Seeing the Whole
Our world is much richer, more beautiful, and more complex than we think--and it's all happening right now, in this very moment. By widening our awareness to include the entire planet, encompassing both what we can and can't see, we move toward a vision of earth where we are not merely on it, but a vital part in its processes. Consider the superhuman abilities of animals to see, hear, and smell be... posted on Aug 5, 10726 reads

Taking an Empowered and Creative View Towards Technology
Social change pioneer Tiffany Shlain is changing the conversation around how we relate to technology. Instead of thinking of our devices as separate from us, we should think of them as an extension of who we are, she argues. "We're now living in a culture that's so 24/7, and there's no moments of reflection. We don't have that embedded into our lives anymore." A filmmaker, activist, and public spe... posted on Aug 11, 6211 reads

Ann Medlock: Sticking Her Neck Out for Our Common Humanity
"There is a fundamentalist mindset that is manifesting all over the world, and the fundamental mind says, "There are no questions. There are only answers, and they are in the book" (whatever book they believe in and are referring to). So, anybody who has questions is a mystery to them... I've never been one of those people...I got called to my son's junior high school, and his teacher said, "You h... posted on May 10, 11960 reads

Alabama's Four-Year-Old Superhero
"Terance Perine, Austins father, said his son decided to help the homeless on a weekly basis after watching a show on Animal Planet in which a panda left her cubs alone. "And I said, 'Well, I guess it's going to be homeless for a while,'" Perine told local station WPMI. "And he said, 'Are people homeless?' and I said, 'Yeah, some of them.' And he asked me to take him to see a homeless person." Fat... posted on May 24, 9263 reads

Myron Eshowky: A Deeper Listening
"When I was 6 years old, I began to go for an hour every day, before school had started, to work with a speech therapist who taught me to put my hand on her throat, and my throat, and then focus on matching her vibration as she would make a sound, because I had to learn how to talk. One of the things I noted right away was that when we matched vibration, I became really connected with her. It was ... posted on Oct 8, 9879 reads

The Practice of Walking
When was the last time you connected with nature, paused to take note of your surroundings, or admired a simple sunrise? The hurried way by which we often live our lives can distract us from the beauty of the natural world that surrounds us. Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee and Hilary Hart suggest that the simple practice of walking can help reconnect us to the web of life, and the soul-awakening moments it ... posted on Jul 5, 19561 reads

Getting Proximate to Pain and Holding the Power of Love
In this interview, On Being's Krista Tippett speaks with Lucas Johnson and Rami Nashashibi about the impact of growing up in minority communities, the influence of social change leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, the ideas of justice, love, and more. Lucas Johnson is an ordained minster, writer, and social activist in Amsterdam, who serves as the coordinator for the Internation... posted on Aug 19, 5497 reads

Repairing the Fabric of the World
"I met Jonathan F.P. Rose in Manhattan, the week a snow storm knocked out power in much of the Northeast. Heating by woodstove and carrying water home from the local fire station for five long, cold days left me feeling a bit rough and smoky, not to mention unprepared, to be sitting in the comfortable offices of his company in a historic old building near Grand Central Station. Yet the moment I me... posted on Jul 14, 9424 reads

You Are Me and I Am You
The idea that we are one unified whole on this planet is a growing awareness across the globe. This awareness is made palpable and even aided by one of the positive aspects of the internet; that is, the ability to share events, feelings and consciousness at the same time on a worldwide level. Pierre Pradervand is a writer and social justice activist who is dedicated to helping others live in this ... posted on Sep 10, 11039 reads

War No More: David Swanson
David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is the director of WorldBeyondWar.org, a campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org, a prolific writer, and the most recent recipient of the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation's 2018 Peace Prize. The values he lives by are "be courageous but generous; try to make the world a better place; pack up and start over as needed -- physically ... posted on Jan 28, 6252 reads

