Could we see the world more clearly alongside them? Could we think differently through them? What would they say if we tried to listen? THE TREES WERE LADEN with acorns on the day I first traveled to meet Barry Webb and his wife, Gill Ferguson, also a photographer, for a slime mold safari in their nearby woodland. It was a mast year—a year when acorns are abundant—and the ground crackled with their tough shells. I met them at a coffee shop in Burnham Beeches, a national nature reserve in the South of England. Gill was wearing a T-shirt with an image of slime molds, which I was able to identify. Both Barry and Gill talked enthusiastically about the beauty and diver... posted on Feb 5 2023 (3,808 reads)

the wholeness of it all. So the journey you’ve been on to make Sounds True, the journey this body of Dan has been on, about interpersonal neurobiology, in many ways, they’re the same journey. So when you reached out and said, “Would you like to do this experience of a conversation?” The feeling was, humans need this conversation. It isn’t even a conversation between me and you, this is a conversation for our whole human family. So that’s the intraconnected nature when you just look at the system of humanity. Then, when I think about what those trees literally said to me when I was in that forest, those three days, and this is going to sound odd, and I&r... posted on Mar 10 2023 (2,394 reads)

spring, it's almost spring. It's that moment when you're just starting to see things green up a little bit, which is very hopeful. So it's nice that the spring is almost here. Preeta:  Hmm. Yeah. So as you're no longer getting some of your energy from the people and places you meet as you travel and perform, what is nourishing you now? Carrie:  You know, it's interesting because I love people and I love my work with people, but I think by my nature, I'm a person who gets a lot of energy from solitude. And so I think if you're a writer, you'd have to be comfortable with being in solitude for long periods of time. So I’m h... posted on Jul 15 2023 (2,810 reads)

are going to have our own specific ways of doing that, the things we’re drawn to. I’m drawn probably to—I often put a hand on my heart or two hands on my heart, and it just reminds me, “Oh, yes, I’m here,” and I can feel my heartbeat and then I can feel it slow down a bit. For me, that’s a pretty reliable one. For other people, there’s movement. Movement will usually bring you back into some organization. So going for a walk, getting out in nature. I’m turning on a piece of music. Certain ways of breathing. You may have a statement that brings you there, that reminder. And what I like to say is that we’re always reminding ... posted on Nov 12 2023 (5,289 reads)

the two are present together at all times -- that for me at an emotional level, when I'm studying forest, that manifests in my emotions as a sense that the forest is a place of incredible and inexpressible beauty and complexity and joy, but also of just unfathomable brokenness. And those two things for me both are very true, both present paradoxically at the same time. … [W]ith the second book I really wanted to place myself in a number of spots where it seemed that what we call nature wasn't really present, in the middle of cities and industrial zones and so forth. And I wanted to do that because the first book was set in an old growth forest and there were many wonderfu... posted on Jan 7 2024 (5,188 reads)

natural human potentials that we all have. And I ask audiences, I say to them, the people I work with, all kinds of audiences from business people to unions, to teachers, to students, “What’s your favorite way to go to the balcony?” And everyone has one. I mean, it could be just to breathe, like they teach you in meditation class. Take a few deep breaths, and there’s a kind of clarity that emerges. It might be to take a break. It might be to go for a walk in nature, which is my favorite way to go to the balcony if I have time, just because the effect of nature just kind of calms me, give me a sense of perspective. I like to go walk in the mountains. That... posted on May 13 2024 (2,652 reads)

to be a much more moral person. There's a relation that establishes with another human being." "The question of [his book, The American Soul] was the meaning of America really. And I tried to discover—I did discover, I think—that the deepest meaning of America, with all its might and power and great constitution and everything, is that it makes it possible for people to come together and work at discovering their own individual conscience, their own individual moral nature. That to me is the whole reason, ultimately, for the founding and creation of America. And the greatest of our founding fathers understood that—that what was needed was a safe place to se... posted on Apr 28 2011 (12,499 reads)

in front of people. I have experimented, several times, in the last 3-4 yrs with PowerPoint slides. I can’t really say they have ever been helpful. So, I just go without any preparation for the group with an open mind. First I do whatever I can to understand the group. I always memorize everybody’s name so when I see them I don’t have to look at their name tags and I have some sense of connection with them as individuals. I try to understand as much as I can about what is the nature of these people, what they interested in, what are they concerned about… Sometimes, if I feel really disconnected, I’ll even stop early on and ask them what is important to them a... posted on Aug 28 2011 (11,669 reads)

France lost to Italy because they were without their captain and one of the greatest players of the game. As an executive coach interested in exploring what drives people to successes and failures, I have worked with hundreds of ambitious people including business executives, sports legends and Nobel laureates. One key discovery I made repeatedly over the last fifteen years is that there is a common driver to the successes and failures of the people I studied. I call this driver, the 'Signature Strength’ and its downside, ‘Core Incompetence’. A signature strength forms in a person when a certain competence matures in a person due to his nature and/or nurture. I fo... posted on Sep 25 2011 (12,282 reads)

in the Hindu tradition is the idea of "non-possessiveness," or taking only what we need and finding satisfaction in balanced living. Perhaps the most developed expression of a middle way between material excess and deprivation comes from the Buddhist tradition. While Buddhism recognizes that basic material needs must be met in order to realize our potentials, it does not consider our material welfare as an end in itself; rather, it is a means to the end of awakening to our deeper nature as spiritual beings. The middle way of Buddhism moves between mindless materialism on the one hand and needless poverty on the other. The result is a balanced approach to living that harmonizes... posted on Oct 7 2011 (24,277 reads)

