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, 4704 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, 3487 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

This Land Was Made
"The soil of this land has been altered--altared--by blood, sweat, and tears falling from black and brown bodies. Even when I am not aware of this, I am aware of this. How many ways can we read the refrain, "This land was made for you and me" ? How was this land made? Who was made to do the making? Who is the you? Who is the me?" Poet Ama Codjoe shares more in this powerful essay.... posted on Feb 21, 3654 reads

The Gift of Ecological Humility
"In my early 20s, I apprenticed myself to the The Queen Mothers of Kroboland in Ghana with the hope of understanding more about my cultural heritage. Early one morning, I arrived at the compound of Paramount Queen Mother Manye Nartike, who was particularly animated by a rumor she had heard about our diasporic practices in relation to land. In disbelief she admonished me, 'Is it true that in the Un... posted on Feb 23, 5303 reads

Our Memories of Water
"I began asking friends if they had any memorable experiences with water. I was surprised by the blank looks I got. Like almost everyone else, ordinarily my relationship with water was unremarkable--like our relationship with air and sunshine. If instead, I'd started asking people, "Do you have any really memorable experiences of breathing air?" I'd probably have gotten even stranger looks. I have... posted on Feb 24, 2359 reads

One Thousand Cranes
Cranes are revered in Japan as mystical creatures and are said to live for a thousand years. A thousand paper cranes are often given to wish for the recovery of a seriously ill person. In this moving video one woman with a traumatic past uses her fingers, eyes and heart to teach young people from difficult backgrounds the skill of origami so that like her they are able to make something beautiful.... posted on Feb 26, 4358 reads

The World Needs Your Cargo: Kozo Hattori & Sue Cochrane
In July of 2020, beloved ServiceSpace friends Kozo Hattori, and Sue Cochrane, came together for a virtual conversation in the presence of community. Both were navigating stark realities with cancer. Their luminous exchange was threaded with laughter, insight, tender truths, poignant moments and profound life-wisdom. Kozo peacefully "changed address," on March 1st, 2021. His transition came just we... posted on Mar 2, 8714 reads

Rough Initiations
"To heal from our traumas, from soul loss, we must restore the conditions which offer something alluring and compelling to coax the soul back home. In other words, what reconstitutes the psyche after trauma, in addition to understanding what happened, is reestablishing our place within the wider cosmological context. We must be restored and re-storied to complete the rough initiation that was prec... posted on Mar 4, 11605 reads

All You Need Is Love?
"'Can we dare to think people are kind, and shape organisations around this view?' That's the question Rutger Bregman examines in his latest book 'Humankind', and it's one that anyone involved in youth and community work like me wrestles with on a daily basis. But is Bregman's optimistic analysis grounded in reality?" More in this piece from OpenDemocracy.... posted on Mar 8, 4766 reads

Oh For Crying Out Loud
"Death has been visiting my life a lot in this past year. During those times, I have frequently heard Mary Elizabeth Frye's well-known poem, 'Do No Stand At My Grave and Weep.' This morning as I was lolling abed, I began naming my departed-beloveds in my mind, calling their sweet faces to mind and silently speaking their names one by one. This is one of the ways I honor them and deal with their ab... posted on Mar 13, 12704 reads

Parker Palmer Muses on the Season
"I will wax romantic about spring and its splendors in a moment, but first there is a hard truth to be told: before spring becomes beautiful, it is plug ugly, nothing but mud and muck. I have walked in the early spring through fields that will suck your boots off, a world so wet and woeful it makes you yearn for the return of ice. But in that muddy mess, the conditions for rebirth are being create... posted on Mar 21, 14542 reads

Poems from a Once-Upon-A-Time Inmate
Ra Avis's searing poetry was born from her experiences in incarceration, and her life as a returning citizen. She is an award-winning blogger, and author, who describes herself as,'a once-upon-a-time inmate, a reluctantly-optimistic widow, and a generational storyteller.' She shares two of her powerful poems here.... posted on Apr 2, 5976 reads

Slowing Down
This meditative film brings us on a journey of slowing down so that we can understand the rhythms and the circles of life, in order to more fully connect with the big circle, "the slow breathing of the earth." It reminds us to slow the pace of our lives, even for a few minutes at a time, so that we are able to feed the person inside. The wise narrators charge us to be aware of the phases of the mo... posted on Apr 5, 3873 reads

Marina Keegan & the Opposite of Loneliness
Marina Keegan's posthumous writings are moving, sensible and funny. Her parents, with the help of her college professor, put them together to honor Keegan's loving, compassionate spirit after her tragic death. By doing so, they transformed their anger, sadness and grief into a force for positivity and forgiveness that will inspire you... posted on Apr 6, 60235 reads

Hummingbirds and 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." Jeff Vandermeer shares more in this lovely essay.... posted on Apr 8, 5115 reads

The Way of the Heart
"According to the great wisdom traditions of the West (Christian, Jewish, Islamic), the heart is first and foremost an organ of spiritual perception. Its primary function is to look beyond the obvious, the boundaried surface of things, and see into a deeper reality, emerging from some unknown profundity, which plays lightly upon the surface of this life without being caught there: a world where me... posted on Apr 10, 9066 reads

