When Love Breaks Your Heart
When science journalist Florence William's husband of 25 years unexpectedly asked for a divorce, William found herself feeling dazed and ill. ""Physically, I felt like my body had been plugged into a faulty electrical socket," she writes. "In addition to weight loss, I'd stopped sleeping. I was getting sick: My pancreas wasn't working right. It was hard to think straight."To help understand what w... posted on Apr 13, 7826 reads

The Magnitude of All Things
Earth is our mother and when she suffers, we all suffer. Jennifer Abbott's climate change documentary "The Magnitude of All Things" helps us to see grief on a personal and global scale. When her sister died from cancer, Abbott's sorrow opened her up to the grief that is being experienced on a global level by people who are already losing their homes and lives due to climate change. The film is a r... posted on Apr 27, 2119 reads

Small Kindnesses
"Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection," is an anthology that includes poems by Ross Gay, Marie Howe, Naomi Shihab Nye and many others. The poems within it urge readers in these polarized times to "move past the negativity that often fills the airwaves, and to embrace the ordinary moments of kindness and connection that fill our days." What follows is one of the poems from this coll... posted on May 4, 3288 reads

Beyond Polarity
"This animated video offers hope for creating together the world that honors our collective needs by building on what unifies us. To make personal change that scales up to social change requires meeting our most important needs and recognizing that people are different. These differences can add color and richness to life and they can also be polarizing. Knowing another person's needs is a startin... posted on May 13, 1851 reads

Navigating the Mysteries
"The correct response to uncertainty is mythmaking. It always was. Not punditry, allegory, or mandate, but mythmaking. The creation of stories. We are tuned to do so, right down to our bones. The bewilderment, vivacity, and downright slog of life requires it. And such emerging art forms are not to cure or even resolve uncertainty but to deepen into it. There's no solving uncertainty. Mythmaking is... posted on May 15, 2299 reads

Things to Look Forward To
In 2020 when the pandemic tore across our globe, "She [children's bookmaker, Sophie Blackall] coped the way all artists cope, complained the way all makers complain: by making something of beauty and substance, something that begins as a quickening of self-salvation in ones own heart and ripples out to touch, to salve, maybe even to save others -- which might be both the broadest and the most prec... posted on May 17, 7913 reads

The Sounds of Silence
"When I was a sixteen-year-old naturalist in training, we were instructed to sit in the forest and wait for the return of something called the baseline symphony. The baseline symphony was the music of a landscape at easethe confluence of insect, bird, and animal song, underscored by wind and water. The dynamics of that symphony shifted as day progressed into night. There were brief caesuras, but i... posted on May 20, 2044 reads

Anna Breytenbach: The Animal Communicator
Anna Breytenbach is a professional interspecies communicator and the subject of a documentary titled, 'The Animal Communicator.' Breytenbach's lifework is dedicated to interspecies communication. Over the last couple of decades she has worked with baboons, great white sharks, big cats, and other creatures across multiple continents, astounding people with her capacity to connect with animals in al... posted on May 30, 3077 reads

Black Joy in Pursuit of Racial Justice
"I've been longing to talk about all the ways in which these last couple of years have been so much of a gift for me. And yet I struggle with holding that fact in the same space with all the ways these last couple of years have challenged the very core of who I am as a human being and the way I navigate this world as a Black woman. And yet, in writing my book Black Joy: Stories of Resistance, Resi... posted on Jun 8, 2785 reads

Listening and the Crisis of Attention
Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee talks with biologist and author David G. Haskell about his latest book, Sounds Wild and Broken: a journey through deep time that traces the evolution of sound. Their conversation touches on the legacies of kinship that are present when we listen, and how deep experiences of beauty can serve as a moral guide for the future.... posted on Jun 20, 1747 reads

