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, 5343 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, 7838 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, 4544 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, 12217 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

The Defiant Tenderness of Surrender
"There are so many courageous people just making breakfast in the morning, going to work, taking care of their families, trying to do online teaching. Holy God. I mean, I just wish there was a cosmic scorekeeper for all of the billions of people doing their everyday acts of courage. I suspect that what we're looking at in the sky at night aren't stars, they are evidence and markers of all those co... posted on Mar 15, 5509 reads

The World's Last Nomadic Peoples
"From Jeroen Toirkens comes 'Nomad' -- a fascinating and strikingly beautiful visual anthropology of the Northern Hemispheres last living nomadic peoples, from Greenland to Turkey. A decade in the making, this multi-continent journey unfolds in 150 black-and-white and full-color photos that reveal what feels like an alternate reality of a life often harsh, sometimes poetic, devoid of many of our m... posted on Mar 28, 5472 reads

Wish You Were Here: Postcards from the Future
"We invited other artists--people who process the world through making--to create their own postcards in the face of the naked truths of climate change. We asked them to join us in a written and visual chorus to the young people dearest to us and to everyone on Earth, now and in the future. You can see what came out here: intimate and urgent messages written for loved ones and for people we will n... posted on Mar 29, 3996 reads

Crisis Kitchen
Crisis Kitchen is a mutual aid group that has emerged during the coronavirus pandemic in Portland, Oregon, as a means to help people thrive. It was begun by laid off restaurant workers as the COVID-19 pandemic worsened and caused more and more people to become food insecure. High quality, delicious meals are prepared and delivered by volunteers, utilizing donated space and are available for free. ... posted on Apr 16, 1783 reads

Motherhood: Facing & Finding Yourself
"Bestselling author and psychologist James Hillman proposed what he called the acorn theory of psychological development. He contended that we each enter the world carrying something unique that asks to be lived out through us. Just as the destiny of the oak tree is contained within the acorn, we arrive in life with something we need to do and someone we need to become. What waits to awaken in eac... posted on Apr 20, 8466 reads

Karma Quilts: One Woman's Labor of Love Offering
"In her heartwarming book, My Grandfather's Blessings, Rachel Remen says, "You do not need money to be a philanthropist. We all have assets. You can befriend life with your bare hands." I am grateful for being able to befriend life with my bare hands through the making of quilts and prayer shawls." Jane Jackson is a mother, grandmother, former mid-wife, writer and much more. Over the decades she h... posted on Apr 29, 7246 reads

For Small Creatures Such as We
In "For Small Creatures Such as We" Sasha Sagan, daughter of astronomer Carl Sagan, "explores the worlds of ritual and tradition from a scientific viewpoint. Sagan is non-religious, much like her science-minded parents. When she became a mother, she wanted to find a way to incorporate ritual and tradition into her family in a way that, instead of religion, reflected her passion for space, science ... posted on May 5, 3692 reads

Joy Harjo: The Whole of Time
"Though we have instructions and a map buried in our hearts when we enter this world," the extraordinary Joy Harjo has written, "nothing quite prepares us for the abrupt shift to the breathing realm." She is a saxophone player and performer, a visual artist, a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, and the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States. She opens up with Krista Tippett about her life, drea... posted on May 24, 5744 reads

The Way of the Nomad
A "global nomad" with strong African roots, Wakanyi Hoffman and her husband have been raising their four multicultural and mixed race children across seven countries, three continents, on a mission to teach them to embrace the whole world as their home. They have called Kenya, United States, Nepal, Philippines, Ethiopia, Thailand and now the Netherlands home. "Life as a nomad, as we had come to un... posted on Jun 5, 4824 reads

Echoes of the Invisible
A blind man runs alone through Death Valley. Journalist Paul Salopek walks 21,000 miles across the world to retrace our ancestor's migration, manifesting "slow journalism." Science writer Anil Ananthaswamy seeks out the silent places on earth where "extreme physics" is being done both by cosmologists and monks. Photographer Rachel Sussman struggles to capture the oldest living organisms on the pla... posted on Jun 27, 7010 reads