Four Winged Poems
"This time of year, the birds catch my attention and hold it. The robins are back, or maybe they're just bolder. I see them most in this early spring season, when the worms are warming up out of the soil. The goldfinches are muted still, their diets not yet offering the delights that turn their plumage bright. And the mourning doves are crying all day long...I love the way that watching them helps... posted on Apr 14, 4119 reads

Six Habits of Hope
Hope is often viewed as the anticipation of circumstances being better in the future, but in this article environmentalist and social activist Kate Davies suggests that intrinsic hope is based in the here and now. Applying 6 habits of mindfulness to one's daily life will allow us to live from a place of hope that embraces life as it is now in all of its beauty and complexity.... posted on May 3, 59556 reads

Alphabet Heart Sutra: A Mother's Day Offering
"The Alphabet Heart Sutra came to me whole, arriving with the light of morning. I followed an inner prompting and immediately wrote it down. Never having composed poetry or prayer in acrostic form before, I was quite surprised by the structure it took. Upon reflection, I wondered if perhaps impressions from childhood, reciting acrostic Hebrew prayers and passages, filtered into the Alphabet Heart ... posted on May 9, 8348 reads

David Hoffman: A Positive View
David Hoffman's career in filmmaking goes back over 58 years. "I picked up a camera in 1964 and found that from behind the camera, I could ask questions and find out things I didn't know about, or that scared me...By the time I was 25 I was getting opportunities to interview really big folks. And every chance I could come up with I focused on what "ordinary" people would say to me -- people I bega... posted on May 17, 2877 reads

Wendell Berry: The Peace of Wild Things
The Peace of Wild Things is a beautifully animated film of a poem written and read by Wendell Berry as part of the Poetry Films series of the On Being Project, which features animated interpretations of beloved poems. This poem is a warm invitation to return to our early memories of peace and joy, perhaps lying in the grass on a sunny hill, listening to bird and insect sounds, when suddenly, for a... posted on May 18, 4375 reads

Love Letters from Seaweed
"Love Letters from Seaweed was created during the summer months I spent exploring mid-Coast Maine. Each day just before sunrise, I biked to Birch Point Beach to witness the shores changing topography and the traces of ocean life spilled by the tide. Intrigued, I photographed spontaneous configurations of seaweed and natural artifacts in unworldly colors, brought together by spume and sand." Visua... posted on May 31, 4943 reads

First Passage
"What does not appear there but is equally present, somehow, is Antarctica. Antarctica of permanent daylight come summer and permanent night during the season when the sea ice grows. Antarctica, that no human being had ever seen just over two hundred years ago. Antarctica, the continent where only eleven people have been born. Antarctica of glacial uncertainty. Antarctica, humming 9,093 miles sout... posted on Jun 8, 2289 reads

On Barry Lopez: Now That It's Come to This
"Once, before I knew him well, I asked Barry Lopez the earliest thing he could remember. Without missing a beat, the most widely traveled and sophisticated spiritual seeker in North American letters in a century--a writer of mystical sensitivity and grace, who'd been up to his armpits in snow, tracking wolves in Alaska, and who charted the migration of snow geese across Canada, who listened to Ind... posted on Jun 15, 3835 reads

The Nightingale's Song
"Living in England with a very strange secularity within our folk repertoire has allowed me to explore what a sacred spiritual form of practice might be with these birds and how they might enable a re-enchantment. I feel like nature is my spiritual leader in this respect and the nightingale is my imam at the top of that tower calling the prayer out." In this interview, which weaves conversation, s... posted on Jun 20, 3159 reads

Listening to the Language of the Birds
"When bird language entered my life, I felt that a new sense had been grafted into me. Bird voices opened a fresh dimension of sensory experience. This expansion drew me into stories of my home in unexpected ways, revealing ecological rhythms and connections, stimulating my curiosity, and suffusing me with a sense of belonging. The practice of listening to other species is the original 'augmented ... posted on Jun 21, 5055 reads

Discovering & Embodying One's Unique Life Purpose
"How does one discover and embody their unique life purpose? The subject of life purpose is addressed here in light of the following:
1. There are three distinct purposes: to wake up, grow up and show up.
2. A person is born with a unique purpose that is best understood in the context of their soul. 3. The key to becoming clear about life purpose is engaging in soulwork.
... posted on Jul 2, 7400 reads

Returning to the Village
For those of us who live in urban areas, what does returning to a life in the village really mean? What is the impulse that moves folks to reverse the direction of migration of their recent ancestors to the city? What can living on the land, growing your own food, and using your hands to make clothing and shelter offer souls hungering for a real connection to the Earth? Here, Hang Mai, a Vietnames... posted on Jul 8, 3687 reads