Grieving Beneath the Stars: Mourners as Spiritual Teachers
"When I heard my dad was dead, there was a breaking--a shattering inside of me that felt so violent I could almost hear it. I woke up to a knock on my front door in the middle of the night, and sat up in bed, sure something was wrong. It was my older brother. He said he had bad news. "Really bad." And then the words left his mouth: "Dad had a heart attack, and unfortunately, he passed away." Like ... posted on Jun 22, 4418 reads

Scaling We: A Journey of Heart-Centered Deliberation
"Traci Ruble is a psychotherapist and the founder of an extremely successful community listening project Sidewalk Talk. One day, in the fall of 2015, Traci and 27 other listeners took their therapists chairs out into the streets of San Francisco, offering the gift of listening to anyone who wanted it. There seems to have been a huge need for that offering of sympathetic, non-judgmental attention,... posted on Jun 28, 1795 reads

Timefulness: A Geologist's Story
"Geologist Marcia Bjornerud's latest book, Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World, can easily capture your inner philosopher, scientist, activist, and writer. When I received this book from Princeton University Press, I was immediately intrigued by the books cover. Ive always been fascinated by ideas that necessarily mix up life's ingredients into creative nature storie... posted on Jul 19, 1687 reads

Botanical Animation: A Story of Flowers
There are nearly half a million flowering plants growing beautifully and strongly in this world, spreading their roots in the earth, sprouting, blooming, pollinated by birds and insects, living on through rain, wind and storms. They pass on the baton of life, rebirth and decay. Everything is so in a continuous cycle, stunningly animated by Azuma Makoto.... posted on Jul 29, 2906 reads

Learning to Learn: You, Too, Can Rewire Your Brain
"The studio for what is arguably the world's most successful online course is tucked into a corner of Barb and Phil Oakley's basement, a converted TV room that smells faintly of cat urine. (At the end of every video session, the Oakleys pin up the green fabric that serves as the backdrop so Fluffy doesn't ruin it.) This is where they put together "Learning How to Learn," taken by more than 1.8 mil... posted on Jul 31, 3136 reads

How to Be a Citizen of Earth
"One small country, in which 0.0002% of the worlds population lives in one of the planets most biodiverse habitats, has taken it upon itself to model for the rest of humanity an inspired step along the path forward. In 1981, just after a dazzling new species of nautilus was discovered in its turquoise waters, the Republic of Palau -- a tiny, vast-spirited Pacific island nation midway between Austr... posted on Aug 6, 3241 reads

WoodSwimmer
This short film by engineer and stop-motion animator Brett Foxwell, in collaboration with musician and animator bedtimes, offers a mesmerizing look into cross sections of a piece of raw wood as it goes through a milling machine. The imagery produced captures the wood's unique growth rings, knots and weathered spots. Due to the speed with which the images are animated, the grains begin to flow in a... posted on Aug 7, 3042 reads

Gold is the Deepest Love
"'Gold,' the title of my book, is a word that recurs throughout Rumi's poetry. Rumi's gold is not the precious metal but a feeling-state arrived at through the alchemical process of altering consciousness, of burning through ego, greed, pettiness, and calculation, to arrive at a more relaxed and compassionate state of being. In sum, the prayer of Sufism is 'teach me to love more deeply.' Gold is t... posted on Aug 12, 4323 reads

Thousand-Mile Walk Home
"Eight years ago this spring, I blew out a lumbar disc while running a jackhammer in the desert near my housean accident that was the result of simple bad luck, with the odds skewed by the fact that a jackhammer was the wrong tool for the job and that alcohol may have been involved. After a long, miserable recovery period during which I was as ornery as a walleyed mule, I finally mended enough tha... posted on Aug 14, 2741 reads

Living/Dying Man
"After he was diagnosed, we had a lot of conversation about how we were going to face the harsh reality that ALS is always fatal. We didn't want to waste our precious time trying to chase down miracle cures or doing things that might extend his life for a few days or weeks. What was the point of a few more days if he was suffering? We decided to live 'hope-free,' which isn't the same thing as hope... posted on Aug 16, 6612 reads

