Educate the Heart
Poet and author Shane Koyczan narrates this poignant short video on the importance of educating children's hearts as well as their minds. While children need knowledge to prepare them for life, those who love and care for them must also educate their hearts. Teaching compassion, acceptance, tolerance and respect are needed along with knowledge to adequately prepare children for the world.... posted on Jun 11, 3476 reads

Warriors Wanted: Training People to Defend the Human Spirit
"Seventy-five year old writer, consultant and activistMargaret Wheatley has studied the cyclical nature of civilizations throughout history and she is quite confident that the end of our civilization is closer than we might like to think. And she is doing something about it... something radical. Wheatley is building an army of 'warriors for the human spirit' with people who want to lessen the suff... posted on Jun 17, 9485 reads

Hard Times Require Furious Dancing
"I am the youngest of eight siblings. Five of us have died. I share losses, health concerns, and other challenges common to the human condition, especially in these times of war, poverty, environmental devastation, and greed that are quite beyond the most creative imagination. Sometimes it all feels a bit too much to bear. Once a person of periodic deep depressions, a sign of mental suffering in m... posted on Jul 1, 9928 reads

What Did Sisyphus Dream Of?
"In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was condemned by Zeus to endlessly try to push a large rock to the top of a hill, an activity Zeus had rigged so that as it neared the top, the rock would roll away from Sisyphus. The story captures the ultimate in frustration and activities that take all of our energy but with no end in sight. The whole exercise was rigged against Sisyphus from the outset. The poor s... posted on Jun 30, 4797 reads

A Pandemic Poem-Prayer
Phyllis Cole-Dai is a writer and poet, perhaps best known for 'The Emptiness of Our Hands', a spiritual memoir chronicling the 47 days that she and co-author James Murray practiced "being present" while living by choice on the streets of Columbus, Ohio. On her 58th birthday earlier this year, she wrote 58 one-line pandemic prayers and crafted them into a poem. You can read it here.... posted on Jul 2, 45461 reads

The Dynamic Mystery of Relationships
"The more open, present and awake we are, the less objective our relationships become. So-called relationship becomes simple relating. The noun transforms into a verb -- an apparent thing opens up into an alive process. If I no longer take myself as an object, I also cannot make you into one. Nor can I create what is happening between us into something. We may call it friendship but it is really a... posted on Jul 4, 6639 reads

Advice from 100-Year-Olds
Three centenarians were asked the secret of their longevity. With simple grace and wisdom they give us an insight into the optimism and humor that sustain them. as they each share what is most important to them. They exemplify the value of listening to and learning from the lessons of one's own life as they remind us to "keep right on to the end of the road".
... posted on Jul 5, 8505 reads

World At Dawn
"At dawn, the world rises out of darkness, slowly, sense-grain by grain, as if from sleep. Life becomes visible once again. "When it is dark, it seems to me as if I were dying, and I can't think anymore," Claude Monet once lamented. More light! Goethe begged from his deathbed. Dawn is the wellspring of more light, the origin of our first to last days as we roll in space, over 6.684 billion of us i... posted on Jul 6, 3652 reads

Freedom in Prison: The Story of My Great-Grandfather
Aryae Coopersmith recounts the moving story of his great-grandfather Shmuel, a Talmud scholar who was forced war front in Bosnia-Herzegovinae. When it was discovered he didn't have the makings of a soldier in him, he was given prison guard duty instead. "How was Shmuel, a naive young kid who knew nothing about prisons, going to run a prison full of battle-scarred soldiers? He offered the prisoners... posted on Jul 13, 6704 reads

The Beauty in Breaking
Michele Harper is a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is predominantly male and white. In her new book, "The Beauty in Breaking," she explores the themes of race, gender, injustice and hope -- and in doing so shares the story of how her own healing emerged through a life lived in service of others. Read an excerpt from the book here.... posted on Aug 27, 4269 reads

