John Barton: A Certain Mathematics
As children, we naturally make art out of our lives. We paint with our fingers, color fantasies with crayons, build living room pillow forts, and dance and hum as we walk. Jim Barton, though, has continued his art-making through his adult life -- transforming decaying tree stumps, junkyard wooden doors, and scrap wood into mystical carvings, giant buddhas, and elegant salmon soaring into the sky. ... posted on Nov 29, 2164 reads

How an Army of Women Resurrected a River
Women in Vellore, India, have resurrected the Naganadhi river and the agriculture of the area that were almost lost to drought. In 2014, the women took matters into their own hands and worked with engineers and hydrologists to build 600 recharge wells by hand: digging wells, making cement rings, placing the rings and stones, and planting drought-resistant saplings along the river basin. This labor... posted on Dec 11, 1806 reads

Leading Above the Line
"In this Farnam Street interview, Jim Dethmer, founder of The Conscious Leadership Group shares practical advice about becoming more self-aware, ditching the victim mindset, and connecting more fully with the people in our lives. This episode is a masterclass in understanding and regulating your thoughts and emotions. Dethmer covers how to operate from a place of love rather than fear and anger, t... posted on Dec 30, 4573 reads

The Wonder of the Universe is Wondering in Us
Paul Fleischman is the author of numerous books, and has been honored by the American Psychiatric Association for his unique contributions to psychiatry and religion. He points to our sense of wonder as the apparatus by which we experience the intelligence of the universe within. "The wonder of the universe is wondering in us, he writes. And, To live with wonder one must persevere in unknowing, re... posted on Feb 13, 40107 reads

First Aid for Spiritual Seekers
Forms of religious devotion are shifting and theres a new world of creativity toward crafting spiritual life while exploring the depths of tradition. Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie is a fun and forceful embodiment of this evolution. Born into an eminent and ancient rabbinical lineage, as a young adult he moved away from religion towards storytelling, theater, and drag. Today he leads a pop-up synagogue ... posted on Feb 23, 4408 reads

How the Jump Rope Got Its Rhythm
The jump rope may be a simple object but for countless generations it has served as a powerful symbol of culture and identity for African American girls and women. The skipping rope is a steady timeline upon which girls add rhymes, rhythms and chants, creating a space that is uniquely their own. It is a word of mouth and word of body treasure passed down from one generation to the next, with influ... posted on Feb 26, 2008 reads

Living Gratefully in the Time of Corona Virus
"In the midst of times of uncertainty it serves us to reflect on how gratefulness might help to calm us, reduce fears and expectations, open us to greater clarity and love, and fuel action grounded in our deep intentions. Gratitude is not a panacea. It may not cure or solve our anxiety or concerns but it can foster ease, connection, kindness, and well-being -- all valuable qualities which would be... posted on Mar 15, 54457 reads

Love in the Time of Coronavirus
"Pandemics are powerful phenomena. One moment, life proceeds per usual routines, and the next, we find ourselves scrambling over toilet paper. The coronavirus (COVID-19) has affected our lives in every way, and preventing transmission, while far from assured, appears to be straightforward. An equally daunting challenge, however, is about how we are going to interact with one another as this crisi... posted on Mar 22, 8999 reads

My Freedom Is In Your Hands
"What if this virus had a hidden agenda other than spreading fear about how it might compromise our health? What if hidden in its drive to be contagious, there was another message, urging to be heard? Whether we come running or are being dragged, this virus teaches us to consider each other in a whole new way. Much like prisoners, we are being asked to give up our personal freedom to protect socie... posted on Apr 24, 7716 reads

Healing Our Relationship to Reality
"As human beings we are hardwired to search for stability, security, certainty and a sense of control in our lives. And yet, life by definition is perpetually in flux, it is famously unpredictable, riddled with uncertainty and fundamentally uncontrollable. These realities are the ground on which we practice. And practicing on this ground invites us into the heart of paradox. The paradox of finding... posted on Apr 8, 10884 reads

