Kindness Is Everywhere
"Let me tell you about Don. He's a retired DC firefighter, about to turn 89, living alone in his Maryland apartment. Father of six, grandfather to a tribe, he's an Irishman, and darn proud of it. Around the start of the pandemic, he dropped me a line out of the blue, a reader offering his take on my novel 'Beneath the Same Stars'. Since then, we've struck up a fairly regular email correspondence. ... posted on Aug 4, 8599 reads

Infinite Potential: The Life and Ideas of David Bohm
Infinite Potential is a new film that "takes us on a mystical and scientific journey into the nature of life and reality with David Bohm, the man Einstein called his spiritual son and the Dalai Lama his science guru. A physicist and explorer of Consciousness, Bohm turned to Eastern wisdom to develop groundbreaking insights into the profound interconnectedness of the Universe and our place within i... posted on Aug 1, 16114 reads

Beyond Hope: Letting Go of a World in Collapse
"The rapid acceleration of violent events around the globe: the uprising of religious fundamentalism, xenophobia, homophobia, speciesism, misogyny, societal breakdown, mass animal die-offs, the unparalleled disintegration of the cryosphere, and the rapid decay of our very biosphere; it all weighs heavy on my mind and heart. There is no denying that we are living through what scientists are calling... posted on Aug 25, 8429 reads

Human Connections in 'This Brilliant Darkness'
"This Brilliant Darkness is a book born of insomnia. It's a collection of snapshots and written profiles by author Jeff Sharlet that take us deep into other people's lives. And by doing that, Sharlet says, he's really trying to tell us his own story. "I originally sort of thought of it as a memoir through other people's lives. It's bookended by two heart attacks, my father's, and then two years la... posted on Aug 14, 3606 reads

The Waters of Heterodoxy
"In The Fourth Phase of Water, Gerald Pollack [an award-winning and highly acclaimed professor) offers an elegant new theory of water chemistry that has profound implications not only for chemistry and biology, but for the metaphoric foundation of our understanding of reality and our treatment of nature.[...] The Fourth Phase of Water contributes to a much larger paradigm shift that is proceeding ... posted on Aug 23, 7470 reads

The Shadow of Humanity and the Spirit of Animals
"Krista Tippett and Jane Goodall are two pioneering women in their fields. Krista is perhaps best known for her work with On Being, a public radio show and podcast that explores the human experience through spiritual inquiry, science, social healing, community, poetry, and the arts. At twenty-six years old, Jane embarked on a revolutionary sixty-year study of the complex social and family life of ... posted on Sep 12, 2989 reads

Unconditional Presence: Letting Yourself Have Your Experience
"The journey from self-hatred to self-love involves learning to meet, accept, and open to the being that you are. This begins with letting yourself have your experience. Genuine self-acceptance is not possible as long as you are resisting, avoiding, judging, or trying to manipulate and control what you experience. Whenever you judge the experience you're having, you're not letting yourself be as y... posted on Sep 17, 4630 reads

Living Medicine: On Plant Intelligence and Natural Healing
"Every time some new evidence of plant-based intelligence intrudes on my awareness, it confronts perspectives about the world that I inherited from my culture or my family or my schooling, and some portion of that received worldview crumbles, and something new takes its place. The world is a great deal different than we have been led to believe. In fact, we know very little about what goes on here... posted on Sep 18, 5774 reads

What Women's Suffrage Owes to Indigenous Culture
"It's been 100 years since the ratification of the 19th Amendment secured voting rights for womensort of. In She Votes: How U.S. Women Won Suffrage, and What Happened Next, author Bridget Quinn and 100 female artists survey the complex history of the struggle for women's rights, including racial segregation and accommodation to White supremacy. They celebrate the hitherto under-recognized efforts ... posted on Sep 22, 3208 reads