The Nettle Dress
Over the course of seven years Allan Brown makes a dress by hand from foraged nettles. In the process, as he experiences the loss of two loved ones, he weaves his love into the fabric that he is creating. He spends seven summers harvesting the nettle and seven winters spinning it into fabric to make a dress for his daughter. The thread he creates carries his grief and his love, so that the cloth r... posted on Aug 26, 3046 reads

Listening to the Thoughts of the Forest
"To speak of intelligence in a forest is, on its face, an anthropomorphism, a violation of the creed of ecologists and science writers alike: Don/t treat other species like charming little humanoids! Trees are not leafy people and forests are not woody brains. But just as dangerous as projecting human fairytales onto forests is the overzealous rejection of all analogy between human minds and the n... posted on Aug 29, 1858 reads

Paul Salopek: The Out of Eden Walk
"The auditorium was hot and the acoustics were poor, but [Paul] Salopek's words were captivating. He explained that he had become dissatisfied with the standard method of international reporting, for which correspondents helicoptered into countries with little notice, reported, filed, and helicoptered out. Storytelling, he said, requires the writer to come in at ground level with the subject. His ... posted on Sep 3, 1812 reads

The Politics of Play
"Indigenous philosophies of childhood overwhelmingly agree on one thing: that a child should not be forced into obedience but should have liberty of body, mind, and will. Inuit children have traditionally experienced extraordinary freedom and would become 'self-reliant, caring, and self-controlled individuals,' an Inuit person I met in Nunavut told me. By the age of ten, their self-control is 'alm... posted on Sep 11, 1735 reads

How to Be in Awe
"Trees, writes Aimee Nezhukumatathil in her debut book of nonfiction 'World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments,' have been known to form alliances and send signals to one another. "And what a magnificent telegraph we might send back," she says, "especially if other humans have ever made you feel alone on this earth." With wry, warm-hearted, bizarre, and beaut... posted on Sep 12, 1634 reads

Mary Reynolds: The Garden Awakening
Mary Reynolds has designed award-winning gardens and landscapes across the globe. She is a nature activist and reformed landscape designer, because, in her words, "Everything must change. Including me." Her book, The Garden Awakening: Designs to Nurture Our Lands and Ourselves, is"a step-by-step manual to creating a garden in harmony with the life force in the earth, addressing not only what the p... posted on Sep 18, 0 reads

Mary Reynolds: The Garden Awakening
Mary Reynolds has designed award-winning gardens and landscapes across the globe. She is a nature activist and reformed landscape designer, because, in her words, "Everything must change. Including me." Her book, The Garden Awakening: Designs to Nurture Our Lands and Ourselves, is"a step-by-step manual to creating a garden in harmony with the life force in the earth, addressing not only what the p... posted on Sep 19, 6794 reads

The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life
"In his first two bestsellers, 'Care of the Soul' and 'Soul Mates,' author Thomas Moore dished out a large dose of preventative medicine for the preservation of our individual and collective souls. Moore's later book, 'The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life, leads the tentatively restored soul along the magical path of a charming, gently revisioned everyday reality. His book asks us to view the event... posted on Oct 23, 2020 reads

A Culture of Simplicity
"Wabi sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. Wabi-sabi is a nature-based aesthetic paradigm that restores a measure of sanity and proportion to the art of living. Wabi-sabi -- deep, multi-dimensional, elusive -- is the perfect antidote to the pervasively slick, saccharine, corporate style of beauty." More in this short excerpt ... posted on Sep 22, 2256 reads

We the People
Through hopeful lyrics and joyous dance, Nimo Patel and Ellie Walton's "We the People" video is a call to unity, togetherness and equality. It reminds us that if we learn to love, if we learn to listen, the good will indeed come someday. Sing along and let your spirit be lifted.... posted on Sep 23, 1805 reads

