A 13-yr-old Secret Santa
For the second straight Christmas, a philanthropist from Utah's Capitol Hill has been warming the hearts of the homeless and brightening the smiles of hundreds of their children. The benefactor works year-round raising money, networking with businesses, buying and wrapping gifts, and encouraging random residents to pitch in with presents the underprivileged kids otherwise would never see. Jocelyn ... posted on Dec 23, 9740 reads

A Guide to Finding Your Passion
"Following your passion can be a tough thing. But figuring out what that passion is can be even more elusive. I'm lucky -- I've found my passion, and I'm living it. I can testify that it's the most wonderful thing, to be able to make a living doing what you love. And so, in this little guide, I'd like to help you get started figuring out what you'd love doing. This will be the thing that will get ... posted on Feb 5, 86851 reads

The Measure of Meaning: Visiting Wendell Berry
"One of my favorite moments was when Wendell said that he is a member of two organizations: 1) The Slow Communication Movement and 2) The Preservation of Tangibility. He noted that anyone can join these and added with a grin, 'Actually, I think I founded them.'" In this beguiling article, a young singer-songwriter, describes the pilgrimage she took with three friends and a baby to visit Wendell B... posted on Aug 15, 14535 reads

Waiting for the Elvers
"I'm not sure who first saw the wriggly, almost see-through, three-inch bodies of the elvers, or baby eels. But I think it was my energetic five-year-old because I remember his face. When he told me, he had run all the way back to our house through the woods and up our steep bank. His eyes were shining and he was breathless from exertion and excitement. His words tumbled one over the other, and hi... posted on May 2, 3160 reads

Mother's Instincts
Luz Aida Cuevas took one look at the dimpled, dark-haired little girl at a birthday party and instantly knew two things: she was watching her own daughter - presumed killed as a baby in a 1997 fire - and she needed a way to prove it. So Luz pretended the six-year-old girl had gum in her hair, removed five strands from the child's head, folded them in a napkin and put them in a plastic bag. DNA t... posted on Mar 5, 1053 reads

Elephant Orphanage
Stories about an orphanage are bound to yank at your heartstrings. The one 60 Minutes recently told is no exception. All these orphans are from East Africa, they were all abandoned when they were very young -- and they're all elephants! A couple of decades ago, there were about 100,000 elephants in Kenya. Now there are about a quarter as many, largely due to poachers. The orphanage gets distress c... posted on Apr 12, 1870 reads

12 Year Old Who Doesn't Age
Brooke Greenberg has celebrated 12 birthdays according to the calendar but in terms of growing up, she has yet to reach her first! To the mystification of the medical world, Brooke is frozen in time, a real-life, female Peter Pan. She weighs 13lb and measures 27 inches, and looks and acts as if she were a six-month-old baby, not a girl about to become a teenager.... posted on Aug 9, 4242 reads

Excuses, Excuses: Excerpt from Teacher Man
"I was in my third year of teaching creative writing at Ralph McKee Vocational School in Staten Island, New York, when one of my students, 16-year-old Mikey, gave me a note from his mother. It explained his absence from class the day before: "Dear Mr. McCort, Mikey's grandmother who is eighty years of age fell down the stairs from too much coffee and I kept Mikey at home to take care of her and hi... posted on Jul 28, 7440 reads

For Love of Sheeba the Cheetah
"Every parent knows the bittersweet ache of watching their children grow and leave the nest, but what happens when your baby is not yet two years old and can already run as fast as a car? No one knows exactly how a one-month-old cheetah cub made her way under the fence of the Ol Pejeta chimpanzee sanctuary in Kenya in October of 2010. It's no small miracle that sanctuary workers spotted her before... posted on Nov 12, 0 reads

For Love of Sheeba the Cheetah
"Every parent knows the bittersweet ache of watching their children grow and leave the nest, but what happens when your baby is not yet two years old and can already run as fast as a car? No one knows exactly how a one-month-old cheetah cub made her way under the fence of the Ol Pejeta chimpanzee sanctuary in Kenya in October of 2010. It's no small miracle that sanctuary workers spotted her before... posted on Nov 18, 31837 reads

