Kate Raworth: Renegade Economist
"Kate Raworth is an economist. A renegade, maverick, rockstar economist. After graduating from Oxford University, she worked in the villages of Zanzibar with micro entrepreneurs, co-authored the Human Development Report for the UNDP and worked for a decade as a Senior Researcher at Oxfam. In 2017 she published her seminal work, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist.... posted on Jul 19, 8365 reads

Talking White Fragility with Robin DiAngelo
"I grew up poor and white. While my class oppression has been relatively visible to me, my race privilege has not. In my efforts to uncover how race has shaped my life, I have gained deeper insight by placing race in the center of my analysis and asking how each of my other group locations have socialized me to collude with racism. In so doing, I have been able to address in greater depth my mul... posted on Jul 20, 5238 reads

What Qi Gong Taught One Doctor About Healing
"I first met Master Mingtong Gu 8 years ago. A friend had invited me to his studio in Petaluma, CA, for a qigong workshop. Qi (chee) means life-force energy, gong means cultivation. Slow, easy movements. Low risk enough. And evidence-based. I was a doctor of internal medicine, trained to think critically and methodically, cautious of anything that might fall into the realm of "miracles." But I was... posted on Aug 3, 14265 reads

The Opposite of Meditation is Not Action It's Reaction
"It seems like our society is at a low point in terms of how we talk about challenging, controversial topics within our political discourse and even our spiritual reflections. I believe the only way through this polarization is a re-appreciation for silence.
Silence has a life of its own. It is not just that which is around words and underneath images and events. It is a being in itself to ... posted on Aug 5, 7339 reads

Finding Balance in an Unstable World
"The present pandemic, which in a few short months has wreaked havoc across our world, is most likely caused by an imbalance in the natural world, as loss of habitat and biodiversity is not only driving animals to extinction but directly causing animal viruses to spread to humans. In response our leaders are using the images of conflict: We are at war with Covid 19, we keep hearing; it is an invis... posted on Aug 9, 15648 reads

The Soil's Story is the Story of Us
"Thousands of years of taking have caught up with us--and our soil. Approximately 40 percent of agricultural soils worldwide are degraded or seriously degraded; we lose an estimated 36 billion tons of topsoil every year. Scientists warn us that we only have about 60 years of productive soil left. What will happen when the Earth has lost all of its soil and can no longer produce food? While this is... posted on Aug 13, 6515 reads

Small Joys are Essential to Resilience
"For Persians, one of our most precious ways to summon joy is with poetry. I remember one night, in particular, in my home city of Shiraz, Iran, during the war. While sirens blared and the electricity was shut off, warning of an imminent attack, my family and I (feeling especially brave) snuck to our rooftop to watch the anti-aircraft missiles shoot into the air. To my 7-year-old eyes, the brillia... posted on Aug 16, 0 reads

Teaching to Transgress: bell hooks on Education
"My hope emerges from those places of struggle where I witness individuals positively transforming their lives and the world around them. Educating is always a vocation rooted in hopefulness. As teachers we believe that learning is possible, that nothing can keep an open mind from seeking after knowledge and finding a way to know." This piece explores bell hooks' inspiring perspectives on educatio... posted on Aug 24, 3620 reads

Beyond Words: A Conversation with Carl Safina
"Safina's journey in ecology and conservation took him through his PhD and then back to the obvious. I learned this is called anthropomorphizing and you're not supposed to do that. The orthodox view is that other animals don't have human thoughts or emotions. I learned all of that and then realized that what I knew when I was seven was actually more accurate." More in this interview with Safina.posted on Aug 29, 2488 reads

Brian Conroy: The Art of Storytelling
Brian Conroy is a gifted storyteller who comes alive when he sees people of diverse faiths, races, and backgrounds working together. Founder of the Buddhist Storytelling Circle, a group of storytellers from the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery who perform at interfaith gatherings, he first encountered Venerable Master Hsuan Hua in 1976 and took refuge with the Master in 1994. Bringing together his pass... posted on Sep 3, 5032 reads