DH Lawrence on Trees, Solitudes and What Roots Us
"A supreme challenge of human life is reconciling the longing to fulfill ourselves in union, in partnership, in love, with the urgency of fulfilling ourselves according to our own solitary and sovereign laws. Writing at the same time as Hesse, living in exile in the mountains, having barely survived an attack of the deadly Spanish Flu that claimed tens of millions of lives, the polymathic creative... posted on Jul 27, 6155 reads

The Power of Real Love
"If love is what we need more of-- and we do --then Sharon Salzberg and bell hooks are two of the most important voices of our time. As a leading teacher of loving-kindness meditation, Sharon Salzberg answers the all-important question: how, precisely, do we bring more love into our lives? As one of America's leading political and cultural critics, bell hooks advocates for the power of love to tra... posted on Aug 6, 5216 reads

Milford Zornes: An Artist's Life
"When I met Milford, he was 97 and blind. I met him on Friday and on Saturday he was going to give a watercolor workshop. Earlier that Friday, I'd asked his art dealer, "How does a painter give a workshop if he's blind?" "I don't know," the dealer said, "But he does!" I liked Zornes's paintings and asked, "Does he live around here?" Cutting to the chase, three hours later I was at Milford's door. ... posted on Aug 8, 3405 reads

Celebrating Wendell Berry
"Wendell Berry has been an Orion contributor and advisor since the magazine's beginnings in 1982. Berry is the author of over forty books of poetry, fiction, and essays, and has farmed in Port Royal, Kentucky, for over forty years." Orion celebrated Wendell Berry's eighty-sixth birthday by compiling their all-time favorite writings from Berry, published in Orion over the past four decades. Check i... posted on Aug 10, 5920 reads

A Man Impossible to Classify
The young man walked up to us still smiling and, without a word, pointed again. I stared in puzzlement. At this he nodded his head and, to clarify matters, repeated the pointing. "What do you mean?" I managed to ask. "Donuts!" He said. "Do you guys like donuts?" It was 1965. He was one of the first people I met in San Francisco, a street person, and the story that followed spanned some twenty year... posted on Aug 18, 3825 reads

Revisiting Fred Rogers 2002 Commencement Address
"I'm very much interested in choices, and what it is, and who it is, that enable us human beings to make the choices we make all through our lives. What choices lead to ethnic cleansing? What choices lead to healing? What choices lead to the destruction of the environment, the erosion of the Sabbath, suicide bombings, or teenagers shooting teachers. What choices encourage heroism in the midst of c... posted on Aug 31, 12317 reads

At a Tipping Point -- Towards Healing the Climate
"Climate change is the undercurrent that drives and shapes our lives in countless ways. Journalist Judith D. Schwartz sees the term as shorthand. It's almost as if people think climate is this phenomenon, determined solely by CO2, as if we could turn a dial up or down," she tells me over the phone. We are missing so much." In her quest for climate solutions, Schwartz leans into the complexity of n... posted on Sep 5, 5027 reads

Mark and Doug: The Power of Friendship
Mark Redding survived a devastating traumatic brain injury in an auto accident when he was in his early 20s. Almost 30 years later, Mark met Doug Kline through the PALS (Providing a Link for Survivors) program at Brain Injury Services, a program that enables clients and community volunteers to connect in a mutually enriching friendship to build skills and combat isolation through community integra... posted on Sep 19, 2229 reads

When the Source Ran Free: A Story for Our Times
"Watching the sun rise over the wetlands, the mist fading, even here in the midst of nature there is the strange stillness of a world in lockdown waiting, wondering, anxiety, and fear its companions. I am writing these words in the time of the great pandemic, when for a few brief months our world slowed down and almost stopped; when as the stillness grew around us there was a moment to hear anoth... posted on Sep 20, 7193 reads

Forming a More Perfect Union Through Indigenous Values
"How might we unlock hope in an expansive spirit of democracy for present and future generations in this time of upheaval? This new conversation series on "The State of American Democracy" invites us to explore this question with some of our most creative thinkers and public intellectuals. The first episode on September 17, 2020, focuses on the moral foundations of democracy we can draw for guidan... posted on Sep 24, 3737 reads