The Stillness of the Living Forest
""I need to get away for awhile." It's a recurring and persistent internal refrain for many of us. John Harvey did just that. And his book, The Stillness of the Living Forest: A Year of Listening and Learning is not only an insightful look into his experience but, perhaps more importantly, it's a call from the wild to the part in us longing to reconnect with something visceral and real; a promise ... posted on Jun 30, 4051 reads

Leaf Seligman: On Redemption and Beautiful Scars
"As humans, we inevitably experience harm: we feel hurt, we get hurt, and we hurt others. We free ourselves from this experience not by imagining we can escape harm but knowing we can heal it--moving from wound to scar--and then learning to love the scars. This can, of course, be the work of a lifetime. Luckily, I have long loved scars. When I was four, I accidentally cut my left eye. As a result,... posted on Jul 4, 5310 reads

Rewilding a Mountain
The sagebrush sea is a landscape of stark beauty and captivating wildlife, yet rapid desertification and extractive industries threaten this vast basin. But at Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge in Southeastern Oregon, a different story unfolds. New aspen explode alongside thriving creeks, migratory birds travel thousands of miles to nest in willow branches, and even the endangered sage grouse... posted on Jul 18, 2081 reads

Remothering the Land
Soil and water are the beginnings of all things that sustain life. The indigenous women of Sogorea Te' Land Trust know this from their ancestors long ago and from the call of the children yet to be born in the future. There is a sacred bond to Mother Earth that invites each of us to respect nature wherever we live. It is for this reason that the sustainable gardens at Sogorea Te' are being maintai... posted on Aug 13, 1702 reads

Be Earth Now
"In Rainer Maria Rilkes seminal collection of poetry, The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, the great twentieth-century poet explores the nature ofand his relationship toGod through divinely received prayers. Nearly twenty-five years ago, Anita Barrows, an award-winning poet and translator, and Joanna Macy, a Buddhist scholar and eco-philosopher, collaborated to translate this collection. Now, on ... posted on Aug 29, 3314 reads

Knepp Rewilded
Knepp Estate in Sussex, England has led the way in "rewilding" farms since the 1970s. Rewilding is also called conservation farming with the idea of allowing nature to take over. The caretakers have gradually allowed plants and animals to roam and grow without human intervention until it is time to take the livestock to market. This philosophy of farming is like taking one's hands off the steering... posted on Sep 10, 1752 reads

I Am the Triangular Window in a Mud Hut
"I have overheard pale-skinned visitors to this refugee camp speak of windows as large as a cow and covered by glass that slides wide open. Those stories sound absurd. Such windows would be completely impractical! We Dinka windows allow in some air, of course; but first and foremost, we are designed for safety and comfort. Look at my size and shape: a triangle smaller than a cracked plate." In th... posted on Sep 16, 4943 reads

Getting Back in Time
"Time has a hold on us, there is no escaping it. Sometimes it can seem to govern our lives: we're pressed for it; we don't have any; it's running out. We need to be on time and in time. At other 'times' we can find we have got time on our hands -- or better, the ease of having all the time in the world. It is such a vital aspect of our lives that telling the time is one of the first skills we teac... posted on Sep 28, 3713 reads

Radical Self-Care for Survivors of Suicide Loss
"What does self-care mean, and what does it involve? Simply put, it implies -- physical, emotional, psychological, social and spiritual care. The very idea of survivors of suicide loss practicing self-care can seem radical. The stigma, shame, secrecy and silence that a survivor faces invisibilizes, erases and marginalizes any of their valid concerns. Equally relevant, most survivors themselves fee... posted on Nov 27, 4568 reads

Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic
Dr Paul Conti is the author of 'Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic: How Trauma Works and How We Can Heal From It' In the following interview he speaks with Tami Simon "about healing the unresolved trauma we hold inside both individually and collectively. They also discuss how trauma operates differently in different people, overcoming "reflexive shame," self-inquiry and the embrace of a "true life nar... posted on Oct 27, 0 reads