The Myth of Normal
"The Myth of Normal--written with the help of Gabor Mates son, Daniel--prescribes a more authentic self that breaks free of the world's expectations of us, offers a path to happiness, and also promises to alleviate physical ailments, because, as Mate reminds us, the mind and body are not separate. The former physician, now approaching 80, has spent decades exploring these connections, first in his... posted on Oct 2, 6305 reads

In the Mind of a Whale
"On September 12, 2015, Tom Mustill and a friend were on a guided kayak tour in Monterey Bay, off the coast of California. There was so much food in the rich waters of the bay that whales were engaged in an unprecedented feeding frenzy. As kayaks and boats shared the water with the whales, a humpback breached and came down on the two friends. They survived, but the episode sent Mustill--a biologis... posted on Oct 8, 2641 reads

Treeline
"Treeline," filmed in three extraordinary forest landscapes across Japan, British Columbia and Nevada, asks us to question: what is a tree? What is our connection to our oldest living companions? When we take the time to really look, to really experience and to really open ourselves to these questions, we begin to realize the great mystery of trees. Giant in scale to other plants, they have a life... posted on Oct 7, 2149 reads

The Soul of Medicine
"The name resonated in an undefined, positive way -- Rachel Naomi Remen; "Have you heard of her?" I asked my wife. "Isn't she the author of Kitchen Table Wisdom?" my wife replied. Indeed. And I'd heard of the book, a bestseller--as was My Grandfather's Blessing. I'd read neither and yet somehow, I'd absorbed the sense of these books like the sound of a bell in the distance, a new influence appeari... posted on Oct 16, 2852 reads

In Praise of Black Capped Chickadees
"I'd like to offer some words in praise of chickadees. Though seven different species inhabit North America, four of them in Alaska, here I will focus on the black-capped chickadee, the bird that transformed my life nearly three decades ago. Because they're among the most common birds to inhabit the Anchorage area -- and much of our continent --nearly everyone can recognize black-capped chickadees... posted on Oct 18, 7525 reads

My Real Name: A Conversation with Zoo Cain
"Creating is so natural for me now. I never have a block. I'm on a roll. This started as a little snowball at the top of a hill and rolled into an avalanche--an avalanche of artwork. I'd estimate I've done ten to twelve thousand pieces. I used to keep count. One year I started 725 pieces and completed over 500 of them. [Zoo picks up a circular piece of scrap metal with an open middle, and holds it... posted on Oct 27, 2199 reads

Messengers from the Past
"The Crown Jewel of our National Wildlife Refuge System, the Bosque del Apache, has been my annual pilgrimage site for a decade. The largest single population of sandhill cranes migrates to the Bosque late in the fall to overwinter along the Rio Grande. I have seen these cranes with crimson crowns in Southern California and at the Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary in British Columbia but they desce... posted on Nov 9, 1496 reads

The Most Radical Thing You Can Do
"Long ago the poet and bioregionalist Gary Snyder said, The most radical thing you can do is stay home, a phrase that has itself stayed with me for the many years since I first heard it. Some or all of its meaning was present then, in the bioregional 1970s, when going back to the land and consuming less was how the task was framed. The task has only become more urgent as climate change in particul... posted on Dec 19, 2270 reads

Fostering Self-Organization
"When working in collaboration with others, where theres no single person in charge and the way forward is unclear, it can be hard to know when to lead and when to follow. In these situations, you may hope that people spontaneously self-organize to get things done, but the reality is that leadership always matters. Leadership is needed to facilitate conversations, weave connections, coordinate act... posted on Nov 23, 1764 reads

Nipun Mehta: A Deeper Thanksgiving
On a recent episode of the podcast Gray Matter, renowned broadcaster, Michael Krasny, talks with ServiceSpace founder, Nipun Mehta. "As a small sampling of the conversation's many gems, we touched on the hierarchy of generosity, and the ability to 'throw a better party' when we replace transactions with relationships. Nipun advocated for our own personal experimentation with generosity, knowing th... posted on Nov 27, 1966 reads

