unfussy gladnesses readily available in the now, any now. A century after Hermann Hesse extolled “the little joys” as the most important habit for fully present living, Sophie’s list became not an emblem of expectancy but an invitation to presence — not a deferral of life but a celebration of it, of the myriad marvels that come alive as soon as we become just a little more attentive, a little more appreciative, a little more animated by our own elemental nature as “atoms with consciousness” and “matter with curiosity.” â„–5: hugging a friend Sophie began sharing the illustrated meditations on her Instag... posted on May 17 2022 (6,765 reads)

and two other nursing slave mothers that he received adequate nourishment.” When it became amazingly clear that Blyden’s novel was going to finally be available in print, I asked a dear friend, Brandyn Adeo, to write an Afterword for it, in which he takes this powerful story that occurs in 1850 up to the present moment. These words from the Afterward point us to a vision for the future that I know Blyden would also embrace: “In Jackson’s world, the hegemonic nature of white supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy is neither an inevitability nor our destiny. Just as Jackson exposes the evils of systemic racism and white supremacy, he also discloses what Ross Gay... posted on May 31 2022 (2,659 reads)

by the mindfulness work and spiritual practices peacebuilders have been engaging in over the past decades. "I now believe that my own liberation as a Palestinian is not only about ending the Israeli military occupation, but also about addressing all aspects of violence—be they political, social, economic or environmental. Nonviolence is not a tactic to be taken out of the box when it seems fit to use. It is a way of life." Recently, he has been exploring the connection to nature as a peacebuilder’s guide and a comfort—to find the sacred understanding and messages that come through the elements of water and land. Sami and HLT are working with other partners ... posted on Jun 7 2022 (2,137 reads)

canon.  Part of my personal journey has been about operating from a place of empathy and grace for myself in order to expand this container, this vessel, the spirit that holds the whole of my identity, so I can set free the joy within. Rage isn’t going anywhere. Grief isn’t either. What I have to do is be self-aware enough to see when those emotions are about to harm me, and turn my altruism and compassion onto myself.  Some of that work is definitely somatic in nature: identifying joy in the body so we can call it up when we need it. But some of it is just some good ol’ soul work: unlearning the generational response to pleasure that often says too muc... posted on Jun 8 2022 (2,662 reads)

Alexander’s insistence that “it is less about music being scientific and more about the universe being musical.” To discern the neural correlates of improvisation, scientists observed Montero’s brain under three conditions: playing scales, the most prescriptive of all musical structures; playing a memorized Bach piece; and improvising from an initial Bach prompt. They found that the Default Mode Network — the same brain region which time in nature unlooses to make us more creative and which psychedelics shake up — lit up in an entirely different way when she improvised rather than playing from memory. Improvisatio... posted on Jul 10 2022 (2,575 reads)

back on his long and luminous life at age ninety-three, the great cellist Pablo Casals held up one great task before humanity: “to make this world worthy of its children” — those inheritors of the present and living emissaries of the future, whose souls, in Kahlil Gibran’s memorable words, “dwell in the house of tomorrow.” To make of that house a harmonious home — for our own children, and the children of every platypus and every redwood — is the one great calling that unites us all across the infinite divides of our fractured present. One small country, in which 0.0002% of the world’s population lives in on... posted on Aug 6 2022 (3,103 reads)

it by looking—I was the youngest of eleven kids, scrawny and nearly blind in one eye. My father died in a horrific streetcar accident when I was two, and our sole income for years was the small monthly check that arrived in our mailbox courtesy of FDR's recently created social security fund. But I knew I was lucky. I was raised by a mother who gave me a voice. Mary Olivia Gaughan was a quiet, beautiful woman with a magnificent face. She was gentle and easy. Peace and calm were her nature. Nothing rocked her in the essentials: her God, her faith, her belief in our people, her belief in our need to survive and thrive. She was always good, always simple, and an always-present focu... posted on Aug 24 2022 (2,238 reads)

18, 2015 “Drumming may be the oldest form of active meditation known to humanity.” What could meditation and drumming possibly have in common? I’ve been asking myself this question ever since I heard world-famous sound healing expert Jill Purce say “The purpose of sound is silence.” First, both meditation and drumming help us get out of our heads and into our hearts. They just go about it in different ways. In meditation, placing our attention on the breath occupies the mind. In drumming, the rhythm becomes a mantra that captures our attention. You can’t drum while thinking. Both act as mind sweepers; to clear the mental space of worries and n... posted on Sep 6 2022 (4,018 reads)

hold different opinions than we do. When we’re wrong, we seek ways to prove that we’re right, even at a cost to our relationships. And we twist evidence to confirm that we’re indeed correct. Our drive to be right makes it hard to receive feedback. We also desire certainty. We don’t like “not knowing,” and our culture treats any lack of knowledge as inherently bad. At the same time, we’re forced to confront a high degree of uncertainty because of the nature of existence. The world is unpredictable, and because humans are intelligent and have the capacity for self-awareness, we’re able to mentally “project” ourselves into the... posted on Sep 14 2022 (6,087 reads)