Neema Village: A Place of Hope
In Tanzania, East Africa, a baby rescue center called Neema Village has saved over 100 abandoned, orphaned, and at-risk infants in just 5 years. The list is long of places the infants have been found -- by the roadside, in a yard, a gravel pit, a hotel, a latrine... Mostly they are the babies of mothers who have died or were unable to care for them. Doris Fortson, co-founder of Neema Village says,... posted on Jul 19, 2730 reads

Rachel Callender Sees Superpowers
When Rachel Callendar's baby was born, she was overwhelmed with the negative words used to describe what she saw as the beautiful child in her arms. The doctors saw Evie Amore as disabled and chromosomally damaged but her "mum" Rachel saw her as perfect. Rachel came to the realization that she could find freedom in loving her child just as she was rather than as the doctor's thought she should be.... posted on Aug 27, 8974 reads

Zainika Jagasia: Mumbai's Inspiring 19-Year-Old Model & Baker
"Zainika Jagasia's mother, Reshma Jagasia, says she had a gut feeling throughout her pregnancy that 'there was something wrong'. "It was almost like my child was talking to me all the time," she told The Quint. She stayed conscious during her C-section surgery and when the baby was born, the doctors confirmed that she had Down syndrome. The ever-supportive parents then spent 8 to 10 hours a day wi... posted on Jul 4, 2775 reads

Cooperative Ways to Weather the Silver Tsunami
When Baltimore's Common Ground Cafe abruptly shut down in mid-2023, it wasn't just the loss of a beloved coffee shop, but a devastating jolt to the 30 employees who relied on it for their livelihood. But they weren't ready to give up. Rallying together, the baristas raised thousands of dollars and leaned on each other's strengths. They formed a worker's cooperative and took control of the cafe the... posted on Dec 26, 1599 reads

Mandela's 8 Lessons of Leadership
"Nelson Mandela has always felt most at ease around children, and in some ways his greatest deprivation was that he spent 27 years without hearing a baby cry or holding a child's hand. Last month, when I visited Mandela in Johannesburg -- a frailer, foggier Mandela than the one I used to know -- his first instinct was to spread his arms to my two boys. Within seconds they were hugging the friendly... posted on Oct 21, 8133 reads

Untitled
The 15-25 year old range has been dubbed "Generation Fix". According to a study last year by CIRCLE, 40% of people between the ages of 15 and 25 volunteered in the past year -- compared with 32 percent of GenXers and 32 percent of baby boomers. The number of students involved in service-related school projects has increased 1,400 percent over the past 15 years to 12.6 million, according to the U.S... posted on Jun 4, 1008 reads

Lost Luggage Capital of the World
Did you ever wonder what happens to lost luggage? Unlikely as it may seem, much of it ends up in the small, sleepy town of Scottsboro, Alabama -- home of the Unclaimed Baggage Center! UBC relieves airlines from having to store unclaimed things after they’ve made every effort to locate the owners. Many of the items are sold at marked-down prices, and many others are simply donated to charity: the... posted on Jul 15, 1825 reads

Single Mom Adopts at 64
When Kit Cole decided to adopt a baby at 64, her children, all in their 30s and 40s, were anything but enthusiastic. "They said, 'You're right at a place where you can enjoy all the fruits of your labor. Why do you want to have an infant in your life? You'll never have any rest; you'll have to be dragging him around.'" Cole, a retired CEO, saw their logic, except that she was trying to help a hom... posted on Aug 28, 2314 reads

The Brain Is A Muscle
Stanford's Carol Dweck has found that individuals succeed or fail based on how they think about intelligence, and she says people have one of two mind-sets on the matter. People with a fixed mind-set believe that intelligence is static. The second group, Dweck says, are those with a growth mind-set, who see intelligence to be much like a muscle. Earlier this year, Dweck and two colleagues ran an e... posted on Aug 12, 3129 reads