How to Build a More Inclusive Dinner Table
How we eat, and who we eat with matters much more than we realize. For generations Muslims and Jews have often had to eat at separate tables, simply for lack of foods that are both Halal and Kosher. Mohammad Modarres was determined to change that. In creating interfaith foods that observe the dietary laws of both faiths, and making them more accessible, he hopes food can serve as a medium for cult... posted on Oct 22, 2099 reads

Voting as an Expression of Love and Gratefulness
"Though we typically think of voting in purely political terms, we can think about every choice we make as a vote and every moment in our lives as an election. We vote with our bodies, energy, money, time, attention, and more. How do our choices reflect our values and our vision for the world? When we explore voting and democracy as ongoing opportunities to choose our values and participate in col... posted on Oct 31, 4703 reads

Sustainable Social Change and Philanthropy
As a professional grantmaker and manager with some of the world's leading foundations, David Bonbright sought innovative approaches to strengthening citizen self-organization in place of prevailing bureaucratic, top-down models. While with the Ford Foundation, David was declared persona non grata by the apartheid government in South Africa for helping fund the liberation struggle. In 1990, in the ... posted on Dec 8, 3863 reads

Are You a Highly Sensitive Person?
"Dr. Elaine Aron is a clinical depth psychologist and the author of the seminal 1997 book The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You. With Sounds True, she has published The Highly Sensitive Person's Complete Learning Program: Essential Insights and Tools for Navigating Your Work, Relationships, and Life. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with... posted on Nov 17, 9606 reads

A War Orphan Who Became a Ballerina
Michaela DePrince is "the ballerina who flies." Orphaned at age three in war-torn Sierra Leone, DePrince was malnourished and sick when she and her "mat-mate" at the orphanage were adopted by Elaine and Charles DePrince of New Jersey. Inspired by a photograph of a ballerina in a magazine, DePrince trained as a ballet dancer and is now with the Dance Theater of Harlem. "I think no matter where you ... posted on Nov 21, 2794 reads

The Lost Spells: A Lyrical Rewilding of the Human Heart
"A century after the great nature writer Henry Beston insisted that we need "a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals," observing how "in a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear," Macfarlane and Morris bring us the mystery and wisdom of wild thi... posted on Nov 30, 5660 reads

Human Library
"The Human Library is based on a very simple idea: that conversation is key to understanding. The global, hands-on learning platform, which is based in Denmark, works to create a safe framework for personal conversations that can help to challenge prejudice and discrimination, prevent conflicts, and contribute to greater human cohesion across social, religious, and ethnic divisions. People who can... posted on Dec 1, 8754 reads

Mark Wolynn: Healing Inherited Family Trauma
"Mark Wolynn is the director of The Family Constellation Institute, The Inherited Trauma Institute, and The Hellinger Institute of Northern California. His book It Didnt Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle was a Silver Nautilus award-winner in 2016. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Mark about inherited trauma and how... posted on Dec 4, 10180 reads

Lessons in the Old Language
The "old language" that unites the human and more-than-human worlds is a recurrent archetype in the stories of indigenous peoples, those who have lived in intimate proximity with a particular bioregion for time immemorial. The word in its primordial force runs through us like a current: what we say still comes alive, or dies in the telling. Indeed, the power of language to create reality is a cons... posted on Dec 5, 7558 reads

The Alchemy of Befriending Ourselves in Difficult Times
Matt Licata's new book is titled, 'A Healing Space: Befriending Ourselves in Difficult Times.' Here he speaks with Tami Simon about what it means to "be a healing space, that is to hold space for ourselves and others, as well as how we can feel held by something greater than ourselves during challenging experiences. They also explore our inner wounds and self-abandonment, spiritual bypassing and t... posted on Dec 12, 5957 reads

Virtually Together
In honor of the first responders and heroes of the COVID-19 crisis, the musicians of River Oaks Chamber Orchestra (ROCO) came together virtually from across the U.S. and Canada to perform ROCO's commission "Anthem of Hope" by Anthony DiLorenzo -- offering hope and strength during this difficult time. This coming year, may you be safe, may you be healthy, and may you find peace. And please be kind ... posted on Jan 3, 2823 reads

