of pure being. One of my clients reported that she is starting to become more aware of things in her life she never noticed before. She loves it when someone unexpected shows up at her door. She flows through the day responding with ease to everyone and everything. And she is attuned with all her senses when she takes a walk outside. These are new experiences for her, but this deepening awareness has always been available. Things aren’t becoming more tender or sacred. The way nature appears to her hasn’t changed. What’s changed? Her perspective. Rather than living in the mental noise, she’s more willing to say a friendly, “Hello,” to her... posted on Apr 12 2019 (8,730 reads)

understand what during sleep actually transacts these memory benefits, because there are real medical and societal implications.  And let me just tell you about one area that we've moved this work out into, clinically, which is the context of aging and dementia. Because it's of course no secret that, as we get older, our learning and memory abilities begin to fade and decline. But what we've also discovered is that a physiological signature of aging is that your sleep gets worse, especially that deep quality of sleep that I was just discussing. And only last year, we finally published evidence that these two things,... posted on Jun 16 2019 (25,443 reads)

or deliver us readily into the gaze of the cosmos, depending on how we approach life in the moment. Much of our freedom depends on cultivating greater perspective about being with uncertainty, however and whenever we can. When we practice grateful living, we create a welcoming space for the surprise of uncertainty, knowing that it arrives naturally in each of those moments when we truly take nothing for granted. Without expectations, life is one surprising unfolding after another. The exact nature of the surprises that arrive in our lives is not up to us, but the nature of our response to surprise is ours and ours alone. Each time we let go and welcome life instead of holding onto our id... posted on Nov 5 2020 (23,133 reads)

the cosmos.  Who could fault anyone for regarding the nightmare as the only reality, the only option?  Naturally, I am subject to programming just like anyone. But perhaps I am fortunate to have familiarity with a potent and primal antidote – a widely available antidote. Alexandre Buisse, Suorvajaure from Vakkotavare, in Stora Sjöfallet Park, northern Sweden. (Wikipedia) I grew up a little wild, and have always sought wildish, mystical thresholds in so-called nature where I could find solace and solitude to track my own wandering, mytho-poetic thoughts, as well as fascinations with the wilder Others.  From the beginning, the wildish Earth was leafed a... posted on Jul 25 2019 (8,279 reads)

and a caring for the sorrow of another. Pity, in turn, derives from piety, Latin pietas, or pius. This in turn means to be dutiful. It’s quite the word salad. I think we can safely say that the idea that the Lord might pity us (care for our fallen state of sin and suffering) is a core meaning in today’s Christian practice; we earnestly wish to be forgiven for our transgressions against a higher, sacred principle. Yet this is a conceptual approach. What’s the nature of experience? In practical terms, Mercy isn’t just an idea or a concept; in its metaphysical and esoteric sense, it’s a substance. That is to say, it’s of a material na... posted on Sep 13 2019 (4,701 reads)

mended fences of excessive safety, false security, and shallow notions of “happiness,” when all the while the world has been inviting us to stride through the unlocked gate and break free into realms of greater promise and possibilities. Our human psyches possess, as capacities, a variety of astonishing resources about which mainstream Western psychology has little to say. By uncovering and reclaiming these innate resources, shared by all of us by simple virtue of our human nature, we can more easily understand and resolve our intrapsychic and interpersonal difficulties as they arise. The alleviation of personal troubles is, of course, important to all of us, but our ... posted on Sep 25 2019 (8,305 reads)

wild. It makes you focus on what really matters, to see such beauty in the shape of birds, plants. On the books publication I began to learn so much more. One of the first lessons was that protest does not have to be loud and angry. What we had made with our book was a hymn of protest against the depletion of our natural world and our place in it. Our hope had been to draw the eye, the heart, and in this I think we have, to a point, been successful. But it also taught me so much about human nature. The book has become a gift, given within families, to schools, to libraries, by so many people working together, giving time, money to campaigns, and these groups of people has become connecte... posted on Dec 12 2019 (6,825 reads)

is what calls from the depths of the soul. It is the song that sings us into life. Whether we have a meaningful life depends upon whether we can hear this song, this primal music of the sacred. The “sacred” is not something primarily religious or even spiritual. It is not a quality we need to learn or to develop. It belongs to the primary nature of all that is. When our ancestors knew that everything they could see was sacred, this was not something taught but instinctively known. It was as natural as sunlight, as necessary as breathing. It is a fundamental recognition of the wonder, beauty and divine nature of the world. And from this sense of the sacred, real meaning... posted on Jan 31 2020 (8,100 reads)

that most major religions have a very similar set of base principles that can be summed up in two points: The self is an illusion of the ego, and consciousness (or God, or life force/chi, or whatever you want to call it) is universal Love yourself and love other beings (plants, animals, people) with the same force (“do unto thy neighbor...”), and make this the guiding principle behind all your actions Journey into wilderness. Much has been written about the tonic of nature — whether you call it “forest bathing” as they do in Japan, or being a hermit a la Thoreau and Muir, go and spend time in places where there are no signs of humans. You cannot... posted on Feb 8 2020 (8,305 reads)

try to re-create ourselves when things fall apart. We return to the solid ground of our self-concept as quickly as possible. (…) When things fall apart, instead of struggling to regain our concept of who we are, we can use it as an opportunity to be open and inquisitive about what has just happened and what will happen next. That is how we turn this arrow into a flower.” — Pema Chödrön A lot is being said these days. Clarity can be hard to come by, silence even more so. Overwhelmed by the cacophony of voices, I sat down to synthesize some perspectives that shine light on the corona crisis. Most of you will already have come across some of thos... posted on Apr 5 2020 (64,179 reads)