The World is Our Field of Practice
This prophetic conversation, which Rev. angel Kyodo williams had with Krista in 2018, is an invitation to imagine and nourish the transformative potential of this moment toward human wholeness. Rev. angel is an esteemed Zen priest and the second Black woman recognized as a teacher in the Japanese Zen lineage. She is one of our wisest voices on social evolution and the spiritual aspect of social h... posted on Sep 28, 4835 reads

Visiting Rachel: 50 Years After Silent Spring
"'Primavers Silencia.' So reads the cover of the Italian edition of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. It sits on the desk beside me--the small built-in desk looking out on a thicket of cedars and pine--a desk with one simple drawer holding some pencils and not much else, in the cozy pine-paneled study where Carson wrote much of her landmark book during the summers of 1960 and 1961. Other foreign edit... posted on Sep 29, 3833 reads

Is There A Better Way to Have An Argument?
"Were living in an era of deep divisions. Cable television, social media feeds, and fraying personal relationships all reflect the same troubling pattern: Differences of opinion quickly escalate into attacks, mistrust, and civic stalemates."Here are five principles for more constructive and respectful disagreements.... posted on Sep 30, 9028 reads

Peter Kalmus: The Question of Progress
"In every house, there were blue flickering lights going in synchrony because everyone was watching the same TV show. It was a quiet night and I was alone, just walking with the sound of the freeway and the blue flickering lights. And what had seemed normal to me my whole life suddenly seemed strange." This 2015 interview with a young climate scientist at Caltech feels more timely than ever now.... posted on Oct 11, 18211 reads

Why We Should Take World Octopus Day Seriously
In 2011 author and naturalist Sy Montgomery wrote "Deep Intellect,"for Orion magazine, her piece investigated the inner life of the octopus. "Since its publication this feature remains the most-read Orion article of all-time. On this World Octopus Day, we reached out to Sy for an update on her continued relationship with these eight-armed, three-hearted creatures, and how they might help guide us ... posted on Oct 13, 6800 reads

Crochet Jam: Radical Social Justice Through Folk Art Traditions
"Through my community-art event, Crochet Jam, I do not dictate the creativity process. Participants maintain their agency. There is no need to please me. I have no authority over anyone. I am just the guy facilitating the event. I am just a man on the street, standing behind a folding table that's covered with stripes of torn and cut fabric. I teach single-stitch crochet using a handmade wooden ho... posted on Oct 14, 6573 reads

The View From Here
Barb Abelhauser worked in an office for 14 years. Then one day she quit, and decided to become a bridgetender on the Ortega River Bridge in Jacksonville, Florida. She planned to work there for a year. Eight years later, she shares the moments of beauty and intimacy of her job, and why she decided to stay.... posted on Oct 18, 3001 reads

Deepening Our Comfort With Uncertainty
"In our daily lives, there are endless forms of uncertainty far more things we cannot know than know. Objectively, this could be cause for great delight, wonder, and surrender. We could be relieved and appreciative that we do not have to perpetually hold onto the steering wheel, captain the ship, drive our lives. There is much to discover that can surprise us, so much to which we can gratefully y... posted on Nov 5, 23401 reads

The Gentle Art of Blessing
"On awakening, bless this day, for it is already full of unseen good which your blessings will call forth, for to bless is to acknowledge the unlimited good that is embedded in the very texture of the universe and awaiting each and all." Pierre Pradervand is the author of 'The Gentle Art of Blessing: A Simple Practice That Will Transform You and Your World.' He posits that making the conscious cho... posted on Nov 9, 10785 reads

Friendships Shaped by a Pair of Scissors
Since 2014, Backalley Barbers has been offering free haircuts in Geylang, Singapore, for impoverished persons in nursing homes, migrant worker shelters, and rental communities. Young volunteers learn basic hair cutting skills from professionals, and then offer these skills to community members who cannot afford a haircut. The conversations that take place in the process lead to lasting friendships... posted on Nov 14, 1823 reads