We Must Deepen Our Capacity for Healing
"Today I want to feature some friends of mine who represent the face of love, truth, and justice. Each of them has an upcoming online event that you may want to participate in. People of good will need opportunities like this as we absorb the insurrection and the pandemic rages on." In the wake of disturbing recent events in America's capital, community leaders, activists, authors, artists and tea... posted on Jan 9, 8931 reads

Don Berwick: Health Care as a Loving Relationship
For the past 30 years, Donald Berwick has been one of the nation's leading authorities and innovators of quality and improvement in the U.S. healthcare system. A pediatrician by training, a professor at both Harvard Medical School and the School of Public Health, and a top health care administrator during the Obama Administration, Berwick challenges administrators, policy makers, and doctors to go... posted on Jan 26, 5293 reads

Invitations to Stillness: Japanese Gardens
"Every element in the Japanese garden from the shape of the pruned pine trees to the careful placement of stepping stones has intention and is specifically designed to cultivate nuanced awareness. The contrast between what is placed and what is left blank, brings to life a pictorial space that leaves room for our imagination. Symbolism and metaphor in the garden also offer powerful tools to help h... posted on Feb 4, 4486 reads

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
"Wintering is a season in the cold. It is a fallow period in life when you're cut off from the world, feeing rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of an outsider. Perhaps it results from an illness or life event such as bereavement or the birth of a child; perhaps it comes from a humiliation or failure. Perhaps you're in a period of transition and have temporarily falle... posted on Feb 17, 12003 reads

Emily's Affirmations: A Valentine's Day Gift to Self
"The invitation from a friend was simple: take a picture each day of something that brings you joy. The intention was harder: bring a little light into a year of profound tumult, and isolation. In the summer of 2020, I like many was starting to feel the unraveling of time--my calendar no longer punctuated by social gatherings and grocery shopping, casual exchanges and well-worn routines. The unsch... posted on Feb 14, 7358 reads

Discovering Poetry En Route to Life
"Poetry, my father quoted it frequently, my grandmother collected it in scrapbooks --cards from friends, I memorized snatches of it in school. Poetry really came to me as a young father when my family and I needed to move across the country away from our best friends. It was an unsettled, lonely. time and I started taking walks in the evening to relax. It was spring. Lemon blossoms. Amazingly, ... posted on Feb 22, 5060 reads

James O'Dea: Conscious Activism
From award-winning author James O'Dea comes a handbook for Sacred Activism, where spiritual insight and radical action meet. O'Dea shares the arc of his own development as both an activist and mystic. He explores what it means to be conscious activists, and what it takes to move beyond rigid belief systems and outdated structures of power and control, and to accelerate the possibilities of collect... posted on Mar 3, 4592 reads

Speaking River, Speaking Rain
"Are languages then just a collection of words, syntax, and semantics? I'd like to sometimes see them as seeds and sometimes as fields - alive as the minds, tongues, throats, bodies and air they pass through; germinating, growing roots, bearing fruit, evolving like beings. But also holding space, expanding out like a unique land of perception. A non-physical geography hosting human and non-human d... posted on Mar 7, 5858 reads

A Conversation with Americ Azavedo: The Truth Demands to Be Live
For ten semesters, Americ Azevedo's seminar, 'Time, Money, and Love in the Age of Technology,' cultivated in students an awareness of the larger issues that form a context for their lives. He was well qualified. Earlier in his life he was reading a passage from Krishnamurti, "Live the Truth." That same day he stood in front of a room full of trainees, uneasy with his job and its values. He turned ... posted on Mar 11, 2227 reads

Changing the World One Map At A Time
Patrick Meier uses his various skills as a digital humanitarian and global-local activist to help silently transform the growth story of underdeveloped countries through technology. Over the past 15 years, he has worked around the world on a wide range of humanitarian projects with the leading international organizations including the United Nations, Red Cross and World Bank. In 2015, he authored ... posted on Mar 17, 4686 reads