Mary Oliver: I Happened to Be Standing
The poems of Mary Oliver seem like prayers that anyone can pray. Spacious and simple, expansive and ordinary, they don't require us to believe in anything in particular. But they do ask us to pay attention to the fleeting and particular space of a moment we are living through, which she has touched so tenderly. Here you can listen to her reading one of her poems: "I Happened to be Standing."... posted on Jul 10, 9498 reads

A Common Humanity: A Conversation with Bob Sadler
One foggy morning 30 years ago Bob Sadler was out looking for the perfect photo along a riverbank. A rowing competition was on. A homeless man happened by, looked at him and said, "I suppose the question for you is--are you an artist or are you just an observer with a camera?" It changed Sadler's life. He thought, "Every corporation that says 'we should pull together' has one of these pictures! Wh... posted on Jul 19, 2998 reads

Becoming an Ancestor
"Did you know that we're all on our way to becoming someone's ancestor? It's true. We're all future dead people, and 100 years from now, someone like me will come looking for you. I
know this for a fact because that's usually have at least one in each generation, much like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We're a bit obsessive about what we do.You say you have no interest in family history or gene... posted on Jul 30, 4877 reads

Clarksville Elementary School: We Are the World
All 500 students from Clarksville Elementary School in Indiana worked with their music teacher over the course of the pandemic school year to create this heartwarming music video to showcase their talents and to bring smiles to the world. The exuberance and enthusiasm of these young singers remind us that they are the world, they are the future, and we can all make a better day when we stand toget... posted on Jul 31, 3805 reads

Live a Life Worth Living
"On 19 March 2018, almost five years after being diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer, thirty-eight-year-old Julie Yip-Williams died, leaving behind a husband and two daughters. Her early years had been anything but easy. Born blind in Vietnam, at two months of age she was almost euthanised on the orders of a grandmother who deemed her to be defective; years later, as an older child, she sailed to... posted on Aug 3, 10647 reads

Reframing Our Relationship to That We Don't Control
'"Let death be what takes us," Dr. BJ Miller has written, "not a lack of imagination." As a palliative care physician, he brings a design sensibility to the matter of living until we die. And he's largely redesigned his sense of own physical presence after an accident at college left him without both of his legs and part of one arm. He offers a transformative reframing on our imperfect bodies, the... posted on Aug 4, 0 reads

I Created the Repair Cafe
Throwing our broken appliances and other items away seems to be the only thing to do if they have become unusable, but Martine Postman in Amsterdam wasn't satisfied with this symptom of wasteful over-consumption. She was determined to find a way to do more then watch dumpsters overflowing and created the concept of Repair Cafes. Once a month her coffee shop provides space for repair experts to wor... posted on Aug 6, 2284 reads

The Keys to Aging Well
"As a neuroscientist, professor emeritus of psychology, musician and best-selling author, Daniel Levitin has extensively studied the brain and its impact on aging. His latest book, "Successful Aging," explores the questions: what happens in the brain as we age and what are the keys to aging well?" This interview with Levitin delves into these questions.... posted on Aug 9, 19688 reads

Fire Season
"I used to think that I would live to see the future of my visions. Now I only hope that my grandchildren's grandchildren will walk in a kinder world, alive to a multidimensional kinship, knowing that everything they can see, hear, and touch is sacred. I do not know how much will have to burn before we abandon our patterns of behavior that are poisoning the Earth, destroying Her wild places. Befor... posted on Aug 19, 7009 reads

My 94-Year-Old Dad Talks About COVID-19
"I want to try to get a better handle on this global situation by looking at the past, to see how humanity dealt with similar challenging situations. I'm not talking history books or documentaries-- I'm talking about real thoughts from someone who has been around the block -- namely, my dad (Dr. James Algiers), who at 94 has experienced many world events, and as a physician has treated thousands... posted on Aug 21, 13422 reads

Anil Gupta: India's Hidden Hotbeds of Invention
Where does creativity reside in today's world? Is it the monopoly of the educated elite or does it reside within the cracks of our 'well-ordered' systems? In this engaging TED talk, Anil Gupta asks this humbling, soul-searching question, and provides some responses. Read on to see and hear a stunning patchwork quilt of indigenous entrepreneurs and inventors whose ingenuity has changed lives for th... posted on Sep 3, 4299 reads

Monet Refuses the Operation
"Doctor, you say there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don't see..."
In this exquisite poem, Lisel Mueller l... posted on Sep 6, 8715 reads

Unlocking the Mysteries of Time
"We construct the experience of time in our minds, so it follows that we are able to change the elements we find troubling -- whether it's trying to stop the years racing past, or speeding up time when we're stuck in a queue, trying to live more in the present, or working out how long ago we last saw our old friends. Time can be a friend, but it can also be an enemy. The trick is to harness it, wh... posted on Dec 12, 20244 reads

A Quite Interesting Approach to Education
John Lloyd is the television producer and presenter of some of the most renowned UK comedies in recent decades, including Blackadder and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In 2002, he made the pilot of "QI" (an acronym for "Quite Interesting"), a popular show which is now in its 18th series on the BBC. "When I started QI, only about five per cent of people that I talked to understood what it wa... posted on Oct 4, 3165 reads