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, 1860 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, 2028 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, 8198 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, 13620 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, 2747 reads

Changing Destructive Stories Through Music
"In the story, Dr. Frankenstein creates the impossible. He creates life out of unlife. He creates a new creature. And what happens when he's done? He walks away. Abandons him. Doesn't even give it a name. "Not my responsibility." When the creature wakes up in the forest he's looking for where he belongs. He's looking for a family. Then he hears the voices of birds.He feels a deep connection with t... posted on Feb 27, 2227 reads

Strange Bedfellows
"I never thought about the daily schedule of wild turkeys. They seemed, in my imagination, to be mythical creatures who lived mostly in paintings of rural 1800s England. I did not know they were to become part of my life. Take yesterday at dusk, for example, when the local gang, maybe fifteen or so, came rolling up over our wooden bridge and hopped, one by one, onto the roof of the other house on ... posted on Mar 1, 1734 reads

Mink! Champion of Title IX
If you're a woman who played sports, or have girls or women in your life who did or do, then you will want to see this remarkable story that explains who made that possible. This short documentary tells the story of Title IX through the eyes of Wendy, daughter of the amazing Patsy Takemoto Mink, a Japanese American from Hawaii who became the first woman of color elected to the U.S. Congress. The f... posted on Mar 5, 1173 reads

When I Touched the Ground
"Nyurpaya Kaika Burton is a respected and revered senior artist, educator, storyteller and cultural leader. She is also one of the few remaining poetic speakers of Pitjantjatjara, a traditional Indigenous language of Central Australia's remote Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. There were once more than 400 traditional languages spoken across the Australian continent, but only arou... posted on Mar 7, 1678 reads

The Power of Brain Training
"Dr Michael Merzenich walks 40 minutes a day around the parks, streets and hills near his home in San Francisco, while making a mental map of all that he sees. He takes his dog on a different route each time, taking note of the homes, people and plants they pass. It's just one way that the world-renowned neuroscientist trains his brain to remain fast and nimble. How nimble? The 74-year-old equates... posted on Mar 19, 3185 reads

Our Tenuous Boundaries: A Life in 10 Sea Creatures
"When Sabrina Imbler was in college, they enrolled in a class they thought was about whales, but which turned out to be about whaling. In one of 10 brilliant essays in their new book, Imbler recalls the class, which focused on "the systematic hunting and harvesting of the animals that brought human populations to the verge of unimaginable prosperity and whale populations to the brink of extinction... posted on Mar 30, 1903 reads

Remote Wonders : A Conversation with Elaine Ling
"Ling explained, I love photography and medicine. Each led her in unexpected directions. She relates that, as a young doctor, one day in the waiting room a man was sitting there with a hawk on his arm and little curved knife in his belt. She said, "I have to take your picture before you come in." Not so many years later, she was in Mongolia bombing along the steppes in a jeep full of singing docto... posted on Mar 25, 1718 reads

An Introvert's Field Guide To Friendship
"'Whatever our degree of friends may be, we come more under their influence than we are aware,' the trailblazing astronomer Maria Mitchell observed as she contemplated how we co-create each other and recreate ourselves in friendship. Her friend Ralph Waldo Emerson -- whom she taught to look through a telescope -- believed that all true friendship rests on two pillars. In his own life, he put the t... posted on Mar 27, 5826 reads

A Lost Mariposa Garden
"I got a phone call one morning. The woman was distraught. Her friend's garden -- thirty five years in the making -- was being destroyed. The larger pieces-- a griffin, a couple of horses and two large cats-- were too heavy to move without special equipment. And the blue mosaic hillside had already been bulldozed. I published an art magazine. Wouldn't I want to see it before it was gone? I would. ... posted on Apr 3, 2027 reads

Four Ways We Avoid Our Feelings & What to Do Instead
"We are always vulnerable, with limited control over the things that matter to us. Maybe you want your brother to quit drinking or your kids to get along or your boss to stop being so critical, or you want to protect those you love from harm or you want an end to world hunger and climate change, or you want this magical moment where everyone is all together at Thanksgiving feeling so close and con... posted on Apr 5, 6301 reads

The Dragonfly Incident
"I suppose this could be considered a 'wildlife encounter' story of sorts, though it presents some unusual twists. For one thing, the animal at the heart of this tale is a subarctic insect (and yet has nothing to do with the region's legendary mosquitoes). For another, odd things happen that aren't easily explained by either reason or chance. There are other curious turns, as well...The story begi... posted on Apr 6, 5695 reads

Dandelions
"As new homeowners early in our marriage, I obsessed over making our yard dandelion-free. Every dandelion clock, or white blowball about to burst and blow into the wind, was a guilt-inducing sign that I hadn't caught them when I scoured our yard on my hands and knees days earlier, looking to pop them at the root. What kind of a homemaker would I be if our lawn weren't trimmed and verdant, no bligh... posted on Apr 10, 2577 reads

When Relishing Joy is A Radical Act
"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 Apr 18, 26209 reads