The Soul of the Rose
"A bower of roses creates a special kind of sacred space, filled with a scent that can connect us to the past. Whether freshly cut and placed in a crystal vase with winter greens, or tumbling out of an old watering can, dried for a Victorian potpourri or the center of an herb filled tussie mussie, the rose connects us to our inner selves, to memories of another time, another place, as past and pr... posted on Nov 15, 8041 reads

Remembering Our Way Forward
"Perspective has carried me through a year that has been marked by the pandemics of Covid-19 and racism, political strife, and an escalating climate crisis. Ive held close as gently as possible reliable truisms: Change is the only constant. Life tends toward life. I affirm: I'm not alone. In the end, death comes to us all I have only to decide how to live life now. Showing up for myself, for ot... posted on Nov 16, 6567 reads

Deciphering Words in the Woods
"Ogham is Ireland's earliest form of writing. Dating from the fourth century, it is often affectionately called a tree alphabet. It is an archaic script using trees for letters. In Ogham, the characters were called feda trees or nin forking branches due to their shape. Astonishingly, this ancient alphabet was written from the roots up -- each character sprouting from a central line, like leaves on... posted on Nov 25, 6188 reads

What We Get Wrong About Time
"Most of us tend to think of time as linear, absolute and constantly "running out" -- but is that really true? However much time feels like something that flows in one direction, some scientists beg to differ." Read on to learn more about what we know and don't know about the nature of time, and how our perception of it influences our lives.... posted on Nov 26, 9209 reads

Six Tips For Speaking Up When Called For
"When I was in college, my boss drove me to a meeting. He had trouble finding a parking place, and, when he realized we were going to be late, pulled into a handicapped parking spot. As we got out of the car, he turned to me, grinned, and started limping. I fully knew that what he did was wrong. And I said nothing." Psychologist Catherine Sanderson explains how to be more courageous in speaking up... posted on Dec 3, 9155 reads

Learning to Love Winter's Night
"I have put on good attitudes before and found ways of accepting situations --thankfully, I found ways out of some--while creating the semblance of normalcy. But for me, a change of attitude wasn't enough. It didn't go deep enough. It wasn't always reliable. In order to live happily in Toronto, I needed to be able to love deeply, loving the people who live here and the place where I live. And espe... posted on Dec 22, 3448 reads

Winter Solstice: Blessing for the Longest Night
"This week, in addition to preparing for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services, many congregations will offer a "Longest Night" or "Blue Christmas" service. Usually held on or near the Winter Solstice, this gathering provides a space for those who are having a difficult time during the holidays or simply need to acknowledge some pain or loss they are carrying in the midst of this season of cele... posted on Dec 23, 28395 reads

Top 10 Insights from the Science of a Meaningful Life
"This year's top insights speak to the moment, from concrete tips about how to bond with a friend to broader truths about how societies respond to diversity over time. All of them point toward strengths and solutions amid isolation, illness, and conflict. The final insights were selected by experts on our staff, after soliciting nominations from our network of more than 300 researchers. We hope th... posted on Dec 24, 9178 reads

Barry Lopez: Lyrical Writer and Thoreau of Our Times
Acclaimed writer Barry Lopez who dedicated a lifetime to exploring the kindred bond between humans and nature, passed away this year on Christmas Day. The legacy he leaves behind in his powerful writing has never been more relevant. "Pay attention to the mystery. Apprentice to the best apprentices. Rediscover in nature your own biology. Write and speak with appreciation for all you have been gifte... posted on Dec 27, 5938 reads

Lottie Cunningham: Dedicated to Indigenous Rights
"Against all odds, human rights defender Lottie Cunningham has been at the helm of the battle for indigenous rights in Nicaragua for the past 20 years. She was among four activists this year to receive the Right livelihood award, the alternative Nobel for peace, for her decades-long work. More than 400,000 indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants live along Nicaragua's Atlantic coast. For years, th... posted on Dec 30, 2648 reads