The Man Who Moved a Mountain
Dashrath Manjhi lived in a remote town in northern India that lacked water supply, electricity, a school, and a medical center. "He was an outcast, a landless labourer who had to trek across an entire mountain every day, just to reach the farm that he worked on." The treacherous journey took hours and was filled with danger from falling rocks and steep paths. When his wife fell and injured herself... posted on Oct 9, 19924 reads

9/11 Brought Them Together. They've Been Spreading Love Since
On a day when division and hate became tangible on a large scale in America, three minsters from different religions were moved by their faith to make peace. 9/11 marked a violent awakening of hate for some, but for Rabbi Ted Falcon of Bet Alef Meditative Synagogue, Reverend Don Mackenzie, a minister and head of staff at the University Congregational United Church of Christ, and Jamal Rahman, a M... posted on Oct 13, 6028 reads

Jewels in the Dirt: In Conversation with Lobsang Phuntsok
Lobsang Phuntsok is a former Tibetan monk who trained with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and spent years teaching Buddhism and meditation in the West. In 2006, he disrobed and moved back to his native India, establishing a community in the Himalayan foothills for orphans and impoverished children. The community originally started with 34 children, and over the last decade has grown to house 85 child... posted on Oct 18, 123342 reads

The Boy Who Wanted to Go to School
With hard work, determination, a little serendipity, and a lot of heart, Wubetu Shimelash made it all the way from a remote region of Ethiopia to a prominent U.S. university. This man who once fashioned sandals out of tires now dons a fedora and impresses everyone with his positive attitude, joyous spirit, and infectious smile. It is a story of true success--both for him personally, and for the co... posted on Nov 13, 19821 reads

The Japanese Words for "Space"
"Thinking about spaces in a more ‘Japanese’ way can open up new ways of organizing our lives and focusing on the relationships that matter to us. Building spaces that deepen relationships (wa), generate new knowledge (ba), connect to the world around us (tokoro), and allow moments of quiet and integration (ma) can enrich our experience of the world and that of those around us." Instea... posted on Nov 23, 6049 reads

Gardening and the Secret of Happiness
"By a shower of gifts and a heavy rain of lessons," a good mother loves her children. This is how author and botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer came to the awakening of true happiness as she realized that the time spent and lost in her garden were the happiest moments of her days. Like her children lost in the wonder of digging in the soil, Kimmerer saw what was most important in her life as she was pic... posted on Nov 18, 8035 reads

K9s for Warriors: Together We Stand
Sometimes it's not the human who rescues the dog, but the dog who rescues the human. K9s for Warriors, a program based out of Ponte Verda, Florida, was established in 2011 to help soldiers experiencing PTSD and other war trauma disabilities. The dogs are trained to be service dogs and address symptoms in their owners such as anxiety, isolation, depression, and nightmares, often serving in conjunct... posted on Nov 15, 10553 reads

She Won an Ultramarathon Wearing a Skirt and Rubber Sandals
Competing against 500 runners from 12 countries, 22-year-old Mara Lorena Ramrez won first place among women in a 50k (31 mile) race in Puebla, Mexico, wearing a traditional skirt and hand-fashioned sandals and carrying little more than a water bottle. Ramrez had no formal training and spends much of her time herding goats and cattle in Guachochi, Mexico. She comes from the indigenous community of ... posted on Nov 25, 12102 reads

Unity and the Power of Love
"Unity holds the essential vision that we are one living, interconnected ecosystem -- a living Earth that supports and nourishes all of its inhabitants. If we acknowledge and honor this simple reality, we can begin to participate in the vital work of healing our fractured and divisive world and embrace a consciousness of oneness that is our human heritage. This is the opportunity that is being off... posted on Nov 7, 9117 reads

Proust On Memory and Madeleines
"But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more immaterial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their ... posted on Nov 9, 37361 reads

The Gift of Presence and the Perils of Advice
Parker Palmer is the founder and senior partner of the Center for Courage and Renewal. His work teaches us to connect with others through our authentic self. His courses help to develop courageous leadership and collectively evolve our spirits for social change. With humor and heart, Parker shares his perspectives on advice giving vs the gift of our presence. Leading us into presence with uncondit... posted on Jan 1, 15345 reads