Ariel Burger: Beyond Words
"My best friend was going to art school, and I was very drawn to that path. But I chose not to follow it, because I wanted to find the all-encompassing discipline. I wouldn't have used those words then, but that was really what it was. I wanted to find the thing that would be the source for art, but also the source of being a person, and the source of meaning--and a response to mortality." Artist ... posted on Apr 1, 2303 reads

Gardening as Resistance: Notes on Building Paradise
"The gardener digs in another time, without past or future, beginning or end...Here is the Amen beyond the prayer," Derek Jarman wrote as he grieved his dying friends, faced his own death, and contemplated art, mortality, and resistance while planting a garden between an old lighthouse and a new nuclear plant on a barren shingled shore. Jarman is one of the artists whom Olivia Laing profiles and c... posted on Apr 24, 6165 reads

The Alchemy of Bowing
"Since the third century CE to this day, bowing to the Buddha is the most common practice for Asian Buddhists. However, among Westerners, bowing practice, as compared with meditation, is not as well-known. Last summer, I had an opportunity to speak with Reverend Heng Sure, the director of the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery, and asked for more information about Buddhist bowing and repentance. In the l... posted on Jun 1, 6314 reads

The Art of Weaving
Being a home weaver is a revolutionary act. Jessica Green shares her life as a weaver, "remembering the importance and sacredness of cloth"; and as a homesteading anti-capitalist entrepreneur. "Being a weaver and a homesteader," Green says, "is a lifestyle that's based both in remembering and trailblazing." Follow her as she takes wool from sheep to woven cloth and explains her choices to "live wi... posted on Jun 11, 2110 reads

Melanie DeMore: Sending You Light
Singer-songwriter Melanie DeMore has a captivating voice-- a voice that blends her original music with African American folk music, spirituals, and ballads. Through her music and catalytic presence DeMore has uplifted and unified diverse audiences. She has been called in to sing at the bedside of newborns as well as the dying. She has taught and performed in schools, prisons, coffee houses and con... posted on Jun 16, 10443 reads

The Wanting Memories Project
We have all lost someone we love and wondered how our lives could go on without them--without their touch, their encouragement and their wisdom. In this song, composer Ysaye Barnwell gives voice to our deepest longings to remember our departed loved ones and to find the strength to carry their deepest lessons into our lives now. "Songs have intention in themselves but when we sing together, we def... posted on Jun 19, 2958 reads

The Extra Mile
At 85 years old, Oom Hollie embodies the spirit of Ubuntu, "I am who I am because of who we are." Known as The Iron Man because of the strength and resilience of his body, mind and spirit, he and his family suffered great loss many years ago. With the support of their community they were able to move forward and thrive. He is in love with the land and with growing food, not for profit but to share... posted on Jun 26, 2223 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 student writing competition and Lornet Turnbull's article "Two-Thirds of Americans Live in the "Constitution-Free Zone", eight powerful young voices join this choru... posted on Jul 22, 28974 reads

Pat McCabe is a Voice for Peace
"Pat McCabe (Weyakpa Najin Win, meaning Woman Stands Shining) is an ambassador between two worlds. A Navajo mother, grandmother, artist and ceremonial leader, she has been deeply immersed in land-based, indigenous ways of living and being. Having grown up in a multicultural neighbourhood next to Stanford University in California, she is also accustomed to the realities of the modern, industrialise... posted on Jul 27, 4128 reads

From Tolerance to Appreciation
Marilyn Turkovich has dedicated herself to cultivating appreciation and understanding of diverse cultures, faiths and ways of life that exist around the world. She has worked since 2013 with the International Charter for Compassion (CFC), an organization founded to support the movement initiated by Karen Armstrong's Charter of Compassion, and founded on "the fundamental principles of universal jus... posted on Aug 18, 3137 reads