The Big Bang of Equity + Systems Change
"How can we reimagine and rebuild our current society? At what point do we let a broken system fail? How can we protect vulnerable or disproportionately impacted people who might fall between cracks as we let go of what no longer works? How might we include more people not only at the receiving end of these systems, but in the designing of them? How can we build systems that truly serve and work f... posted on Sep 15, 6135 reads

Kiran Khalap: Navigating Business, Creativity and Spirituality
Where do business and spirituality meet? How does one use creativity to unite? How might we walk our unique path in solving problems outside and dissolving the ego inside? A weekday brand-consultant, a weekend rock-climber, author during nights and a lifetime seeker of Truth -- Kiran Khalaps journey is a striking example of a life of emergence which defies linear planning. Read more about his jour... posted on Sep 25, 4563 reads

Healing the Heart of Democracy
"For those of us who want to see democracy survive and thrive --and we are legion --the heart is where everything begins: that grounded place in each of us where we can overcome fear, rediscover that we are members of one another, and embrace the conflicts that threaten democracy as openings to new life for us and for our nation." Parker Palmer shares more in this piece.... posted on Sep 26, 3221 reads

Is Philanthropy Really Changing Anything?
"What does philanthropy in India look like today, and what has it managed to do? Is it really changing the world and people's lives? Or is it simply an extension of capitalism and an opportunity for the super-rich to strengthen their stranglehold on economic activity as well as development and social progress?"This article shares thoughts on what philanthropists can do to ensure greater alignment ... posted on Oct 9, 4977 reads

8 Questions to Help Navigate Election Stress
"How are you doing? For Americans facing the COVID-19 lockdown and economic instability through the spring and summer, that became a difficult question to ask--and to answer. Things were already pretty bad. And then the presidential election began in earnest. A new survey from the American Psychological Association finds that this election is a significant source of stress for more than two-thirds... posted on Oct 21, 11560 reads

Two Words That Can Change a Life
"As I walked into the parking lot, I spotted the woman returning her shopping cart, and I remembered something in my purse that could help her in a different but hopefully profound way. It wasn't a handful of cash or a lead on a job for her husband, but maybe -- just maybe -- it would make her life better. My heart pounded as I approached the woman. "Excuse me," I said, my voice trembling a bit. "... posted on Nov 10, 106943 reads

Julian of Norwich: Wisdom for a Time of Pandemic & Beyond
"A time of crisis and chaos, the kind that a pandemic brings, is, among other things, a time to call on our ancestors for their deep wisdom. Not just knowledge but true wisdom is needed in a time of death and profound change, for at such times we are beckoned not simply to return to the immediate past, that which we remember fondly as the normal, but to reimagine a new future, a renewed humanity, ... posted on Nov 13, 10760 reads

Uncommon Gratitude
"Before me lies a slope of wild grasses, saturated in the copper light of early autumn. Insects dabble in wild asters and Queen Anne's lace, and animal trails wind through the dense greenery. But just where the terrain should plunge steeply through a woodland of maple, beech, cherry, and ash trees, it flattens out like a gigantic tennis court or helicopter landing pad. What just a few weeks earlie... posted on Nov 29, 4297 reads

Fools and Dreamers: Regenerating a Native Forest
This 30-minute documentary about Hinewai Reserve, on New Zealands Banks Peninsula, is an incredible story of how degraded, gorse-infested farmland, has been regenerated into beautiful native forest over the course of 30 years. Once considered a plan expected only of fools and dreamers, manager, botanist Hugh Wilson, is now considered a hero locally and across the country for bringing back 1,500 he... posted on Dec 11, 2146 reads

A Case for Wonder
"Karl Barth once described theology as 'necessarily the logic of wonders,' and the same 'logic' should suffuse education. If we can cultivate the capacity for wonder in ourselves, and if we can foster it in others, then we might step into a more compelling and magical world. Inhabiting such a place would grant us a particular kind of grace, in which the familiar would never grow old, the unfamilia... posted on Dec 21, 4366 reads