The Extra-Ordinarily Committed Life of Lynne Twist
"We get to meet a lot of amazing, powerful leaders in our work here at Conscious Company and yet some people stand out even more from that rarified group. Lynne Twist is one of those standouts. She's a rare combination of driven and playful; flexible, yet clear. She brings a laser-sharp focus to living her values. She's relentless in her pursuit of changing the dream of modern society, and it's no... posted on Dec 7, 10779 reads

Consider Your Wake
Many of us like to consider the impact we make as a "footprint" we leave behind. But what if instead of a footprint, we imagined our actions leaving a wake? In this article, Andy Smallman explores how the metaphor of a boat in the water can be applied to our daily decisions and interpersonal exchanges. Just as a boat creates waves that affect the vessels around it, so too do our words and actions ... posted on Dec 15, 7769 reads

My Word of the Year
"My word of the year is listen. Its one of those words whose meaning is in its music. Listen is a quiet word, that half swallowed L and diffident I and softly hissing S. It defies the clamorous words it absorbs, the words that have defined this year, the shouts and roars, the bray and bluster. Listening is hard when the sounds around us grow mean and ugly. And listening takes particular courage in... posted on Jan 6, 8886 reads

A Moment with Mr. Rogers
"I interviewed Fred Rogers, creator and host of television's Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, by telephone a few years before he died. The occasion was the publication of his new book. Mister Rogers arrived on television after I grew up but I'd watched his show with our young daughter. She and I both preferred the often frantic Sesame Street, finding the Neighborhood a bit slow, sometimes a bit boring... posted on Mar 17, 9481 reads

The Geography of Sorrow
In this interview, psychotherapist Francis Weller, author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief, invites us to view grief as a visitor to be welcomed, not shunned. He reminds us that, in addition to feeling pain over the loss of loved ones, we harbor sorrows stemming from the state of the world, the cultural maladies we inherit, and the misunderstood parts of ... posted on Feb 26, 62105 reads

Welcome to Fearless Dialogues. Are You Ready for Change?
Gregory Ellison II founded the non-profit organization Fearless Dialogues in 2013. In just 6 years they have worked with over 50,000 people worldwide. Fearless Dialogues provides safe space for seeing and hearing those who have been overlooked, forming unlikely alliances and engaging in hard conversations about difficult subjects like racism, classism, and community violence. Ellison is an associa... posted on May 20, 6333 reads

Thoughts in Passing
Artist Claudia Bicen spent two years meeting with, interviewing and drawing nine individuals approaching the ends of their lives. Through interviews, portraits and ultimately videos of their conversations, she sought to answer the question, "How should I live?" Her intent was also to "shine a light onto the darkness that covers death and dying in our culture and in doing so take away some of the f... posted on Apr 9, 13290 reads

The Naked Voice: Transforming Life through the Power of Sound
"Your voice is as unique as your twelve-stranded DNA. However, many don't know how to access it. Our schools and social conditioning don't offer many clues. Yet the human voice is everyone's birthright. It is a universal given, a bridge between the worlds, the soul's messenger, a gift of spirit capable of inspiring evolutionary shifts in consciousness. Your authentic singing voice is the muscle an... posted on Mar 18, 8186 reads

Students on Immigration and Unjust Assumptions
The treatment of immigrants and immigration policies in America are hot button topics. These policies, often seen as unlawful and dehumanizing, are catalyzing people across the nation to speak up for change. Prompted by YES! Magazine's winter 2019 student writing competition and Lornet Turnbull's article "Two-Thirds of Americans Live in the "Constitution-Free Zone", eight powerful young voices joi... posted on Mar 26, 0 reads

All My Best Words Were Hers: A Tribute to Ursula Le Guin
The impact of literature and specifically, an author, on a person can be "unfathomable." In this tender tribute, Isaac Yuen recounts the many ways Ursula K. Le Guin influenced his life and his writing. He admits he is "only a fan." He confesses his inadequacy in expressing how her work guides his: "I write about how reading her words transported me to strange worlds and into new souls, how that sp... posted on Apr 30, 6998 reads