Valentina Suzukei and the Music of Tuva
"Tuva is the epicenter of a rare form of throat singing, in which our ears seem to magically hear multiple pitches and melodies emerging all at once from a single note sung in a drone. Valentina Szkei is the world's leading expert on Tuvan music, especially the variant known as Xmei. Unfortunately, her research and preservation of Tuvan culture has never been translated into English, despite its i... posted on Sep 2, 3832 reads

Where I'm From...
Appalachian poet George Ella Lyon's poem, "Where I'm From," evokes the particular world of a particular childhood through a poem quilted from scraps and patches of memory... Memories of specific sights and sounds, objects, instructions, tragedies, and delights. It has been used in classrooms around the world as a prompt for people to write their own versions of, "Where I'm From." More recently in ... posted on Sep 23, 6743 reads

Window of Possibility
"We live on Earth. Earth is a clump of iron and magnesium and nickel, smeared with a thin layer of organic matter, and sleeved in vapor. It whirls along in a nearly circular orbit around a minor star we call the sun. I know, the sun doesn't seem minor. The sun puts the energy in our salads, milkshakes, hamburgers, gas tanks, and oceans. It literally makes the world go round. And it's huge: The Ear... posted on Oct 5, 4489 reads

Health & Justice: The Path of Liberation Through Medicine
"I am the mother of two beautiful mixed heritage boys. I am a farmers wife. I am a physician who works in adult medicine, witnessing societys ills manifest in my patients bodies, a doctor who sees racism and state violence as urgent public health issues. I am a touring musician who has played in 29 different countries singing in 5 different languages with my band Rupa & the April Fishes. And to us... posted on Oct 11, 3859 reads

Soul Biographies: Nic Askew
Creator of Soul Biographies, Nic Askew's life took an unexpected turn in 2005 when a lucid daydream to pick up a film camera and use it in a profound fashion consumed him and dissolved any internal doubt. He describes this moment as one of "knowing" what he just had to do, as opposed to "believing" or "wanting" something.
Since that day, Nic has used this camera to capture bare human prese... posted on Oct 17, 4622 reads

6 Causes of Burnout at Work
"Job burnout is on the rise, according to several surveys. People are feeling emotionally exhausted, detached from their work and colleagues, and less productive and efficacious. This makes them more likely to suffer health consequences, need sick days, and quit their jobs. A new book "The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Solve It," explains the root causes of burnout an... posted on Nov 22, 5326 reads

Wise Hope in Social Engagement
"It's when we discern courageously, and at the same time realize we don't know what will happen that wise hope comes alive. In the midst of improbability and possibility is where the imperative to act rises up. Wise hope is not seeing things unrealistically but rather seeing things as they are, including the truth of impermanence... as well as the truth of suffering--both its existence and the pos... posted on Nov 15, 4532 reads

Finding the Courage for What's Redemptive
"How to embrace what's right and corrective, redemptive and restorative -- and an insistence that each of us is more than the worst thing weve done -- these are gifts Bryan Stevenson offers with his life. He's brought the language of mercy and redemption into American culture in recent years, growing out of his work as a lawyer with the Equal Justice Initiative based in Montgomery, Alabama. Now th... posted on Nov 20, 2847 reads

An Unbroken Grace
"When I first arrived at the home of Barry Lopez one November day in 2018, he pointed to a fresh Douglas fir stump and said, "We had to put down that tree." The Douglas fir was one of many old-growth trees surrounding Barry's home at Finn Rock, Oregon, along the McKenzie River. The tree had become diseased and Barry worried that it might fall on the house, so a few days before my visit, he and a n... posted on Dec 19, 3905 reads

Heart Light in Dark Times
"I've been reflecting on the environmental crisis, and as I do, I find myself in the darkness, as I imagine we all are to some degree. And that says something, something we shouldnt brush aside or try to make go away. This is a place for sharing truth -- and the truth right now is darkness. I sometimes reflect on how I've been practicing meditation, morality, restraint, generosity, sharing, and si... posted on Dec 3, 4917 reads