Processing What Happened at the US Capitol
Resmaa Menakem, national expert on cultural trauma joins the executive director of African American Child Wellness Institute, and 2020 Minnesota Teacher of the year in this powerful in-depth dialog around the violence and chaos that erupted this Wednesday, when a mob that included white supremacists stormed the US Capitol. How did it come to this? And what do these times demand from ordinary citiz... posted on Jan 8, 6232 reads

10 Ways & 50 Questions to Help Strengthen Democracy
Ken Cloke is a world-recognized mediator, dialogue facilitator, conflict resolution systems designer, teacher and more. Given the political polarization, deep divisiveness and unrest rearing its head in the United States, he recently shared a detailed list of 10 actions that can help us transform autocratic, power-based political conflicts into democratic, collaborative efforts. In addition he off... posted on Jan 10, 16424 reads

For the Sake of One We Love and Are Losing: A Meditative Poem
The origin story of "For the Sake of One We Love and Are Losing" lies in a dream that writer Phyllis Cole-Dai had last year. This remarkable poem was published in the early days of the pandemic that has now claimed over 2 million lives worldwide. Cole-Dai's words have comforted many people through the grief and loss of these challenging times. What follows here is the poem's backstory in her own w... posted on Jan 28, 13449 reads

The Blue Hour: A Celebration of Nature's Rarest Color
"Blue, Rebecca Solnit wrote in one of humanitys most beautiful reflections on our planets primary hue, is the color of solitude and of desire, the color of there seen from here the color of longing for the distances you never arrive in, for the blue world, a world of many blues a pioneering 19th-century nomenclature of colors listed eleven kinds of blue, in hues as varied as the color of the flax... posted on Jan 27, 8485 reads

Happiness Is...
In late fall of 2011, after a simple car ride with the windows rolled down, and the music turned up, 17-year-old Elizabeth Buechele posted this update on her social media feed, "Day 1: Happiness is... those perfect car rides where the radio just plays all the right songs." Day 1 turned into Day 2, and now more than nine years later, Buechele has gleaned and shared a "Happiness is..." moment from e... posted on Feb 2, 6169 reads

9 Rules for the Woke Birdwatcher
"1.Lower your binoculars. See bird and person in the full context of their being, feathers or skin. We all share the same air, same water, same earth, and same fate in the end. Don't just list and be done." Author J. Drew Lanham shares eight other rules/invitations in this short and powerful piece.... posted on Feb 6, 7416 reads

The Politics of Flower Cultivation
"The tradition of gifting roses for St. Valentine's Day is actually a misguided ritual from an ecology perspective because the roses are actually transported from Kenya, for example. Roses do not grow locally in countries north of the equator during February. Because flowers are not food, we tend to overlook the fact that they are also seasonal products, and we just cannot have it all the time unl... posted on Feb 7, 4530 reads

Happy Men
"Let me set the scene: I walk up to five men skateboarding by the statue in Prospect Park, they are hanging with each other and I approach and I say, 'Hey, I wrote a poem about you, for you, can I read it to you?'" Winter Miller is an award-winning writer. She has a Masters in playwriting from Columbia University, and has written over 70 articles for the New York Times. She shares what happened ne... posted on Feb 11, 10167 reads

The Energy of the Universe is Neutral: James O' Dea
"The central thesis of my book, 'Creative Stress--A Path for Evolving Souls Living Through Personal and Planetary Upheaval', is that the energy of the universe is neutral. It's only in the last hundred years that the word "stress" has come to denote something negative. For the poet, stress is language, for the composer, stress is musical notes. So stress is a neutral concept. It's the pressuring ... posted on Feb 12, 2267 reads

Be A Blessing
"There is a question rolling around even in the most secular of corners: What do religious people and traditions have to teach as we do the work ahead of repairing, renewing, and remaking our societies, our life together? Krista Tippett's conversation with Rabbi Ariel Burger, a student of the late, extraordinary Elie Wiesel, delves into theological and mystical depths that are so much richer and m... posted on Feb 25, 6466 reads