J.B. Priestley on Life's Delights
"I followed a path that led me into one of these woods, through a tunnel of green gloom and smoky blue dusk. It was very quiet, very remote, in there. My feet sank into the pile of the pine needles. The last bright tatters of sunlight vanished. Some bird went whirring and left behind a deeper silence. I breathed a different air, ancient and aromatic." A joyful observer of the quotidian, playwright... posted on May 2, 6510 reads

Kazu Haga: The Creation of Our Beloved Community
Kazu Haga is a nonviolence trainer and founder of the East Point Peace Academy in Oakland, California. East Point Peace Academy envisions a world where historic conflicts are fully reconciled and where new conflict arises solely as an opportunity for deeper growth. Where the depth of human relations are so high that it allows each individual to attain their fullest human potential. Kazu works in p... posted on Apr 8, 6548 reads

Wangari Maathai: Marching with Trees
The late Wangari Maathai--biologist, environmentalist, and the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize--founded the Green Belt Movement to create designated areas of park, farm, and uncultivated land around communities. It has contributed to the planting of over 52 million trees. Across two decades, she was at times beaten and imprisoned as she battled powerful economic forces and Kenya's t... posted on May 28, 5265 reads

Organizations Beyond Ego
Join Tami Simon from Sounds True in this evolutionary interview with Frederic Laloux, business analyst and author of Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness, perhaps the most influential business book of this decade. What does it mean to move beyond ego--in the business world? How do we balance fulfilling financial obligations ... posted on May 13, 7791 reads

A Gathering of Men with Robert Bly
In this interview between Bill Moyers and poet Robert Bly, they explore the confusion men feel about their roles in society and in their inner lives. In retreats like A Gathering of Men, their sense of loss is met with a sense of hope. Men learn from one another through sharing and listening to the wisdom, writings, and poetry of men like Bly. A father figure at these gatherings, Bly is an essayi... posted on Jul 20, 4386 reads

Vesuvius at Home: The Power of Emily Dickinson
"For years I have been not so much envisioning Emily Dickinson as trying to visit, to enter her mind, through her poems and letters, and through my own intimations of what it could have meant to be one of the two mid-19th-century American geniuses, and a woman, living in Amherst, Massachusetts. Of the other genius, Walt Whitman, Dickinson wrote that she had heard his poems were "disgraceful." She ... posted on Jul 17, 4554 reads

The Teachings of Grass
How do we relate to the land that sustains us--as a source of belonging or as a source of belongings? As the planet teeters on the brink of environmental collapse, botanist, teacher, and author Robin Wall Kimmerer urges us to consider our broken relationship to the Earth and the hard choices that lie before us by examining the history of her Potawatomi ancestors. Through cultivating the sense of r... posted on Jul 21, 2803 reads

Petra Wolf: Many Rivers Flowing
An early sense of abandonment, a missing gravestone, and an inheritance promised to her in a dream, were all part of the unusual chain of events that led Petra Wolf, a hairdresser-turned-environmental engineer, to the Camino de Santiago, and to Michael--the man she would one day marry. Over 15 years they followed an inner call and embraced the unknown together, walking to Jerusalem, sailing to Ind... posted on Aug 3, 5920 reads

A Man Without Words: The Story of a Contemporary Miracle
"When I met this man he was twenty-seven years old. Because he didn't know there was sound, because he didn't know he was deaf, he didn't know there was hearing and deafness. He studied lips and mouths. He knew something was happening. He's a very smart man. He'd be staring at lips. He'd stare at your mouth and he'd stare at this person's lips and he thought he was stupid. He thought he was stupid... posted on Aug 13, 3151 reads

