remodeling itself as you learn from your experiences. When you repeatedly stimulate a “circuit” in the brain, you strengthen it. The brain operates so rapidly—with neurons routinely firing 5-50 times a second—that you can grow resilience and well-being many times a day, taking a minute or less each time. To have beneficial experiences in the first place, it helps to be alert to the good facts around you—for example, fortunate circumstances, the beauty of nature, tasks you are completing, people who care about you, or your own talents and skills. You can even find the good in hard times, such as seeing the kindness of others as you go through a loss. ... posted on Apr 24 2018 (26,440 reads)

EASTERN CHEROKEE TRADITIONS RESTORED IN THE MOUNTAINS OF VERMONT FROM THE TRAIL OF TEARS TO THE LEGALIZED OPPRESSION OF THEIR SPIRITUAL PRACTICES, THE EASTERN CHEROKEE PEOPLE HAVE A HISTORY FILLED WITH VIOLENCE AND PAIN. THIS, HOWEVER, IS A STORY OF RESILIENCE, TRUTH-TELLING, SANCTUARY, AND SERVICE. Nestled in a valley within the Green Mountains of Vermont is a place called Odali Utugi—The Sunray Peace Village. Odali Utugi means Hope Mountain. On this beautiful 27-acre site, Sunray Meditation Society has, since 1987, been creating a Peace Village for today’s world, modeled after the Cherokee Peace Villages of the last century. It is a place where people of a... posted on May 31 2018 (9,536 reads)

incredible how much arises from it. The neurons themselves are immensely beautiful. Their shapes are a testament to how chaos rules our environment. You see the shapes of neurons in tree branches, lightning bolts, and cracks in the pavement. It’s often times the shape that you get when you have some force that’s causing a line to be elongated. It’s energy finding the path of least resistance. That’s wonderful, the ability to see the neurons displayed over and over in nature. It’s incredible. You see neural shapes in galactic super clusters; thousands of galaxies oriented within the universe. You’re just kind of scratching your head, asking what does... posted on May 7 2018 (11,688 reads)

is possible for them. So they are both speaking into existence their own narrative and their own future, and then also actively participating in changing the landscape of who can come after them. And I think that’s revolutionary. And it makes me think of the word “flux,” which you have on your website, with the definition: “the action or process of flowing and continuous change.” We are always changing and the world is always changing, it’s up to us and nature what that change looks like. I wonder how you think of yourself and your poetry in relation to that word “flux.” Yeah, I mean, man, if we’re not in continuous change, like,... posted on Jun 17 2018 (10,702 reads)

mean. That 1.618 is in your DNA, in galaxies, in trees, and in beauty. Whenever you see something a human has made that is absolutely gorgeous, you can probably find that equation in that thing because we are attuned to seeing and creating that beauty. The cover of a book I did just a few years ago is a gorgeous photograph of a cut nautilus shell, which is a perfect expression of that mathematical formula. So for me that was powerful proof that there is order. I’m not sure what the nature of that order is, but it is sacred. It's everywhere, and we didn't put it there.  I wrote something a long time ago called “Clergy,” in which I said that my clergy a... posted on May 10 2018 (11,713 reads)

sense me, ready to break into being at your touch? But gradually over time, as the mind relaxed, capacities bred by my earlier Christian experience resurfaced and infused my understanding of Buddhism. The presence that I became aware of, around and within me, is apprehended through an act of rapt, wordless attention, receptive and probing. And what the presence seems to be is the web itself, the thrumming relationality of all things. Rilke’s recognition of the reciprocal nature of our relationship with God, and even with life, is itself a poetic and profoundly personal complement to the Buddha’s central doctrine of dependent co-arising. Asserting the radical int... posted on Jun 25 2018 (10,709 reads)

2016, the Harvard biologist emeritus and naturalist E.O. Wilson (TED Talk: Advice to a young scientist) published Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life, in which he proposes that half the earth’s surface be designated and protected as conservation land. Just since 1970, human beings have destroyed more than 30 percent of forests and the marine ecosystem, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature. The destruction has been an unintended consequence of population growth, the desire for increased material wealth and comfort, and the associated need for more energy. It’s also been driven by the inexorable imperative of capitalism and the powerful desir... posted on May 20 2018 (135,028 reads)

Like everyone, I have several circles of support. For me these include (in no particular order): my family, especially my husband and my brother; fellow writers and poetry teachers; fellow Amirah volunteers; friends-in-faith; and, my amazing therapist. When I was teaching the survivors I made sure to regularly engage with these folks. I kept up dates with my husband. Every week I called my friend-in-faith, Lenka, who lives in California. I also made time to take my kids out to do activities in nature so we could laugh together and relax. These were conscious moments of connection. When we’re connected to others and present to others, light find us and enters us. When we let light in, ... posted on Jun 30 2018 (12,614 reads)

from your old life to a new life by a being far larger than yourself, you start to panic. You start crawling up the sides of your box. You wish you never asked for more. You contemplate breaking out of the plan you made for yourself and for a better life. You consider going back to the mindless job you hate, returning to that lover who pays the bills and steps on your heart, taking that drink or pill instead of continuing to make amends and stay sober. Miracles are terrifying. By their very nature, miracles are solutions to a problem that you and the world cannot provide. And miracles, like love itself, can never be forced upon us. Miracles require our participation to germinate and g... posted on Jul 25 2018 (13,173 reads)

toward them. Letters to a Young Poet — which also gave us Rilke on what it really means to love, the life-expanding value of uncertainty, and why we read — remains one of the most beautiful, profound, and timeless works ever composed. Complement this particular portion with Rachel Carson on writing and the loneliness of creative work and Virginia Woolf on the relationship between loneliness and creativity, then revisit Rilke on the nature of creativity. ... posted on Jul 8 2018 (11,578 reads)