Waiting for the Thaw
"It's about this time in the long stretch of winter that I begin to ache for spring. By March, I tend become a bit dulled to the beauty of winter. Though my prayer and meditation keep my heart open to seeing the passage of time and seasons with appreciative eyes, mostly I just want the cold days to be over. As the earth begins to thaw, we often want the process to hurry up. I long for bright flowe... posted on Mar 25, 13237 reads

Our Nervous Systems in the Time of COVID
"The light at the end of the COVID tunnel is tenuously appearing yet many of us feel as exhausted as at any time in the past year. Memory problems; short fuses; fractured productivity; sudden drops into despair. Were at once excited and unnerved by the prospect of life opening up again. Clinical psychologist Christine Runyan explains the physiological effects of a year of pandemic and social isol... posted on Mar 30, 14149 reads

The Voice of the River
In 1973, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers prepared to open a new dam project, flooding miles of the Stanislaus River Canyon, a beautiful, pristine river valley flowing from the western Sierra Nevada mountains into California's Central Valley. In 1979, Mark Dubois chained himself to a boulder behind the New Melones Dam and threw away the key. "If you guys are going to flood 9 million years of evolu... posted on Apr 22, 2467 reads

The Body's Grace: A Paralyzed Yoga Teacher's Insights
"Matthew Sanford says he's never seen anyone live more deeply in their body -- in all its grace and all its flaws -- without becoming more compassionate toward all of life. He's a renowned teacher of yoga. And he's been paralyzed from the chest down since a car accident in 1978, when he was 13. He teaches yoga to the able-bodied. He also adapts yoga for people with ailments and disabilities, inclu... posted on Apr 27, 0 reads

A Seed of Freedom
Actor Jeremy Irons narrates this landmark film by The Gaia Foundation and the African Biodiversity Network, in collaboration with MELCA Ethiopia, Navdanya International and GRAIN. In it, we learn how our world has gone from a vast bedrock of diversity, created over thousands of years," to genetically modified seeds engineered to withstand pesticides refined with a few changes from explosives and n... posted on May 7, 2200 reads

Learning from Navajo Nation's Generosity in a Pandemic
"Last year, the Irish people raised nearly $2 million dollars for the Navajo and Hopi Nations so they could protect themselves from the pandemic. At the time, the infection rate in the Navajo community -- 2,304 cases per 100,000 was the highest in the country. It was a show of thanks to Native Americans for a $170 gift sent by the Choctaw to the Irish people at the height of the potato famine in ... posted on May 11, 3880 reads

The Art and Science of Conquering Your Fears
Aristotle believed courage to be the most important quality in a man. "Courage is the first of human virtues because it makes all others possible," he wrote. Today, it's one of the more neglected areas of positive psychology, but recent research has begun to move toward an understanding of what courage is and how we might be able to cultivate the ability to face our fear and make decisions with gr... posted on May 19, 65912 reads

Kolam: Ritual Art that Feeds a Thousand Souls Every Day
Each dawn, millions of Tamil women create intricate, geometric, ritual-art designs called 'kolams,' at the thresholds of their homes, as a tribute to Mother Earth and an offering to Goddess Lakshmi. A Tamil word that means beauty, form, play, disguise or ritual design-- a kolam is anchored in the Hindu belief that householders have a karmic obligation to "feed a thousand souls." By creating the k... posted on May 20, 16827 reads

The Wisdom of Forgetting What You Know
We are so afraid to let go, to just be, to allow the unfolding of this marvelous life without getting in the way. This fear keeps us paralyzed and stuck. And longing for the peace that is possible -- if only we would put down all the efforts we make to know. There is no greater gift you can give yourself than the invitation to enter the world of not knowing. Why? If you are always going to know wh... posted on Jun 7, 61173 reads

Four Stages of Groundedness
"The ground is both a metaphor and a felt sense. As a metaphor, it means to be in touch with reality. As a felt sense, it refers to feeling our center of gravity low in the belly and experiencing a deep silence, stability, and connection with the whole of life. Feeling grounded does not require contact with the earth; it can happen anywhere and anytime -- even when we're flat on our backs in a row... posted on Jun 10, 9597 reads