Reynolds has designed award-winning gardens and landscapes across the globe. She is a nature activist and reformed landscape designer, because, in her words, "Everything must change. Including me." Her book, The Garden Awakening: Designs to Nurture Our Lands and Ourselves, is"a step-by-step manual to creating a garden in harmony with the life force in the earth, addressing not only what the people in charge of the land want but also asking what the land wants to become." Reynolds is also the founder of the international garden rewilding movement, 'We Are the Ark,' Ark standing for Acts of Restorative Kindness. Her groundbreaking work invites people all over t... posted on Sep 19 2022 (6,601 reads)

typically called meditation these days. We can forget about questions like “Am I doing it right?” Each one of us—in our own way—knows what silence feels like. It’s something inherent to being human. It’s a gift of renewal that’s available to us, always, even if it’s sometimes hidden. This is a book about why and how to find silence. It’s about how to understand and manage the noise, so that we can more consciously tune-in to nature, to one another, and to the sonic essence of life itself. In Part One, we’ll explore the meaning of noise—as unwanted distraction at the auditory, informational, and internal... posted on Oct 4 2022 (3,227 reads)

time, I suspect that most people largely ignore black-caps, don’t give them much thought, simply because they are so common (those who put out bird feeders being exceptions to that rule). And because they’re small and “ordinary,” they’re easy to overlook, easy to take for granted. Here I’ll show many of the ways that black-capped chickadees are in fact among the most extraordinary creatures with whom we share this northern landscape, their exceptional nature documented by researchers who’ve closely examined their lives. I’ll begin with this: black-capped chickadees have outstanding memories.  Starting in summer, these small w... posted on Oct 18 2022 (7,316 reads)

no spiritual life that does not involve, does not start, intimately and inescapably, with the Earth.” The Rev. Fletcher Harper believes that he felt God while mourning his father’s death on a solo camping trip in Montana. A violent hailstorm struck one night, and he sought shelter in the lee of a rock. “At about three in the morning, I felt this deep sense of well-being,” he recalls. “I realized that I was going to be OK. I thought, ‘I can move on with my life now.’” Later in his life and career when interviewing hundreds of people from a broad spectrum of religious and non-religious backgrounds, he discovered th... posted on Nov 17 2022 (1,995 reads)

It was raining in the Bay Area, that’s like heaven sent. We’ve been desperate for rain, so the rain was glorious. We came back, and life was completely transformed. So we shifted our conversation. And we’re the same people, the circumstances are the same, all the things we complained about were still there. But we knew that we had the power to shift our conversation and therefore our experience of life. So whether you asked what’s true, I don’t know, I feel nature is true actually. That’s one place where I can always find the truth for myself, or what I’m calling the truth. But how I relate to what’s going on is where I have power and w... posted on Dec 31 2022 (4,065 reads)

organization that has now touched thousands of young lives, across three facilities in Mumbai as well as 18 other facilities in India. At its core Sachi's work reminds us of each person's fundamental belonging, of the beauty inherent in wholeness, and the power and freedom that come from recognizing we are not the labels that others, or we ourselves place on our lives. The following interview opens a window on Sachi's unique journey.  Given the nature of the work being described, the following interview does contain some references to suicide and violent events. Reader discretion advised. RICHARD WHITTAKER:   Sach... posted on Jan 9 2023 (2,484 reads)

merge into a synchronized pattern. We sense that we are part of something larger, a community, a pattern of energy, an idea of the times — or what we might call the sacred. Complement with the poetic physicist Alan Lightman on music and the universe, Nick Cave on music, feeling, and transcendence in the age of algorithms, and some thoughts on music and the price of what we cherish, then revisit the kindred science of “soft fascination” and how nature helps us think. ... posted on Jan 16 2023 (3,690 reads)

of his martial art competitions, his sensei took him in a field one day and handed him a rock. "Use all your might and throw it as far as you can." After he did that, his teacher hands him a leaf. "Now, do the same with the leaf." Naturally, the leaf went nowhere. "If you are in a rock place in yourself, you will see a world full of dense rocks. But when you hold a leaf consciousness, you will see that your greatest strength lies in aligning with the winds of nature." As we harmonize with those larger winds, "the inescapable network of mutuality”, we soar through the skies like the murmurations of starlings, in elegant formations divined... posted on Feb 2 2023 (9,057 reads)

FUERTH LEMLE April 11,1916---April 17, 2011 For the first 58 years of my life, I would have to say that my relationship to my mother was a complex and difficult one. She was a huge personality, full of great passions, creativity, rages, and generosity. I remember saying to friends that I loved my mother in small doses, but that she didn't come in small doses. She was a force of nature. She had no sense of boundaries; my memory of going to restaurants with Edna, was that as the waiter placed my plate in front of me, her fork would be in my food before I was even able to lift my own. She would often just show up at my house anywhere in the world, uninvited. She was also very contro... posted on Jul 1 2016 (46,663 reads)

individual and a change in the relation to the cosmos. Such an energy has been called “communion.” It is a kind of participation. The early Christians had a Greek word koinonia, the root of which means “to participate”—the idea of partaking of the whole and taking part in it; not merely the whole group, but the whole. This is what I mean by “dialogue.” I suggest that through dialogue there is the possibility for a transformation of the nature of consciousness, both individually and collectively. ... posted on Feb 12 2023 (4,039 reads)

of today's society is designed through the lens of financial wealth, but is our world richer for it? Nipun Mehta uses that question as a springboard to make a compelling case for alternative forms of wealth that are often overlooked -- like time, community and attention. Drawing on his personal journey with ServiceSpace, as well as fascinating research and real-world examples, below is the transcript of an inspiring TEDx talk that invites listeners to consider a catalytic question: what forms of wealth do we care to amplify?] Decades ago, one of my friends was volunteering with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, India, and one of these major donors walks into the place, checks ... posted on Apr 19 2016 (51,621 reads)