Seeking Jobs with Impact
Now that the financial system has been rocked to its core, "social capital" is getting a lot of buzz. But what is it? It boils down to putting your efforts into jobs with a socially positive impact, connecting money with meaning and investing with those principles in mind. People of all ages are pursuing those mantras -- from twentysomethings seeking socially responsible jobs straight out of colle... posted on Sep 16, 4014 reads

Can You Run Out of Empathy?
"It is impossible to empathize with seven billion strangers," argues psychologist Paul Bloom in his essay, "The Case Against Empathy." And though, the immense power of empathy has been demonstrated time and time again, Bloom's statement poses an intriguing question -- why do we not respond equally to all stories? For example, why are we more likely to respond to the tragedy at Sandy Hook, than to ... posted on Oct 1, 18608 reads

The Woman Who Rescued Over 200 Sloths
"Monique Pool first fell in love with sloths when she took in an orphan from a rescue centre. Since then many sloths have spent time in her home on their way back to the forest -- but even she found it hard to cope when she had to rescue 200 at once. It all began in 2005 when Pool lost her dog, a mongrel called Sciolo, and called the Suriname Animal Protection Society to see if they'd found it. Th... posted on May 12, 6717 reads

What Baby Boomers & Millennials Can Teach Each Other
For the first time ever, we have five generations in the workplace at the same time, says entrepreneur Chip Conley. What would happen if we got intentional about how we all work together? In this accessible talk, Conley shows how age diversity makes companies stronger and calls for different generations to mentor each other at work, with wisdom flowing from old to young and young to old alike.... posted on Feb 27, 7160 reads

Piplantri: Where 111 Trees Are Planted for Every Girl Child Born
Being born a girl can be risky in some parts of the world. In communities where a dowry is expected at the time of marriage, and where education is not offered to girls so that they can earn an equal wage, a baby girl is often seen as a liability rather than as a child to be celebrated. To offset this negative view of being female, the village of Piplantri, India has chosen to overcome the stigma ... posted on Aug 27, 1937 reads

As We Speak: Music Video
Through music, this video serves as a rallying cry and a call to action. It is a protest song, lamenting the inequalities in education, health care, justice, human rights, and many other areas that affect the lives of Black people. "No mother should have to tell her baby that others will avoid him, judge him, hate him, just for the color of his skin. What kind of world are we living in?" It urges ... posted on Jan 14, 2019 reads

Untitled
Researchers at Harvard University found that the "let them cry" approach to child-rearing "harms the baby permanently," and "changes the nervous system so they're sensitive to future trauma."... posted on Dec 25, 682 reads

Pavarotti Teaches for Free
Opera legend Luciano Pavarotti announced that he's going to become a teacher, pass on his experience to aspiring singers. After a difficult year, in which he lost his mother, father and a baby son during child birth, he boldly declared, "I'm going to teach for free."... posted on Oct 10, 1548 reads

Volunteer Boom
Baby boomers, Americans who were born from 1946 to 1964, have the potential to be one of the most powerful volunteer forces the world has ever seen. This 70 million person cohort, that begins turning 60 this year, are better educated and are expected to live longer than any other generation before them. The Harvard School for Public Health is one of many institutions that are launching campaigns ... posted on Jan 26, 1083 reads

From Linda to Chad to Michael to You
Whenever Linda goes out with her 7-year-old granddaughter, they play a contest: "Who Can Make the Most People Smile?" Over time, Linda subconsciously started tuning into the kindness around her. One day, while she was in line at the drug store, a young woman with a sick, crying baby was asked to come back in 2 hours; a tear trickled down her cheek, when suddenly, an older fellow sitting on the sid... posted on Mar 8, 4021 reads

