't make my body. I didn't make my mind think. I don't make my heart beat. I don't make my br... posted on Dec 22 2017 (47,499 reads)

remember one splendid morning, all blue and silver, in the summer holidays when I reluctantly tore myself away from the task of doing nothing in particular, and put on a hat of some sort and picked up a walking-stick, and put six very bright-coloured chalks in my pocket. I then went into the kitchen (which, along with the rest of the house, belonged to a very square and sensible old woman in a Sussex village), and asked the owner and occupant of the kitchen if she had any brown paper. She had a great deal; in fact, she had too much; and she mistook the purpose and the rationale of the existence of brown paper. She seemed to have an idea that if a person wanted brown paper he must be wantin... posted on Aug 12 2018 (9,906 reads)

wonderful purity of nature at this season is a most pleasing fact. Every decayed stump and moss-grown stone and rail, and the dead leaves of autumn, are concealed by a clean napkin of snow. In the bare fields and tinkling woods, see what virtue survives. In the coldest and bleakest places, the warmest charities still maintain a foothold. A cold and searching wind drives away all contagion, and nothing can withstand it but what has a virtue in it; and accordingly, whatever we meet with in cold and bleak places, as the tops of mountains, we respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan toughness. All things beside seem to be called in for shelter, and what stays out must be part of... posted on Mar 19 2018 (10,947 reads)

is not an individual property, but is a property of an entire web of relationships. It is a community practice. This is the profound lesson we need to learn from nature. The way to sustain life is to build and nurture community. A sustainable human community interacts with other communities — human and nonhuman — in ways that enable them to live and develop according to their natures. Sustainability does not mean that things do not change. It is a dynamic process of coevolution rather than a static state. Because of the close connection between sustainability and community, basic principles of ecology can also be understood as principles of community. In part... posted on Feb 28 2018 (10,531 reads)

early thirties, when I got married and let go of my independence, I let in the beauty of interdependence. Not having charged for my labor for more than fifteen years, I learned that in letting go of price-tags, I let in -- the priceless. Surrender isn't a sacrifice of the known, but rather a celebration of the infinite. Sooner or later, you see the futility of fitting the glorious spectrum of our human experience into a neat little algorithm. Then, you no longer try to scheme deals with nature. When the ego moves from the driver’s seat to the passenger seat, you not only enjoy the ride but become aware of the vast conspiracy of the universe to drop us at the doorsteps of greate... posted on Jun 11 2018 (14,526 reads)

bittersweet, largehearted meditation on the existential art of befriending our finitude as she faces her own terminal illness: We don’t live in Newton’s clockwork universe anymore — we live in a banana peel universe, and we won’t ever be able to know everything, or control everything, or predict everything. […] If you’re anti-death — which to me translates as anti-life, which to me translates as anti-nature — it also translates to me as anti-woman, because women have long been identified with nature. My source on this is Hannah Arendt — the German philosopher who wrote a book... posted on Jun 10 2018 (10,331 reads)

the present highly publicized debates about the nature and the existence of God, both sides tend to treat God as a purely external entity said to be accessible only by faith—faith, in this case, defined merely as belief unsupported by evidence or logic. Entirely missing from these debates is the idea of God as a conscious force within the human psyche which is accessible through deep self-examination. A study of the psychological disciplines at the heart of all the great spiritual traditions of the world shows us, however, that the process of precisely guided self-examination brings about a knowledge that is as rigorous and as supported by evidence as anything science has to offer. ... posted on Aug 2 2018 (13,819 reads)

in every piece of garbage left on city streets. This oneness is life—life no longer experienced solely through the fragmented vision of the ego, through the distortions of our culture, but known within the heart, felt in the soul. This oneness is the heartbeat of life. It is for each of us to live and celebrate this oneness, to participate in its beauty and wonder. And through our awareness, and actions born of this awareness, we can help to reconnect our world with its original nature. There are many ways to experience and participate in this living oneness. But if I have learned anything after half a century of spiritual practice, it is the power of love. Love comes in s... posted on Nov 7 2018 (8,934 reads)