Into the Chrysalis
"Chrysalises both inspire and baffle me. The thought that a caterpillar can crawl into a sac made of its own body and dissolve its form and come out as a butterfly is a cliched image of transformation, but holy crap. Stop for a moment and really think about that. Does the caterpillar know this is going to happen? If it does that shows some tremendous trust. If it doesn't, then that shows some incr... posted on Apr 9, 10645 reads

Following Butterflies: A Conversation with Milan Rai
Milan Rai is a self-taught Nepalese contemporary visual artist. A self-described failure in school, he now sees the world as his studio. A moment of serendipity set him on his path. Inspired by a butterfly that alighted on his paintbrush in the middle of a challenging project in 2013, Rai began cutting out simple white butterfly shapes from paper and thoughtfully arranging and affixing them to sur... posted on Apr 28, 2967 reads

Together Apart: Letters from Isolation
Together Apart is a new Orion web series of letters from isolation. Every week under lockdown, they eavesdrop on curious pairs of authors, scientists, and artists, listening in on their emails, texts, and phone calls as they redefine their relationships from afar. The exchange that follows is between Krista Tippett, author and CEO of the On Being Project, and the poet and theologian Padraig O' Tua... posted on May 4, 4727 reads

Eight Verses for Training the Mind
The Prison Mindfulness Institute's mission is to provide prisoners, prison staff and prison volunteers, with the most effective, evidence-based tools for rehabilitation, self-transformation, and personal & professional development. In particular, they provide and promote the use of proven effective mindfulness-based interventions (MBI's). Their dual focus is on transforming individual lives as wel... posted on May 31, 19584 reads

Wells of Living Water
Poet and writer, Ron Hobbs, has explored life from many angles and has the stories to prove it. He writes, Many years later I was working on a tramp-steamer that had pulled into Haiti. I hiked off on my own to learn the island. It was hot and mid-afternoon and I thirsted. I saw an old woman working her garden. Ma'am. Ma'am! Excuse me. I'm a stranger here and I am thirsty. Could I please have a dri... posted on May 30, 3252 reads

bell hooks: Love as The Practice of Freedom
Social commentator, essayist, memoirist, and poet bell hooks is a feminist theorist who speaks on contemporary issues of race, gender, and media representation in America.In Black Looks (1994), she writes, "It struck me that for black people, the pain of learning that we cannot control our images, how we see ourselves (if our vision is not decolonized), or how we are seen is so intense that it ren... posted on Jun 7, 4231 reads

Resources for Unlearning and Transforming Racism
As Gratefulness.org commits to engaging with and supporting anti-racist work, they have shared the following set of resources as an invitation to join them in learning, taking action, and working toward individual and collective change. They offer this compilation as a starting point with the recognition that the work extends far beyond what's included here and happens over the course of a lifetim... posted on Jun 13, 9610 reads

Peter Levine and Thomas Huebl: Healing Trauma & Spiritual Growth
In this memorable conversation from SAND 18 Peter Levine, the father of trauma therapy work, and Thomas Huebl, a spiritual teacher known for his work integrating healing of collective trauma, discuss the relationship between healing trauma and spiritual growth. One theme that repeats throughout the discussion is that we are all connected through the traumatization of the world, and that the healin... posted on Jun 18, 7782 reads

Amisha Harding: The Accidental Activist
"Amisha Harding was reluctant to join the crowd after seeing how some protesters clashed with police, vandalized property, and left shattered glass and burning cars in their wake opposite Centennial Olympic Park early in the Black Lives Matter protests. She took heed when Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms held a press conference and said, "If you love our city, go home." It was her love for her h... posted on Jun 25, 4512 reads

Hidden Stories: Paintings by Diane Ding
Painter Diane Ding reflects, "Painting this series was a healing practice. I do my art and hope it can spark my imagination in new ways, and only then do I hope the work can spark reactions in others to inspire a love of life and of life's mysteries. Humans are imperfect in many ways, but we are, deep down, one and the same; we share blood from genes from long ago, and we have no true reason to di... posted on Jul 3, 2252 reads