Embrace: A Solution That's Saving Infant Lives
Millions of children under the age of five die from hypothermia -- their body temperature is too low because they don't have enough fat to maintain a healthy weight. In 2008 business student Jane Chen and a small band of classmates put their heads together to prevent such tragic losses. Their work led to the founding of Embrace, a nonprofit organization that created an innovative baby wrap that co... posted on Dec 7, 4742 reads

Mizuko Kuyo: A Unique Japanese Grieving Ritual
When parents lose a child, there are rituals to mark their grief -- holding funerals, sitting shiva, bringing casseroles. But when that loss happens before birth, it often isn't marked. Sometimes, it's barely even mentioned. It's different in Japan, which has a traditional Buddhist ceremony that some US Americans are adopting as their own. Called 'mizuko kuyo', which could be translated to 'water ... posted on Oct 3, 3192 reads

Untitled
In Navajo culture, there is something called the First Laugh Ceremony. Tradition dictates that each Navajo baby is kept on a cradleboard until he or she laughs for the first time. Then the tribe throws a celebration in honor of the child's first laugh, which is considered to be his or her birth as a social being. (From: The Power of Laughter (c) Richard Lederer)... posted on Aug 20, 1101 reads

Workplace Spirituality
Baby boomers who are reaching the apex of their careers, are asking, "Is this it?" They're searching for greater meaning in their lives, a big part of which is their life at work. A Gallup poll in 2002 reported that almost 70 percent of Americans yearn to experience spiritual growth, compared with 20 percent in 1994!... posted on Dec 20, 675 reads

Service as Retirement
A recent survey of American baby boomers found that over half are interested in using their retirement to work in jobs that help improve the quality of life in their communities.... posted on Jun 22, 2283 reads

Homeless Man Writes Symphony With No Musical Training
A self-trained musician who slept rough on the streets for a decade has been hailed a genius after writing a symphony. Stuart Sharp, 67, saw a vision of the musical masterpiece in his mind after his baby son Ben died 35 years ago. He could not read or write music but the tunes were so vivid he was determined to turn the 'imaginary' sounds into a symphony in memory of his lost child.... posted on Oct 19, 5902 reads

The Woman Behind India's First Testing Kit
"India has been criticized for its poor record of testing people in the battle against coronavirus. That, however, is set to change, thanks in large part to the efforts of one virologist, who delivered on a working test kit, just hours before delivering her baby .On Thursday, the first made-in-India coronavirus testing kits reached the market, raising hopes of an increase in screening of patients ... posted on Mar 31, 5045 reads

The Divided Brain
In this RSA produced video, the world of today is explained by Iain McGilchrist, a psychiatrist, writer, and former Oxford literary scholar. He came to prominence after the publication of his book The Master and His Emissary, subtitled The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. The words of McGilchrist, and the illustrative and clever graphics accompanying the audio, describe how the t... posted on Jul 2, 2104 reads

In Praise of Fallibility, Everybodyism & Confusers of Certainty
Where universalism maintains only that "all humans will be saved, whatever their sect or non-sect," essayist Amy Leach's everybodyism espouses a more playful and radical redemption for "not just all the human rascals but also all the buffalo rascals and reptile rascals and paddlefish and turkeys and centipedes and wombats and warty pigs." While Leach's admiration for Earth and its inhabitants is s... posted on Jun 21, 1992 reads

To Know The World
"I wrote To Know the World: A New Vision for Environmental Learning because I believe that we are entering an unprecedented era of global environmental change, requiring new approaches to both teaching and learning as well as emergent concepts and issues. First and foremost is the convergent tides of change--the inextricable relationships between the health of the biosphere and questions of social... posted on Oct 12, 1136 reads

Stretch Your Heart and Say What You Mean
"Join Sounds True's Tami Simon in conversation with author and teacher Oren Jay Sofer, as he shares his innovative method for productive discourse and authentic connection. In Stretch Your Heart and Say What You Mean, Tami and Oren explore how contemplative practice is an essential ingredient for healthy conversations and relationships, and vice versa; three foundations for mindful communication; ... posted on Sep 21, 3510 reads