7 Science-Based Strategies for Keeping New Year Resolutions
"Research shows that 45% of people fail to keep their resolutions by February, and only 19% keep them for two years. Lack of willpower or self-control is the top cited reason for not following through. How can you increase your willpower and fulfill your New Year's promise to yourself? These seven strategies are based on behavioral science and my clinical work with hundreds of people trying to ach... posted on Dec 31, 7445 reads

Hannah Arendt & the Politics of Truth
"It's important to remember that Hannah Arendt wrote "Truth and Politics" as a response to the reaction she received from publishing Eichmann in Jerusalem. What most worried her was a form of political propaganda that uses lies to erode reality. Political power, she warned, will always sacrifice factual truth for political gain. But the side effect of the lies and the propaganda is the destruction... posted on Jan 7, 6625 reads

Matthew Fox: How Important is Truth?
Matthew Fox is a spiritual theologian and scholar of mystic spirituality whose theology of creation spirituality was systematically singled out and denounced by two successive Popes, only to see a third Pope incorporate it into Church doctrine. His is a voice that has not shied away from speaking truth to power. "To grasp what is happening in America at this time, it might be good to first meditat... posted on Jan 11, 6483 reads

Fatherland
"When I was growing up, my father worked for a United Nations agency. His job meant that I was raised a nomad, moving to a different country every few years: Tanzania, Italy, Ethiopia, Uganda, and England. Annually, my father was granted what the UN calls 'home leave.' When we stepped off the plane in Ghana's capital, Accra, my father would sometimes turn to me, spread his arms wide, and say, "Akw... posted on Jan 24, 3544 reads

Social Distance: A Community-Style Poem
In the early weeks of the pandemic last year, "NPR asked listeners to respond to art with a poem -- a style of poetry called ekphrastic. For inspiration, Kwame Alexander, NPR's poet in residence, selected two paintings: Kadir Nelson's Heatwave and Salvador Dali's Young Woman At A Window. Both show women inside looking longingly out into the world. The paintings struck a chord with those experienci... posted on Jan 25, 5275 reads

Walking With George
"I had never been good at practicing mindfulness, or being mindful--period--until I got a dog. Observing your breath, extolled as the surefire way to become present, left me in such a deep state of hyperventilation I quickly wanted a break from taking a break. I was in constant, anxious movement, starting projects but never finishing them, leaving things halfway done, forgetting items, moving from... posted on Jan 30, 7169 reads

My First Best Friend
"In 1945, a child too young for school, I wandered from Grandma's porch and a short distance away, found one of those little creeks that would be my playground for the next few years. Here I formed my first friendship." Thus begins this writer's meditation on the deep, and often overlooked, joy of water and its essential place in life. As she observes, the aging process has a way of deepening our ... posted on Jan 31, 3036 reads

Burned Pages Don't Lie: A Genealogy Search
"A genealogy search can yield many things and go down many paths, but at its core, it is a story waiting to be told and a person to tell it." Ten years ago, artist Pat Benincasa, received a unique mission, one that arrived in the form of a charred book of Italian love poems. It had belonged to her grandfather. "What was he doing with this book and why was it burned?" What follows is the story of P... posted on May 16, 4703 reads

The Origin of Black History Month and Why It Matters
"The question that faces us today is whether or not Black History Month is still relevant. Is it still a vehicle for change? Or has it simply become one more school assignment that has limited meaning for children? Has Black History Month become a time when television and the media stack their Black material? Or is it a useful concept whose goals have been achieved?" Lonnie G. Bunch III explores t... posted on Feb 8, 3486 reads

The Artist's Way, Serendipity, & My Inner Sanctuary
"Through a 'not-so-smart' smartphone mishap, the Universe tapped me on the shoulder recently and invited me into the Universal Flow of abundance and creativity. I'd meant to send a text message to a certain Julia I know, but my smartphone decided that a different Julia would be the recipient instead." Eileen Rivers shares what happened next in this sweet reflection that weaves together art, poetry... posted on Feb 9, 7018 reads