Robin Wall Kimmerer on the Language of Animacy
In the English language, we reserve the pronouns of personhood for humans-- he, she, they--and not for animals, plants, and landscapes. Yet in many of Americas indigenous languages, such barriers are dissolved, and so, too, is the sense of distance between human and nonhuman. Orion editor Helen Whybrow speaks with Robin Wall Kimmerer, a speaker of Potawatomi and an enrolled member in the Citizen B... posted on Jul 8, 5343 reads

Breathing Miracles Into Being: The Linda Scotson Technique
Soon after he was born, Linda Scotson's son, Doran, was diagnosed with severe athetoid cerebral palsy. Doctors said he would never be able to sit, stand, walk independently or feed himself. But Linda, an artist with no background in medicine, was determined to find a path forward. Today, 41-year-old Doran has an athletic body, runs half marathons, travels independently and is a talented artist, wh... posted on Jul 30, 13726 reads

Breaking Reins
'Breaking Reins' is a 13-minute gem of a film-- cut with precision, and sparkling with the truth of human experience. Epic themes fold into it compactly: Love and loss, grief's stranglehold, Nature's alchemy, and the resurrection of unbridled hope. Directed by a 14-year-old, shot over less than 2 days, and starring a first-time actor who in his day job has worked 1:1 with over 2,000 horses, 'Break... posted on Aug 7, 3873 reads

Taiji Quan: The Wisdom of Water
"All natural things curl, swirl, twist, and flow in patterns like flowing water. Thus we sense something similar in clouds, smoke, streams, the wind-blown waves of sand on the beach, the pattern of branches against the sky, the shape of summer grasses, the markings on rocks, the movement of animals. Even solid bones have lines of flow on their exterior and in their spongy interior. Spiders build t... posted on Aug 17, 9545 reads

The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World
Wade Davis, anthropologist and passionate scholar of indigenous cultures that span the globe, shares the value of learning from these dynamic, living societies, as we face the challenges threatening the earth. He takes us on a journey to "the heart of the world" and asks the question, "What does it actually mean for a people to believe that the earth is resonant and alive and responsive to their d... posted on Aug 26, 3433 reads

Lucky Man: Life Lessons from William Segal
"How can we find balance and peace in the midst of pain and turmoil? A legendary Zen Buddhist master once sent this startling note to a friend: "Lucky man," wrote Soen Nakagawa Roshi, the abbot of Ryutakuji monastery in Japan. "One accident like yours is worth ten thousand sittings in a monastery!" The accident the Zen master mentioned was a devastating car crash. The "lucky man" was William Sega... posted on Aug 28, 5731 reads

Dial Up the Magic of This Moment
"Few people have stood at the gates of hope through world wars and environmental crises and personal loss with more dignity, wisdom, and optimism than Joanna Macy during her six decades as a Buddhist scholar, environmental activist, and pioneering philosopher of ecology. Macy is also the world's greatest translator-enchantress of Rainer Maria Rilke, in whose poetry she found refuge upon the sudd... posted on Sep 1, 6534 reads

Bridges to Cross: A Conversation with Michael Grbich
"As a high school art teacher, Michael Grbich was a gift to his students. He didn't stop there however. It was just like him, on turning 75, to celebrate by tap dancing across the Golden Gate Bridge. And then, showing his true colors, he flew to New York to do the same thing on the Brooklyn Bridge. It had been raining, but that morning as he says, "God shined down on me! The rain stopped and it se... posted on Sep 8, 2907 reads

Active Minds: Creating Hope Out of Tragedy
"Active Minds was founded by Alison Malmon when she was a junior at the University of Pennsylvania following the suicide of her older brother, and only sibling, Brian. Alison recognized that Brian's story is the story of thousands of young people who suffer in silence; who, despite their large numbers, think they are totally alone. A majority of mental illnesses start between ages 14 and 24 when t... posted on Sep 10, 2879 reads