A School for Refugees -- By Refugees
Refugees who have fled their native lands in search of a place to live safely and to be treated as human beings often find themselves stuck for several years in an environment which can be unwelcoming and even hostile. A group of refugees in Indonesia established a school so that their children could learn basic education while being offered a chance at normalcy through social interaction. Childre... posted on Oct 29, 1084 reads

Wim Hof: The Cold as a Noble Force
"Wim Hof is an athlete and extremophile daredevil nicknamed The Iceman for his feats of withstanding extreme weather conditions. The holder of more than 20 Guinness World Records, Wim attributes his endurance to specific meditation and breathing techniques. In this intriguing episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Wim about the Wim Hof Method of exercises, mindfulness techniques, ... posted on Nov 2, 3319 reads

7 Principles of Gardening
"My first principle is to learn gardening from the wilderness outside the garden gate. As I work to keep the links alive between the wild land and the cultivated row, I get my clearest gardening instruction from listening to the voice of the watershed that surrounds our garden. I know that January is the time to prune our Japanese Elephant Heart plum in the garden, but just when in January is alwa... posted on Nov 19, 5444 reads

How An Apple Tree Transformed My Life
"I was in between creative projects and feeling the need to do something more dynamic with my energy than sitting at the computer sending and receiving emails, so I followed an impulse to a local biodynamic farm and got a job picking apples during the last six weeks of harvest. The notion was quite romantic initially...I'd spend my days wandering the orchard rows connecting with my Muse, and my ev... posted on Dec 5, 4111 reads

From Bullets to Bangles
"I am happier now, after the angst of my earlier years. Those years were rough. I started life in a factory as a coiled mix of copper and zinc being pressed into a small, cup-like shape. Then I was pulled mechanically into a cylinder and stretched to form a tight tube. Even the memory is painful: in order to be stretched without breaking, I had to be heated, annealed, pickled, rinsed, and measure... posted on Dec 13, 2215 reads

Words Can Change Your Brain
"We wrote this book to help people to speak more honestly with each other, and to listen to each other more deeply. And we also wrote this book because the newest findings in neuroscience can teach us how to become better communicators, how to build deeper bonds of trust, and how to resolve conflicts without getting frightened or mad. We wrote this book to talk about the power of words, but we als... posted on Jan 6, 11271 reads

Jane Hirshfield: The Fullness of Things
"The esteemed writer Jane Hirshfield has been a Zen monk and a visiting artist among neuroscientists. She has said this: 'It's my nature to question, to look at the opposite side. I believe that the best writing also does this... It tells us that where there is sorrow, there will be joy; where there is joy, there will be sorrow... The acknowledgement of the fully complex scope of being is why good... posted on Jan 12, 4786 reads

Prayer for the Earth: An Indigenous Response to these Times
In his lifetime Stan Rushworth, an elder of Cherokee descent who was raised by his grandfather, has seen a river die, animals disappear, and the proliferation of box stores. The devastation of climate change is not new to him - his elders have been telling him about it all of his life. The traditional indigenous wisdom that is needed now is looking at how indigenous populations have managed to sur... posted on Jan 23, 3102 reads

What is Holding it Together?
"Words are delicious, but cannot say much. They often lose the water of meaning before it is delivered. But they can be stirred to form descriptions of the breath, glances, gestures, and pulses between lives. Perhaps writing is finding a scrape in the skin of knowing, where the sting and dirt and blood of the day is let out, and music is let in." The following excerpt, by Nora Bateson, noted resea... posted on Jan 26, 3041 reads

Being Simply Beautiful
We are surrounded by the stuff that we think is so valuable and important, but take it all away and what is left? The real you is left. Or at least the journey to the real you without all the stuff that you think defines you. In this video, Theo Du Plessis of South Africa, had a "Damascus moment" that opened him up to the only question he asks himself now before acquiring possessions or pursuing e... posted on Jan 29, 3337 reads