How to Write Love
"Stranger Care is Sarah Sentilless heartbreaking, heart-expanding account of her relationship with her foster daughter, Coco--although saying that is a bit like saying Walden is a book about a pond. It is, but ponds are just the beginning. It is, and yet, well never look at ponds the same way again. After Stranger Care, Ill never look at mothers the same way again. Or daughters. Or parenting. Or c... posted on Jun 12, 3474 reads

The City Planting a Million Trees in Two Years
As described so eloquently here by the mayor of Freetown, Sierra Leone, the loss of forest due to the impact of climate change is about much more than the loss of beauty and shade. Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr is leading her city's efforts to make Freetown a tree town by planting one million trees in two years, increasing the vegetation cover by 50%. The goal is to reduce the risk of landslides and fl... posted on Jul 3, 1464 reads

100 Thank Yous
For a year and a half, artist Lori Portka painted her gratitude through individual pieces of art for 100 people who have made a difference in her life. In her effort to truly live a life of gratitude, Lori learned that gratitude grows, and grows, and grows. "The more that I focused on gratitude, the more I was grateful for." This beautiful film captures Lori's motivation and some of the reactions ... posted on Jul 7, 2974 reads

Earning Humility: My Story of Meeting Rollie Grandbois
"It was a bright August morning and I had the shop all to myself. Since my wife and I were staying nearby, we'd driven past the place before on the way to town. To tell the truth, from the look of it, I'd decided it was best avoided. But this morning, I'd decided to go against my snap judgments. Besides, I needed a little break. So as an exercise, I thought I'd go out for a walk and strike up a co... posted on Jul 11, 2690 reads

Practicing the Art of Wonder: Lessons from the Hummingbird
"A Broad-billed Hummingbird hangs for a few seconds, not three feet away. The brilliant sapphire gorget flashes for an instant, and then the tiny bird is gone in a shot, his raspy cry fading like a lost thought into the oaks. I close my eyes and try to feel the impact that the hundreds of hummingbirds I've seen over the past few days have had on my psyche. The swirl of their presence, their diminu... posted on Jul 15, 8114 reads

For Love of Wild Horses
Wildife biologist, Craig Downer's, childhood experience with his trusted horse, Poco, and their many adventures in the wild lands of Nevada, led to a lifetime of passionate advocacy for the protection of wild horses and burros in the Western United States. His is often a lonely struggle between raising consciousness about the long term ecological benefits these animals bring and the forces more co... posted on Jul 29, 1822 reads

Moon Tree
"In 1971, more than four hundred tree seeds were collected and ensconced in an aluminum canister. They were chosen from across the United States: the resinous sweet gum and mud-loving southern loblolly; the northwestern Douglas fir, green and mossy; the sycamore leafing over mid-western flood plains; and the coastal redwood, stretching along the sandy loam of the Pacific. For all the preparations ... posted on Aug 1, 3813 reads

On the Road with Thomas Merton
"In May 1968, Christian mystic Thomas Merton undertook a pilgrimage to the American West. Fifty years later, filmmaker Jeremy Seifert and writer Fred Bahnson set out to follow Mertons path, retracing the monks journey across the landscape. Amid stunning backdrops of ocean, redwood, and canyon, the film features the faces and voices of people Merton encountered. The essay offers a more intimate med... posted on Aug 7, 9429 reads

The Leadership Imperative
"Oren Lyons, seventy-six, is a wisdom carrier, one of the bearers of a variety of human tradition that cant easily be reduced to a couple of sentences. One reason he and the tradition for which he is a spokesperson isn't more widely known is that he doesn't actively seek forums from which to speak. If someone asks him, however, about the principles behind the particular Native American tradition... posted on Aug 8, 4652 reads

Catching Sight of Yourself
"How things seem is not how things are. For most of us, most of the time, it seems as though the self is an enduring and unified entity, an essence, a unique identity: the recipient of wave-upon-wave of perceptions, and decision-maker-in-chief about what to do next. We sense, we think, we act. This is how things seem. How things are is very different. The story emerging from a rich blend of philos... posted on Aug 14, 5120 reads