been frightened, caught in this ray. The warmth of sunset orange covered her body like glue and the heat singed the ends of her wings black. Finally, a release. She opened up again, trusting me. Every scale on her body shone brightly against the fading straw mat every time she stretched open her wings. Where have you been old lady? I asked. Why are you so unafraid of me the giant moving beast? I just couldn't believe this moment. How lucky was I to have a direct interaction with nature? With one of its inhabitants, who knew I only wanted to learn and listen to the many stories it carried about faraway lands and sweet pollen? My eyes magnified like a telescope and I studied he... posted on Jun 2 2012 (15,861 reads)

really matters. It doesn’t matter only in our moment-to-moment well-being—how it feels to be me—but it really matters in the lasting residues that it leaves behind, woven into our very being. Which takes us to the third fact, which is the one with the most practical import. Fact three: You can use the mind to change the brain to change the mind for the better. This is known as “self-directed neuroplasticity.” Neuroplasticity refers to the malleable nature of the brain, and it’s constant, ongoing. Self-directed neuroplasticity means doing it with clarity and skillfulness and intention. The key to it is a controlled use of attention. Att... posted on Sep 15 2012 (148,401 reads)

now we are all extremely familiar with the litany of challenges we face as a global species, the threats of scarcity which pit state against state and community against community, problems manmade and visible in nature: growing population, increasing urbanization, deforestation, damaged watersheds, over-consumption of resources, energy shortages, waste, pollution....All of us could easily add to this list. We know there will be no easy fixes, no panaceas, but nevertheless as we try to set priorities and search for the most promising ways to approach these problems, many of us find ourselves looking to different cultures and to earlier eras for inspiration. In this regard, the Edo ... posted on Sep 19 2012 (25,757 reads)

vegetable garden, a 150-square-foot garlic plot, a small apple orchard, numerous beds of salad greens in a couple of hoop houses, a small apiary, and a plot of medicinal herbs such as purslane, burdock, and white thistle. “One of our goals is to present healthy eating to people,” says Malik Yakini, Director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN), which runs D-Town. “We think that healthy eating optimizes a good life generally. A diet close to nature allows the human body to function the way it is supposed to function.” D-Town is set in one of the city’s greenest areas, a former tree nursery in the 1,184-acre River Roug... posted on Oct 25 2012 (10,629 reads)

have consciousness, emotions, intelligence? I can't tell. How to translate the grass? The grass looks inert but it is always moving. It grows, changes, exudes pheromones, and sends out root tendrils that find cracks in the strongest concrete. If I lie on the grass, does the grass say hello back from within its grass aliveness? I may never truly know but it doesn't matter. The realization of the aliveness of the non-human is the crack in the paradigm, a shift from understanding nature as passive, unfeeling, and mechanical, to seeing the non-human all around us as aware, a huge something in which we, as humans, participate but can never control, that we can study, become awar... posted on May 9 2013 (17,130 reads)

you could have a robot that gives away money all around, and it’s definitely not going to be generous. Generosity is a state of nongrasping that is combined with a genuine concern for others, a reduced feeling of self-centeredness and self-cherishing, in the sense of an egoistic way, and then naturally the outcome of that is spontaneously, joyfully, naturally—you’ll be so concerned that it is a joy to give to others! Of course, if it becomes something that is against your nature, against your feeling, that makes you feel miserable, then simply you are not generous! You’re just forcing yourself with some kind of weird idea of duty, or I don’t know what. I... posted on May 14 2013 (55,822 reads)

modeling those possibilities. Ms. Turkle: Absolutely. I mean, I think the greatest gift you can give your child is to walk out of the house without your phone. I mean, to pick up the newspaper, to pick up the bagel, to go out for coffee. Don't take your phone. Show your child what that looks like, that you're willing to step out of the house not open for communication. In the place on the Cape I live in Provincetown, there're these beautiful mudflats that, again, are one of nature's wonders. And people now walk them with their kids and their phones, and that's a very powerful message to a child that we're walking them with our phones. You know, I'm not... posted on Jul 1 2013 (29,014 reads)

A blank page is a place of revelation. I have learned to trust that something will happen there over time that has never been seen before. A diagnosis is like that too. A place of discovery. An encounter with the Unknown. The wisdom may lie in labeling only the disease process; and then accompanying people as they write their story and its possibility. As change agents our stories empower or diminish us too. Our change agentry is only as good as our personal cosmology, our story about the nature of the world. The closer our personal cosmology comes to the nature of reality, the more effective we are in making a difference. I come from a medical family, so when I was young it seemed obv... posted on Jun 30 2013 (66,900 reads)

highest hope. I don't really want to have to sacrifice that much. I don't think I really know what "disciplined love" is. I don't understand that. Why do we imprison ourselves? Why are we so afraid? The American poet, Robert Bly, wrote: "If we don't lift our voices, we allow others (who are ourselves) to rob the house. Every day we steal from ourselves knowledge gained over a thousand years." Why do we imprison ourselves? And what's the nature of the bars? What's the nature of the prison? I think some of the prison bars that we have constructed for ourselves are our fear of losing our jobs. Our fear of not being liked. Our nee... posted on Jul 8 2013 (43,258 reads)

you aren't already. If you have, fall in love with your partner all over again. Abandon caution and let your heart be broken. Or love family members, friends, anyone -- it doesn't have to be romantic love. Love all of humanity, one person at a time. Get outside. Don't let yourself be shut indoors. Go out when it's raining. Walk on the beach. Hike through the woods. Swim in a freezing lake. Bask in the sun. Play sports, or walk barefoot through grass. Pay close attention to nature. Savor food. Don't just eat your food, but really enjoy it. Feel the texture, the bursts of flavors. Savor every bite. If you limit your intake of sweets, it will make the small treats y... posted on Jul 28 2013 (298,245 reads)