day; a fish can release one to ten million eggs in one breeding season; one rice grain can produce a thousand grains within a planting season. (Even pets with five to seven litters a year are more than most of us can handle!) In seas, lakes, swamps, grasslands, forests, and other ecosystems – abundant life blooms. Where they do not anymore do so, something must have upset the natural abundance. Even such damaged ecosystems, if left alone, soon teem with life again. While abundance in nature can last indefinitely, it does not grow without limit. As species multiply, they soon settle into balance with other species and the natural environment. The food chain of plants, herbivores, c... posted on Jun 15 2013 (21,438 reads)

is a simple yet profound metaphor that a childhood mentor of my mom's shared with her decades ago: "When one foot walks, the other rests." It's the way all of nature works, a beautiful reminder that everything is in ebb and flow, engaged in cycles and rhythms. Our own bodies follow natural patterns, recuperating every night and preparing for the next day's activity. With music as well, the structure imposed by notes inherently depends on the unstructured space supporting it. The notes and the space between them come together to create music. As a culture, though, we give more importance to creating notes and relatively little to the space between them. Bet... posted on Feb 28 2012 (30,011 reads)

of essence. If this is so, the real task of the medical system is to heal soul loss, to aid in the retrieval of the soul. The entire culture is ill with soul loss. What is needed is not to bring spirit into our work, to develop more of a spiritual practice or to go to church more. Our task is to recognize that we are always on sacred ground, that there is no split between the sacred and secular. That the living god is dancing on our back. That there is no task that is not sacred in nature and no relationship that is not sacred in nature. Life is a spiritual practice. Health care, which serves life, is a spiritual practice. Disease is a spiritual path, too. Much illness is ca... posted on Mar 23 2012 (51,450 reads)

today. I call them cyclical tools. The iPhone empowers the developer ecosystem that helps drive its adoption. A bike strengthens the person who pedals it. Open-source software educates its potential contributors. A hallmark of cyclical tools is that they create open loops: the bike strengthens its rider to do things other than just pedal the bike. Cyclical tools are like trees, whose falling leaves fertilize the soil in which they grow. At the top of the stack, all tools depend on nature and human nature. They depend on the sun, trees, minerals, and fossil fuels to provide their raw materials and energy. They depend on the creativity of builders to give them form. And they depe... posted on Jun 12 2012 (13,798 reads)

secret of success is concentrating interest in life… interest in the small things of nature… In other words to be fully awake to everything.” With Father’s Day around the corner, let’s take a moment to pay heed to some of the wisest, most heart-warming advice from history’s famous dads. Gathered here are five timeless favorites, further perpetuating my well-documented love of the art of letter-writing. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD In a 1933 letter to his 11-year-old daughter Scottie, F. Scott Fitzgeraldproduced this poignant and wise list of things to worry, not worry, and think about, found in the altogether excellent F. ... posted on Jun 17 2012 (20,022 reads)

and plants. In the Abrahamic version (based on earlier Sumerian tales), the Tower of Babel saga, the "something" that "happened" in the opening story is further elaborated. The first common tongue was abolished by a (slightly insecure?) god. He feared that people would use it to cooperate in building a tower that would eventually challenge his heavenly reign. Language has always been connected to the primal question of what it means to be human and our relationship with nature, the invisible and unknown, the "Great Mystery." Long ago, people and animals and spirits and plants all communicated in the same way. Then something happened. The word in its... posted on Oct 28 2012 (15,571 reads)

novel prison program in New York City uses nature to teach inmates about life's larger lessons. Breezes carried wafts of lemon balm and mint from the herb garden, hedged by apricot and nectarine trees. Monarchs flitted around butterfly bushes, and a pair of resident ducks shuttled between a marshy puddle and a carefully tended pond. Just six miles from lower Manhattan, this small island oasis in the East River seemed almost bucolic—except, of course, for the coils of razor wire running along the high fence surrounding it and the gardeners wearing bright orange jumpsuits with DOC (Department of Corrections) stenciled across the backs. This was Rikers Island, the infamou... posted on Jan 23 2013 (11,761 reads)

Indian poet, philosopher, and celebrated creative spirit, Rabindranth Tagore, debating such subjects as truth, freedom, democracy, courage, education, and the future of humanity as India struggled for its independence. The correspondence, collected in The Mahatma and the Poet: Letters and Debates Between Gandhi and Tagore 1915-1941 (public library) is more than a mere addition to history’s notable epistolary exchanges. These letters are unique in that they were private in nature but public in manifestation — Tagore wrote in the Indian Nationalist intelligentsia forum Modern Review and Gandhi in his own political journal, Young India — an... posted on Feb 7 2013 (14,656 reads)

science we cover here on Greater Good—aka, “the science of a meaningful life”—has exploded over the past 10 years, with many more studies published each year on gratitude, mindfulness, and our other core themes than we saw a decade ago. 2012 was no exception. In fact, in the year just past, new findings added nuance, depth, and even some caveats to our understanding of the science of a meaningful life. Here are 10 of the scientific insights that made the biggest impression on us in 2012—the findings most likely to resonate in scientific journals and the public consciousness in the years to come, listed in roughly the order in which they were publ... posted on Mar 13 2013 (19,470 reads)

long hours to protect a place or species, sometimes turn their backs if they lose the fight, stifling a sense of failure by shifting their energy quickly to another worthy project. Yet, as with any shadowy aspect of our consciousness, what we avoid continues to plague us, whereas what we agree to face offers us the possibility of transformation and wholeness. And as Stephen Aizenstat, the founding president of Pacifica Graduate Institute, has written, “Avoiding our relationship with nature only hastens the inevitable: the death of the natural world.” One way to acknowledge our love for nature, grieve for its destruction, and kindle compassion is through ritual. Ritual ca... posted on Aug 26 2013 (16,751 reads)