Resilient Threads: Weaving Joy and Meaning into Well-Being
Physician burnout, depression, and suicide are tearing at the fabric of our health care system, which Dr. Mukta Panda has witnessed firsthand, written about, and sought to address for years. She is a physician, speaker, and facilitator whose work seeks to transform the heart of patient care and medical education. In her latest book, Resilient Threads: Weaving Joy and Meaning into Well-Being, Dr. P... posted on May 18, 5529 reads

The Abundance of Less
"Nakamura and I were sitting there drinking tea on a winter's day at his fire pit in the middle of the floor, and the shoji screens were open. We were looking across the valley; the snow was clinging to the cedar boughs, and the wind would come up throwing these sheets of powdered snow into the air. Mist was hiding the branches of the trees, and then revealing them. It felt like a Chinese ink pai... posted on Aug 19, 1903 reads

IntraConnected: Discovering MWe (Me + We)
"We may have a mental understanding that all of life is one inseparable whole, yet how do we actually feel into this reality? And how do we relate to others and the world from this felt awareness? Dr. Daniel J. Siegel is a visionary creative thinker, professor, and founder of the field of interpersonal neurobiology. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Siegel about his book IntraConnected: ... posted on Mar 10, 2414 reads

Why Do We Not Sing These Things as Miracles?
"You will say to me that time passeth, that What Was is now only memory, that we cannot reclaim or resurrect that which is inarguably past, but I am going to quibble about this, and quiz and question you hard and close, for I dont even have to shut my eyes and it is six in the morning, long ago and right now, far away and right here, and it is snowing heavily, and there is a silvery shiver to the ... posted on Mar 11, 2127 reads

Relational Neuroscience & Art: A Love Story
"I want to tell you a love story. It spans 20 years. A woman exploring tide pools was approached by a 24-legged sunflower sea star who came out of the sea grass, touching her shoe and exploring her pant leg. The woman fell in love with that beautiful creature, and it changed her life forever. The woman is me, an artist, psychotherapist, and student of Relational Neuroscience and Interpersonal Ne... posted on Sep 26, 3297 reads

Nick Cave: Loss, Yearning, Transcendence
"Here are some experiences to which Nick Cave gives voice and song: the "universal condition" of yearning, and of loss; a "spirituality of rigor"; and the transcendent and moral dimensions of what music is about. This Australian musician, writer, and actor first made a name in the wild world of '80s post-punk and later with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He also underwent public struggles with addic... posted on Dec 6, 3481 reads

Marie Howe: On Matters of Life and Death
"Marie is the kind of poet whose accomplishments are too many to mention, so I'll keep it short and say that she's the author of four collections of poetry, the recipient of a Guggenheim, and a former poet laureate of New York. While in that role, she made it her mission to make poetry as ubiquitous as a Gap ad, and she succeeded in bringing poetry to the streets and the subways of New York. And s... posted on Mar 23, 1946 reads

Lost Together
"Love is what we are all looking for in life, isn't it? To love as our true selves and to be loved for who we truly are. Yet so many of us struggle to be our authentic selves, so we end up being unable to connect deeply with others. We most often interact with the world from our roles and our persona. This film explores how one person is learning how to become free to be herself. Like Siti Nur Ima... posted on Sep 15, 1564 reads

Your Brain on Art
"We now know that working on an art project for forty-five minutes can reduce stress by 25 percent and that just one art experience per month can extend your life by ten years. That playing music increases synapses and gray matter, enhancing learning. That the vibrations of a tuning fork can create sound waves to counteract anxiety. That new technology like virtual reality can provide cutting edge... posted on Oct 23, 1996 reads

Songs of Trees
Just how much is in one tiny patch of forest? Biologist and author David George Haskell found himself visiting the same square meter of forest again and again over the course of a year, and then many years since. "When we walk into a forest, we're not walking into a place that is full of separate interacting individuals ... We're walking into a living network, a place where every creature exists o... posted on Jan 7, 5247 reads