Spirituality and Social Action: A Holistic Approach
"No one who met her [Vimala Thakar] could fail to be moved.For she was a great spiritually enlightened revolutionary and activist; a notable Indian figure of the 20th Century who boldly forged a radically independent approach to spirituality and the search for truth. Freed from all religious tradition, she brought the timeless wisdom of the East to the modern egalitarian West without the baggage o... posted on Sep 21, 3644 reads

Crossing the Empathy Wall in Divided Times
"Everyone has a deep story," says Arlie Hochschild. "Our job is to respect and try to understand these stories." Hochschild is one of the most distinguished sociologists of our time. Considered the founder of the "sociology of emotion," she examines some of the most urgent challenges our societies face: work-family balance, shifting gender roles, alienation, globalization, and the ever-widening po... posted on Sep 23, 5342 reads

Deo Niyizonkiza: Healing What Remains
"A young man arrives in the Big City with two hundred dollars in his pocket, no English at all, and memories of horror so fresh that he sometimes confuses past and present. When Deo first told me about his beginnings in New York, I had a simple thought: "I would not have survived." And then, two years later, he enrolls in an Ivy League university." In his bestselling book, 'Strength in What Remain... posted on Oct 8, 4479 reads

Difficult Conversations: The Art and Science of Working Together
"According to a recent survey, if you're a democrat, theres a 60 percent chance that you view the Republican Party as a threat to the United States, and a 40 percent chance that you regard it as "downright evil." If you're a republican, the same odds apply to your perceptions of the Democratic Party. These are telling statistics, a warning that we've lit a fire under our divisive tribal tendencies... posted on Oct 12, 11350 reads

Shelter for the Heart and Mind
"How can we keep walking forward, and even find renewal along the way, in this year of things blown apart? How can we hold to our sense of what is whole and true and undamaged, even in the face of loss? These are some of the questions Sharon Salzberg, a renowned teacher of meditation and Buddhist practices, has been taking up in virtual retreats this year, which have helped ground many on hard day... posted on Oct 24, 7837 reads

Climate in the Boardroom
"How does one witness to businesspeople about climate change? Climate change is a problem for the collective and the long term, whereas business often requires a ruthless focus on the individual and the quarter. Climate change is an ethical catastrophe whose solution almost certainly requires a profoundly moral response, but talk of morality in the boardroom is often regarded with profound suspici... posted on Oct 27, 5505 reads

Let Us All Unite
"You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let's use that power. Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and secu... posted on Nov 3, 9762 reads

Moving Across Political Divides Post-Election
Joan Blades is an "accidental activist" at the forefront of movements that have shaped American culture and politics. Through her various endeavors Blades has experientially acted upon an insight about the power of ordinary people driving change. She is the co-founder of MoveOn.org, and another remarkable initiative called Living Room Conversations. In this timely video, she and her collaborator M... posted on Nov 6, 2271 reads

Larry Korn: One-Straw Messenger
"Larry Korn was a 26-year-old farmhand from the United States living and working at a communal farm in rural Kyoto in 1974 when he decided to go and see for himself an enigmatic farmer-philosopher he had been hearing about through the grapevine in Japan. Korn was met at the rice fields of the Fukuoka Shizen Noen (Fukuoka Natural Farm) by the farm's middle-aged proprietor, Masanobu Fukuoka. It was ... posted on Nov 19, 4328 reads

Praying for the Earth
"The earth needs our prayers more that we know. It needs us to acknowledge its sacred nature, that it is not just something to use and dispose. Many of us know the effectiveness of prayers for others, how healing and help is given, even in the most unexpected ways. There are many ways to pray for the earth. It can be helpful first to acknowledge that it is not unfeeling matter but a living being t... posted on Nov 20, 8149 reads

How to Love a Country
The Cuban American civil engineer turned writer, Richard Blanco, straddles the many ways a sense of place merges with human emotion to make home and belonging -- personal and communal. The most recent -- and very resonant -- question he's asked by way of poetry is: how to love a country? At Chautauqua, Krista Tippett invited him to speak and read from his books. Blanco's wit, thoughtfulness, and e... posted on Nov 22, 4543 reads