traveler running faster. Warrior is born. Battle to be won. Past trauma, future hurt. I’m a child of the dirt and I'm ready to give birth. Planting a dream. Panting, I breathe. Running towards the future with a handful of seeds. Stronger than greed. I am stronger than hate. I stand under the shade of trees planted so long ago. A product of ancestral love, I’m here because my elders danced in the sun. They would give it all up for us and from day one it was practiced like religion to prepare for the ones to come. We are here to give all our love to the ones unborn. ... posted on Sep 23 2018 (15,368 reads)

being. And you’re not in a position to challenge them either—when you’re already vulnerable. Yeah, I felt very small a lot of the time. And I just expected that was normal, that they are the heroes. I remember one of the first pediatricians we met was trying to explain chromosomes to me. We had been living in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for two weeks and Evie had undergone so many tests, and he was trying to explain the long and short arms of the chromosome, the nature of splitting and how it all works. I was sleep deprived, recovering from a caesarean and emotionally exhausted, and I thought he was telling me that Evie had short arms. I was really confused b... posted on Aug 27 2018 (8,946 reads)

samadhi, an experience in which objects lose their separateness and are perceived ecstatically as being elements in a vast and borderless oneness. The astronaut was a hard-nosed scientist who had been trained as an aeronautical engineer and a test pilot. His experience on the way home to Earth, however, was a game changer. It inspired him to set up in 1973 the Institute of Noetic Sciences, a nonprofit charged with investigating a whole range of psychic and spiritual phenomena, and the nature of human consciousness. I couldn't help but think about Mitchell as I walked through "Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration," a new exhibition at the American Mu... posted on Sep 16 2018 (13,814 reads)

churn of the internet. What does it tell us about the condition of our hearts when we are reactive and not engaging in slow contemplation? The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tze reminds us that “knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.” Tending to our internal landscapes and cultivating wisdom and character is paramount to maintaining integrity as an activist. Whether through practices steeped in spirituality, religion, movement, ancient texts, nature or any kind of higher power, some sort of internal practice is necessary for sustaining ourselves. For example, Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza goes against popular opinion and es... posted on Oct 24 2018 (8,273 reads)

wise abbot decided to teach his students about the nature of light and darkness.  He brought them to a desolate cave and sealed the door.  It was completely dark.  “Find a way to dispel the darkness,” he told them. One monk found a large stick. “I will beat the darkness,” he said.  That will fix it.” The second monk found a broom and said, “I will sweep the darkness away.” The third monk pulled out a shovel, saying “I will dig a deep hole and the darkness will escape.” Nothing worked.  The darkness persisted. Then a fourth monk found a candle. He lit the candle and revealed other candles stash... posted on Oct 27 2018 (8,381 reads)

summer, I invited our congregation to participate in a kindness challenge. I said, “Approach strangers and ask, ‘Is there anything I can do or say to help you have a better day?’ Since I encouraged the congregation to engage in this practice, I thought I should give it a try as well. Not that I wanted to. At all. I had many concerns. I’m reclusive by nature. I was afraid people would think I was weird. Or even worse, people would ask me to give something beyond my capacity to give – and then I would feel like a disappointment when I couldn’t deliver. I often tell people to serve beyond their comfort zone t... posted on Oct 6 2018 (11,719 reads)

as well as story-sharing to more accurately reflect the stories and themes we witness everyday. Today, there are thousands of Dinner Partiers active at 234 current tables in over 90 cities and towns worldwide, powered by a staff of seven: three full-time and four part-time. How does TDP fill a need for millennials who are grieving? How do you connect with people who could benefit from TDP? The common thread in our community isn’t type of loss, how a person died, or the nature of their relationship — it’s the fact that most people are among the first in our peer community to go through this. It’s not unusual for a 25-year-old to go to a grief sup... posted on Oct 10 2018 (9,425 reads)

and another three were dead of an “unidentified sickness”. These outbreaks took place within a year in a population of 3000. He knew that treatment in fourth camp was sometimes sporadic and continued isolation of the infected monks was not maintained with regularity. -------- With highly effective treatment so close by it seemed unacceptable to me that so many cases of tuberculosis should go undiagnosed and not treated properly. He stated that the Tibetans were non-compliant by nature and difficult to keep track of since they regularly travel through India and between different Tibetan colonies all over the country.The reality, however, was that although the government had p... posted on Mar 14 2019 (5,485 reads)

of our culture not only does not reward, it tends to ridicule. A lot of what we call men’s sport is really a subtle quest for meditation, and for honoring this need we have for space. And even a lot of conflict between men and women, husbands and wives, is over silence. I think as a gender, women tend to be more extroverted—that is, to talk their issues out in circles of other women, for example, and then also at home, with their husbands. Whereas many men are more introverted by nature, and we have to process it silently. So there’s often this conflict between talking out issues, and kind of processing them. Tsomo: Processing them verbally versus inside? Matt: Yes... posted on Oct 20 2018 (10,507 reads)

which are true and which are false. Between word and word plenty of difference Churn out the essence-word True words are not easy to recognize. They call for a kind of listening, which we are not accustomed to doing: My speech is of the East, no one understands me. Kabir says, rare listeners hear the song right. When we develop the faculty of listening, we will be able to understand much more than the meaning of the words spoken. We will also know the nature of the speaker. On this riverbank, saints or thieves? You'll know as soon as they talk. The character deep within comes out by the road of the mouth. Into a lion... posted on Nov 19 2018 (14,231 reads)