The Mongerji Letters
"Since the collapse of one of the last dynasties of the common era and the subsequent end of the era itself, historians have searched for descendants of the Mongerji family, as well as descendants of the scribes who, under their employ, collected samplings of flora and fauna from around the world. The only evidence discovered thus far are the letters that follow. They are from Mr. Mongerji, his wi... posted on Apr 23, 1817 reads

Bokkapuram's Birdman
"He can recognise the gentle hoot of the elusive wood owl and the call of four types of babblers. He also knows exactly what kind of ponds the migratory Woolly-necked storks breed in. B. Siddan had to drop out of school, but his knowledge of avian species in and around his home in the Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu, is the delight of an ornithologist. "There were three boys named Siddan in my village of Bok... posted on May 12, 1215 reads

Staying Loyal to Who You Are and Your Dreams
"Dr. Tererai Trent is an activist, adjunct professor at Drexel University's School of Public Health, and the author of The Awakened Woman: Remembering & Reigniting Our Sacred Dreams. Oprah Winfrey has referred to Dr. Trent as one of her favorite guests. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Trent about the path that took her from a childhood in rural Zimbabwe to becom... posted on May 24, 3081 reads

Soil & Spirit: Cultivation and Kinship in the Web of Life
"In Soil and Spirit, poet, farmer, and educator Scott Chaskey generously reflects on the natural world, his travels visiting growers around the country, and his insight into how we can build healthier communities while tending to the earth." Read an excerpt here. ... posted on May 26, 1740 reads

Six Ways to Help Kids Grow Their Creativity
Brene Brown, bestselling author, researcher, and University of Houston professor, was surrounded by creativity as a child. "I grew up in a pink stucco house in New Orleans where my mom was always a maker. All the curtains in our house were homemade, all the art in our house was from us kids. I had dresses that matched my mom's that matched my dolls. I never thought about creativity as an act separ... posted on May 29, 3254 reads

The Hidden Joy of Waiting in Line
"Americans spend an estimated 37 billion hours waiting in line each year, much to our individual and collective distaste. Few things inspire as much universal frustration and ire as long queues and lengthy wait times -- many of us even struggle to wait for a sluggish web browser to load." Why do we dislike waiting so much -- and what can we do to transform that familiar feeling of frustration? Thi... posted on May 31, 26412 reads

Interbeing : Nico de Transilvania
Interbeing is a project which utilizes music and art to showcase the interconnectedness of everything: people, nature, and the whole ecosystem. Through indigenous songs, traditional instruments and the exquisite sounds of nature, traditions are passed on to younger generations, including the life giving value of forests. Interbeing lays a path for regenerating and recreating some old ways of livin... posted on Jun 2, 1902 reads

Kabul's For Women, By Women, Pop Up Cafe
Savory smells waft out of the cloth-walled pop-up restaurant in Kabul. Banowan-e-Afghan is a dine-in restaurant for women, run by women, a rarity in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. While many restaurants have designated family areas where men can only enter if they're accompanying female relatives, a whole restaurant dedicated to serving and employing women is rare. Many of the women who work here... posted on Jun 8, 1281 reads

The Deep Cultural Work of Chatter
"The horror of the oral, of stories that lack the luster of the literary, stems in part from the link between old wives' tales and gossip, or idle chatter. How could these trifles possibly be dignified with print? But gossip has value precisely because it creates opportunities for talking through the emotional entanglements of our social lives. Its participants jointly construct narratives from th... posted on Jun 13, 1180 reads

Aluna: A Journey to Save the World
"In 1991, in the last edition of the original Beshara Magazine, we published an article by journalist Alan Ereira about an extraordinary people living in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in the north of Colombia. The descendants of a great civilisation which fled to the hills as the Spanish took over their lands, the Kogi had lived for 400 years in isolation, led by a class of priests called the m... posted on Jun 20, 1725 reads

Leave No Child Inside
"As a boy I pulled out dozens -- perhaps hundreds -- of survey stakes in a vain effort to slow the bulldozers that were taking out my woods to make way for a new subdivision. Had I known then what I've since learned from a developer, that I should have simply moved the stakes around to be more effective, I would surely have done that too. So you might imagine my dubiousness when, a few weeks after... posted on Jun 22, 2188 reads

Sarah Peyton: Connecting with the Music & Breath of Life
In a special Awakin Calls workshop held in 2022, longtime Nonviolent Communication trainer, Sarah Peyton explained resonance in the context of her cello. The cello is shaped like a human body, almost the same size, and, "We actually place musical instruments in our brain in the same area that holds people. So our body, our brain thinks of a cello as a person as well." When we play a cello and ther... posted on Jun 26, 1445 reads

Joyas Voladoras
"Consider the hummingbird for a long moment. A hummingbird's heart beats ten times a second. A hummingbird's heart is the size of a pencil eraser. A hummingbird's heart is a lot of the hummingbird. Joyas voladoras, flying jewels, the first white explorers in the Americas called them, and the white men had never seen such creatures, for hummingbirds came into the world only in the Americas, nowhere... posted on Jun 27, 2326 reads