To Be a Loved Horse: Dufresne's Story
"A friend of mine was looking to buy a horse that could be a backyard buddy. She didn't want to spend a lot of money, so I suggested we go to the local monthly horse auction to see if we might rescue one of the horses from a potential death sentence.For those of you who are unfamiliar with horse auctions, many times the meat buyers end up taking the unwanted animals at low prices. There are always... posted on Nov 24, 12216 reads

Eating the Sun: Small Musings on a Vast Universe
Says Maria Popova of Ella Frances Sanders' latest book,"In fifty-one miniature essays, each accompanied by one of her playful and poignant ink-and-watercolor drawings, Sanders goes on to explore a pleasingly wide array of scientific mysteries and facts -- evolution, chaos theory, clouds, the color blue, the nature of light, the wondrousness of octopuses, the measurement of time, Richard Feynman's ... posted on Nov 28, 5410 reads

Practical Mysticism: A Little Book for Normal People
"This little book, written during the last months of peace, goes to press in the first weeks of the great war. Many will feel that in such a time of conflict and horror, when only the most ignorant, disloyal, or apathetic can hope for quietness of mind, a book which deals with that which is called the "contemplative" attitude to existence is wholly out of place. So obvious, indeed, is this point o... posted on May 26, 6463 reads

Time Confetti and the Broken Promise of Leisure
The autonomy paradox: "We adopt mobile technologies to gain autonomy over when and how long we work, yet, ironically, we end up working all the time. Long blocks of free time we used to enjoy are now interrupted constantly by our smart watches, phones, tablets, and laptops. This situation taxes us cognitively, and fragments our leisure time in a way that makes it hard to use this time for somethin... posted on Dec 17, 4990 reads

Tara Brach: True Refuge
"Tara Brach is an author, clinical psychologist, and the founder and senior teacher of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Tara about "the Trance of Unworthiness" --a state in which we believe that we are too inadequate, incomplete, and broken to love ourselves. Tara explains why we are so tough on ourselves and the steps ... posted on Jan 5, 6118 reads

Creativity & COVID-19
"In some recent discussions with friends who are also creatives, I have heard a variety of responses to the question, 'How has Covid-19 affected your creativity?'Some have been inspired to create new work. Others have spoken about a year of fallowness. It's a term we rarely if ever hear in a culture devoted to--or better put, obsessed with--constant productivity. Take agribusiness: every acre and ... posted on Jan 18, 6207 reads

Writers & Artists on the Influence of Barry Lopez
"In 2015 Barry and I were invited to do an onstage conversation at the Key West Literary Seminars. We loved the idea of it but hated the given title, and ended up talking on the phone for most of an hour, trying to arrive at a word that felt home-language to us each. The suggested word, spiritual, we felt utterly threadbare. Barry's preference was reverence, a quality that ran deep in his life and... posted on Jan 16, 4230 reads

Click Here for Unconditional Love
On Sue Cochrane's website is a button that says "Click Here for Unconditional Love"- it leads to a selection of writings that offer exactly that. It isn't just the words of Sue's stories that touch the reader, but the wordless energy behind them. Sue Cochrane survived a traumatic childhood to become a pioneering family court judge. Throughout her career she strived to put the heart back into the b... posted on Feb 15, 0 reads

Mary Oliver & The Witchery of Living
"Will the hungry ox stand in the field and not eat
of the sweet grass?
Will the owl bite off its own wings?
Will the lark forget to lift its body in the air or
forget to sing?
Will the rivers run upstream?

Behold, I say -- behold
the reliability and the finery and the teachings
of this gritty earth gift."

So... posted on Feb 27, 26227 reads

Claire Dunn: Nature's Apprentice
Claire Dunn is a guide to the wilds inside and out, and her passion is nature-based human development. Since quitting her job campaigning for the Wilderness Society over a decade ago, she has travelled her own mystical path. She left the confines of the offices, shopping centres and other concrete boxes of modernity to discover something deeper, more instinctive. She spent a year in the bush, whic... posted on Mar 1, 4708 reads