have fixed notions about the time course of success and the nature of talent that encourage us to write off the very people who are most likely to (eventually) change the world. "This is you," the elderly school psychologist said as he pushed up his horn-rimmed glasses and pointed to the left side of what looked like the outline of a camel's hump. I sat closer, trying to make sense of what I was being shown. "And this," he said, moving his finger toward the far right of the hump, "is gifted." Leaning forward, I patiently explained to him that maybe this was me, at age 11, but 6 years later, it was no longer me. "You see," I ex... posted on Sep 24 2013 (36,891 reads)

to the energy flow of the moment; and also in being motivated to succeed to the full extent of your ability in your hope-filled future that in turn, enables you to soar to new destinations. With that temporal balance comes a new flexibility in adapting to the many situational challenges you will face. Respect and learn from the past, yours and those of others. Selectively immerse yourself in a present-orientation that fosters human connection and compassion, while opening you to appreciate nature and art more fully. Use its pleasures as self-rewards for the hard-earned successes you have won, and will achieve by being future-focused. Finally, although there is never enough time in ou... posted on Jul 25 2013 (120,310 reads)

be free of it.” ~Eckhart Tolle “The water hollows out the stone, not by force but drop by drop.” ~Lucretius Yes, I know it hurts. Whether you feel sad, scared, lonely, or regretful, it weighs heavy like a ton of bricks, dragging you down. And it keeps you from realizing the brilliance that you are. What do you do to escape from emotional pain? Do you drink or eat to excess, keep yourself ridiculously busy, sit around hoping for a better future? It’s human nature to do everything you can to avoid turning around and meeting the feelings that arise in you. Who wants to feel pain? No Escaping But here’s the problem. These temporary measures sim... posted on Aug 28 2013 (38,806 reads)

of its wild animals has evolved, or maybe devolved, into a surreal kind of performance art." Yet even conservationists’ small successes — crocodile species bouncing back from the brink of extinction, peregrine falcons filling the skies once again — even these pride points demonstrate the degree to which we’ve assumed — usurped, even — a puppeteer role in the theater of organic life. Citing a scientist who lamented that “right now, nature is unable to stand on its own,” Mooallem writes: "We’ve entered what some scientists are calling the Anthropocene — a new geologic epoch in which human activity, more ... posted on Sep 5 2013 (14,472 reads)

a doomer, a nihilist making matters worse by running up the white flag. If I wanted to 'withdraw', I was told, that was fine: I could go off and be depressed in the corner, but I had no right to tell other people about it. I needed to shut up and let the activists get on with their work of Saving The World. “Withdraw not with cynicism, but with a questing mind. Withdraw so that you can allow yourself to sit back quietly and feel, intuit, work out what is right for you and what nature might need from you.” Looking back on this, I can see their point. If I were still deep in campaigning mode, perhaps I would feel the same if somebody else who had stopped doing it tol... posted on Nov 7 2013 (25,633 reads)

see bits of your hair and fingernails growing out of there! I think that what I personally know about you was showing up in this person who you invented. Who you can also embolden to do and be things that you would never do or be.” It’s funny. So I’m all over this book. It’s about a 19th century botanical exploration. My character, Alma Whittaker, is a botanist who is the daughter of a great botanical entrepreneur, and she’s looking for nothing less than the signature of nature. She’s a real scientist and she’s stubborn about her quest. At the same time, this novel is a love story, and there are great disappointments in the love story. All of ... posted on Sep 30 2013 (23,618 reads)

you know, what could be very broadly described as your spiritual sensibility also from an early age. Would you say that? Ms. Macy: Yes, I would. And I would say also the summers that I spent at my paternal grandfather's farm in upstate New York — being in the fields, in the woods, around the barns — felt so real and gave me a sense of — that the world was very big and wise and intelligent and that I could had an appetite to disappear into it. And it was this streak of nature mysticism that made the summer months so much more vivid and real to me than the nine months I spent in New York City going to school. And I lived for that. There were hymns of St. Francis &hel... posted on Nov 3 2013 (35,064 reads)

too. It just took him a while to learn how to do it well. How to flourish In 2009, I delved into the Grant Study data to establish a Decathlon of Flourishing—a set of ten accomplishments that covered many different facets of success. Two of the items in the Decathlon had to do with economic success, four with mental and physical health, and four with social supports and relationships. Then I set out to see how these accomplishments correlated, or didn’t, with three gifts of nature and nurture—physical constitution, social and economic advantage, and a loving childhood. The results were as clear-cut as they were startling. We found that measures of family soci... posted on Oct 23 2013 (66,826 reads)

to spend all of our time essentially poking this neuron with a stick and seeing what happens. And philosophy, which was full of great questions, the kind of questions you wish you had answers to, but none of the tools for answering them. And then magically this field had emerged in the middle, which combined neuroscience and artificial intelligence and computer science and linguistics and philosophy of mind. And it was kind of a hybrid field in which people who had a shared interest in the nature of mind and brain were slowly figuring out their own vernacular. Ms. Tippett: And that just absolutely points at, I think, one of the defining features of the world we are leaving behin... posted on Dec 5 2013 (22,874 reads)

to wholeness a community fragmented by colonization.  To the Okanagan People, as to all peoples practicing bio-regionally self-sufficient economies, the knowledge that the total community must be engaged in order to attain sustainability is the result of a natural process of survival. The practical aspects of willing teamwork within a whole-community system clearly emerged from experience delineated by necessity. However, the word cooperation is insufficient to describe the organic nature by which members continue to cultivate the principles basic to care-taking one another and other life forms, well beyond necessity.  Having been born into such a living community, albei... posted on Dec 15 2013 (31,705 reads)