Conscience and Resistance
At 20 Scott Russell Sanders was faced with whether to join the Vietnam conflict or find "a refuge from the pressures of a society obsessed with buying stuff, having fun, and waging war." Influenced by Thomas Merton's essay, "Rain and the Rhinoceros" to make a critical choice which you can read about here, he goes on to explain in this beautiful essay how he has found a life for himself beyond viol... posted on Aug 22, 5601 reads

The Animal Rescuer of Assam
Manoj Gogoi is a 44-year old father of two and self-taught naturalist dedicating his life to assisting the people and animals of India live in harmony. Through his tireless efforts thousands of animals have been rescued and returned to the wild. More than that, he has inspired others to volunteer with him and begun to alter the attitude and actions of people to consider the place of wildlife in th... posted on Sep 21, 5088 reads

Who Decides History's Future?
"The West is wrestling with its colonial heritage in the most literal sense: its museums teem with treasure taken on conquests abroad. Crowns and swords, books and bones. The breadth of culture ripped from its home is hard to comprehend, as is the sheer scale of it: ninety percent of Africas art is held on other continents. Imagine the Liberty Bell gone, Versailles stripped of its Hall of Mirrors,... posted on Aug 29, 4745 reads

Diane Ackerman: 100 Names for Love
Diane Ackerman, best selling author of A Natural History of the Senses, An Alchemy of Mind, and The Zookeeper's Wife, has built a reputation on her poetic sensibility and uncanny knack for scouting out connections between the heavens, Earth, and everything in between. In her latest memoir, One Hundred Names for Love: a Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing, Ackerman navigates between the... posted on Sep 23, 2994 reads

How to Make #My Khartoum Cool
"Andariya was established by Omnia Shawkat and Salma Amin, Sudanese women in their late twenties who saw the gap in bi-lingual digital cultural content on Sudan and South Sudan. Both Omnia and Salma were members of the Sudanese diaspora when they began planning for Andariya, as an active and engaging platform for Sudanese and South Sudanese inside and outside the Sudans." ... posted on Nov 12, 1269 reads

Call of the Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees
"Call of the Forest" is a documentary that follows visionary scientist, conservationist and author, Diana Beresford-Kroeger, on her journey to the most beautiful forests of the northern hemisphere. From the sacred sugi and cedar forests of Japan, the ancient Raheen Wood of Ireland, the walnut and redwood trees of America, to the great boreal forest of Canada, Beresford-Kroeger tells us the amazing... posted on Sep 26, 7492 reads

9 Inspiring Stories of Solidarity with Refugees and Migrants
While governments seal borders and erect walls, ordinary people are offering support and shelter. These nine inspiring stories of solidarity will encourage, uplift and incite you to action. Migrant offshore Aid Station rescues migrants along the central Mediterranean route from Libya to Italy. Miksaliste helps as many as 1,000 refugees a day in the heart of Belgrade. Lawal Dan Gashua, the Chair of... posted on Oct 17, 2828 reads

Ian Chillag: Everything Is Alive
Ian Chillag is the host and creator of the original podcast 'Everything is Alive,' in which inanimate objects are interviewed. The inventive, funny and frequently poignant series is almost entirely improvised. "We cast actors, and I have a running list of objects. When we find someone we like, and we have a couple objects that we've vetted through some research, we give them a couple to choose fro... posted on Oct 10, 2136 reads

Falling in Love With the Earth
"The natural world is one of the most resplendent and consistent sources of generosity in our lives whether we experience it directly moment-to-moment or not. When we allow ourselves to tune in and pay attention, our Earth is perpetually nourishing and providing for us, sustaining life and offering its abundant gifts with a breathtaking and consistent flourish. We are fed, literally and figurativ... posted on Nov 25, 6700 reads

Milo Runkle: Expanding Our Sphere of Concern
After witnessing the brutal handling of a live piglet brought into school for dissection, Milo Runkle discovered that the current legal system offered no recourse for him to press charges on behalf of the animal. The experience spurred him to found Mercy for Animals when he was 15 years old. Over the last 20 years, that organization has become an important group to assist in the move away from fac... posted on Dec 5, 4973 reads