to the postage stamp to the buffering icon to Japan’s mobile messaging system deployed in the wake of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami — to explore how we can allay the durational restlessness of our lives. One of the most fascinating and pause-giving chapters of the book uses astrophysics as a lens on waiting — a field in which the greatest discoveries take decades, sometimes centuries, of incubation, prototyping, and testing in the laboratory of reality we call nature. (Take, for instance, the detection of gravitational waves — the most monumental astrophysical breakthrough in our lifetime and the greatest since Galileo — a triumph with a re... posted on Apr 7 2020 (7,179 reads)

lines. Tami Simon: You are explaining to me why I don't like writing that much. [laughs] I would rather speak. It doesn't seem anywhere like the kind of labor… Terry Tempest Williams: Writing…you are creating infrastructure. I think for community. So I think it is a very physical act. You show up and you have a task. On the other hand, writing is also a spiritual practice for me. It is how I come to know the world. It is how I make peace with my own contradictory nature. If I am honest, it is about creating community. And it is trying to make sense of the world that at times makes no sense at all. So that is the candle…that I want to attentive to what c... posted on Apr 12 2020 (7,449 reads)

COVID-19 emergency has exposed our societies’ failure to address the needs of billions of people. Simultaneously, we are witnessing a fundamental truth about human nature: There are those among us eager to exploit the suffering of others for personal gain. We can be reassured, however, by how few of them there are. Their actions contrast starkly with the far greater numbers at all levels of society demonstrating their willingness, even eagerness, to cooperate, share, and sacrifice for the well-being of all. The pandemic has also exposed extreme vulnerabilities in the global market economy, including its long and highly specialized linear supply chains, corporate monopolies shield... posted on May 2 2020 (7,846 reads)

over the previous thirty days. Pulling all of them together in one place was always overwhelming to write as well as to read. But I was angry again. I was writing these dispatches hoping they would wake people up to the crisis upon us, to the fact that we were already off the cliff and needed to begin adapting to our new world. And it was that energy I was taking into my book, thinking the writing would be something along the lines of 75% climate dispatch and 25% personal stories and nature writing. But Gaia had other ideas. When I began going into the field and writing the chapters—from the Amazon, the Great Barrier Reef, Denali in Alaska, and other magical places aro... posted on May 22 2020 (5,320 reads)

year old writer, consultant and activist Margaret Wheatley has studied the cyclical nature of civilizations throughout history and she is quite confident that the end of our civilization is closer than we might like to think. And she is doing something about it… something radical. Wheatley is building an army of 'warriors for the human spirit' with people who want to lessen the suffering in the world - whether it be from natural disasters, political strife, war, famine, or from the tyranny of daily injustices in modern life. Her warriors are trained as leaders with compassion, kindness, servitude and generosity as prime requirements. Wheatley ... posted on Jun 17 2020 (9,321 reads)

to create a space where we are interconnected." I say, "actually we don't; we have to create an awareness." The interconnection is already there. We are interconnected with each other and the Earth. We're from the Earth. We are part of the Earth. We just fail to recognize that. I talk about four splits that are part of the United States and maybe Europe. The splits arose out of that period of racism, colonialism, imperialism, and exploitation. There is a split from nature; a split from the Divine; a split from the Earth; and a split from each other. The final split is the separation between mind and body. Each separation is a wound. Each needs to be addressed an... posted on Jul 18 2020 (5,789 reads)

then I see the incredible beauty of this Earth once more and am re-inspired to remember that the times are calling for us to wake up together.  How does gratefulness inspire you to make change in the world? This work, this practice, this calling, has awakened a feeling of gratefulness in me that has only gotten stronger and stronger as I have gone on. The beauty of life on Earth, this web of life that is so miraculous and so filled with wisdom, the innate wisdom of nature, the nature of life and how diverse and beautiful it is, fills me with humility and awe. I feel so grateful for the opportunity of this precious life to participate in the creative unfolding of... posted on Aug 2 2020 (8,564 reads)

So I think just this idea that there are resources deep within our nervous systems, but there are also resources in the otherness. So for someone like Jung for example, which is—who is represented in the book, the working with the otherness of psyche or the otherness of my ordinary ego consciousness is incredibly important for healing. So I think about the shamanic idea as well of sort of calling out to this otherness, whether we envision that as a friend or an animal or a part of nature.  But I think right now, on this planet, in this world, we could use some sort of high-voltage friendship from a source that might be able to see into what’s happening here in a w... posted on Dec 12 2020 (5,874 reads)

are awakening. And in the West, in contemporary spiritual culture, we really think of that as our relational field, those whom we’re involved with. And so the teacher, our friends that we meditate with, our parents, anyone that we’re in relationship with, can be part of that realization that we’re not separate, and that reminder of the goodness that’s here. Then the third gateway to refuge in the Buddhist tradition is refuge in awareness itself, refuge in our Buddha nature. And that refuge is revealed through the other two refuges. I mean, when we’re paying attention to what’s here in the present moment, what we discover is the awakeness and emptiness... posted on Jan 5 2021 (6,033 reads)

joyful picture was perfectly timed. It required only a steady hand and a willingness to tune in. It would be months before the implications of this seemingly ordinary assignment would fully dawn on me. Its daily rhythm was a reassurance; and the simple activity was salve to the spirit. I discovered joy lurking in the nooks and crannies of everyday scenes. A sandwich pictured with goldfish crackers was an ode to the kindness of a friend; the image of a pinecone, a reminder of nature’s mysterious depths. A snap of a day’s outfit was a nudge to keep going, a pair of shoes, a tribute to how far I’d come. Unable to limit myself to the requisite one pho... posted on Feb 14 2021 (7,229 reads)