The Entangled Activist
"An angry activist isn't easy to listen to, and for years I made dinner table conversation unbearable. Like many other progressive activists I would preach tolerance of all diversity...except for those with whom I disagreed. And people felt that judgment, reacting against the person who made them feel bad: me, 'the activist.' Students of sociology and political psychology know that we are prone to... posted on Dec 4, 1803 reads

The Middle of Somewhere
At Elizabeth Sproul Ross's Shenandoah Valley farm, "she invites artists and art students to share her rustic studio for weeklong retreats. Her roots here reach back to the 1700s, when Scots-Irish ancestors settled this land. Now paintbrushes replace plows, as it's become a getaway from city life for those seeking new skills. And with each group, this spry 70-plus-year-old still climbs the hill beh... posted on Dec 5, 1871 reads

The Systems View of Life
"This essay is excerpted from The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision, by Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi (2014, Cambridge University Press). The book integrates the ideas, models, and theories underlying the systems view of life into a single coherent framework, exploring its implications for a broad range of endeavors, from economics and politics to medicine, psychology, and law."... posted on Jan 7, 1859 reads

Growing Through the Cracks: A Conversation with Sachi Maniar
Over the past ten years, Sachi Maniar has nurtured breathing spaces for young people in the midst of profound intensity. When she first stumbled into the company of youth in conflict with the law, with runaway, orphaned and abandoned children, Sachi felt herself inexplicably at home. The work that blossomed from that feeling would eventually turn into a full-fledged organization that has now touch... posted on Jan 9, 2596 reads

The Birdsong Project
"Randall Poster is Hollywood's man with the golden ear, a renowned matchmaker of sound and image. When a filmmaker wants a soundtrack to create a certain mood or needs just the right tune to lend a scene punch or poignancy, Poster's phone rings. Now the man behind your favorite film soundtracks wants to build a joyful movement around bird conservation. What began as a loose idea for a musical bene... posted on Aug 20, 2040 reads

Are You A Spectator or a Creator to Reality?
"Your brain constantly runs a model of your body as it moves through the world. You come to know that world only through your cochlea, retina, and the other sensory surfaces of your body. Their signals, along with those streaming from within your body, continuously confirm or correct the ongoing signals in your brain. The implication is a bit startling: You cannot experience the world, or even you... posted on Jan 30, 2027 reads

The Science of a Meaningful Life: Top 10 Insights from 2022
"It's hard to talk about individual well-being these days without talking about what's going on in the world, whether that's the mental health fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, political polarization, or global crises like climate change. All of us are affected by these problems, and that's reflected in Greater Good's 2022 selection of top scientific insights. But this research doesn't just sugges... posted on Feb 4, 8197 reads

Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Instructions to Painters & Poets
"I asked a hundred painters and a hundred poets
how to paint sunlight
on the face of life
Their answers were ambiguous and ingenuous
as if they were all guarding trade secrets
Whereas it seems to me
all you have to do
is conceive of the whole world
and all humanity
as a kind of art work
a site-specific art work
an art pro... posted on Feb 9, 4270 reads

Matt Walker: Sleep Is Your Superpower
Sleep is your life-support system and Mother Nature's best effort yet at immortality, says sleep scientist Matt Walker. In this deep dive into the science of slumber, Walker shares the wonderfully good things that happen when you get sleep -- and the alarmingly bad things that happen when you don't, for both your brain and body. Learn more about sleep's impact on your learning, memory, immune syst... posted on Feb 15, 13597 reads

David Rothenberg: The Joy & Mystery of Interspecies Music Making
David Rothenberg is a writer, philosopher, ecologist, and musician, speaking out for nature in all aspects of his diverse work. He investigates the musicality of animals and the role of nature in philosophy, with a particular interest in understanding other species by making music with them. His book 'Why Birds Sing: A Journey into the Mystery of Bird Song,' was inspired by an impromptu duet in Ma... posted on Feb 21, 2746 reads