Hermann Hesse on Breaking the Trance of Busyness
"We reflexively blame on the Internet our corrosive compulsion for doing at the cost of being, forgetting that every technology is a symptom and not, or at least not at first, a cause of our desires and pathologies. Our intentions are the basic infrastructure of our lives, out of which all of our inventions and actions arise. Any real relief from our self-inflicted maladies, therefore, must come n... posted on Jul 2, 6330 reads

The Cataclysm Sentence
"One day in 1961, the famous physicist Richard Feynman stepped in front of a Caltech lecture hall and posed this question to a group of undergraduate students: If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence was passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? Now, Feynman had an ans... posted on Jul 4, 3429 reads

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
"In fact, human beings do not see very well. The brain itself makes assumptions about what it is seeing, and can actually can change perceptions to fit its assumptions. You may be familiar with the so-called constancies, perceptual constancy, form constancy, and concept constancy. This means that the brain, which is always looking for easy ways to do things, makes quick assumptions about perceptio... posted on Jul 9, 2717 reads

A Broad Margin
"To meander is a natural form of movement, uncontrived, unhurried. Rivers and roving butterflies are adept at meandering. And we were too, once upon a time before we developed a preference for traveling in straight lines, perhaps because of Euclid, who told us a straight line is the shortest distance between two points (for the record he was not entirely right about this.) Regardless of length, a ... posted on Jul 24, 4436 reads

Ode to an Ugly Cat
"Idly is not a beautiful cat. There is something about the way he looks at you that will set you on edge and it will take you a long time to get over this feeling. The edges of his ears are jagged, a little bit frayed. Old cat ears. He has scratches on his nose. He always has something sticking to his whiskers and there is nothing you can do about that. He would rather have cat litter stuck to his... posted on Jul 19, 5576 reads

The Constant Gardener
The garden is a space defined not by its physicality but by the emotions it evokes and the connections it provokes. And the act of gardening can change the way we relate to the world around us for the better, giving us perspective and teaching us lessons about life. Our souls are gardens. Our hearts are flowers. They need to be watered, tended, fertilized and loved. Happy gardening!... posted on Jul 28, 2327 reads

Arwen Donohue: Care is a Creative Act
"I had sort of a grandiose idea that I was writing a big hybrid book--part oral history illuminated by portraiture, part graphic memoir, and part history of the peculiar role that the idea of agrarianism has played in American life. The drawings of daily life on the farm became a small part of this rangy, years-long interdisciplinary process. After I finished the year of drawing 'Landings,' I kept... posted on Aug 8, 1394 reads

How to Become a 100 Percenter
The term 100 percenter is inspired by Charly and Lisa Kleissner, tech entrepreneurs who wanted to invest their money in a meaningful way, and inspire others to do the same. That's why they started the 100 percent impact network, which brings together likeminded people who invest all of their assets into social and environmental causes. Now, these are some serious investors, but being 100 percent i... posted on Aug 21, 3101 reads

Conspiracy of Goodness
Many times throughout history there have been silent movements of goodness that have made a significant impact on humanity. Perhaps we are on the verge of the greatest one yet, and the only thing stopping it is what's under your fingers! Dr. Lynda Ulrich, a dentist turned social innovator, is the founder of Ever Widening Circles (EWC), a positive media company on a mission to prove that in spite o... posted on Sep 4, 2357 reads

Shrine
Tracey Schmidt performs her poem Shrine, an evocative poem about love, about self, and about fitting into the world. Her whole being becomes a shrine through which divisions between herself and the rest of the world recede and "then the love fits perfectly," and her life shines brilliantly.... posted on Sep 8, 1900 reads

An Antidote to the Age of Anxiety
In his 1951 book, "The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety," Alan Watts writes, "There is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity. But the contradiction lies a little deeper than the mere conflict between the desire for security and the fact of change. If I want to be secure, that is, protected from the flux ... posted on Sep 19, 4273 reads

Hummingbirds & the Ecstatic Moment
"Birds have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and hummingbirds have held a special place in my heart for the simple reason that they, early on, became personal to me. On some level, you could say I became a writer because of hummingbirds, and they have appeared in my fiction since I was very young. How to make sense of life, especially during childhood? Sometimes, what moves yo... posted on Sep 20, 915 reads

3 Steps to Build Peace & Create Change
As the child of Holocaust survivors and a World War II refugee herself, peace builder Georgette Bennett was stunned by the human toll and tragedy of the Syrian civil war. She got to work, bringing together historical enemies to build an aid pipeline from Israel to Syria -- a feat many considered impossible, but she and her organization -- the Multi-faith Alliance for Syrian refugees -- has since h... posted on Sep 23, 1588 reads

Coming to Our (Animal) Senses
"The term 'resource' always befuddles me. If we would simply drop the prefix, 're,' whenever we use the term, it would become apparent that we're almost always talking about 'sources', like springs bubbling up from the unseen depths. But when we put that little prefix in front of the word, and speak of things as 'resources', we transform the enigmatic presence of things into a reserve, a stock of ... posted on Oct 9, 1149 reads