Sources of Light
When Kobun Otogawa was asked in the wake of 9/11, "How can I deal with the enormous fear and anger that I feel about what happened?" He replied simply, "Do one kind thing for someone every day." And though the advice might seem overly simplistic, it does cause us to realize - that it is through our own light that this world can be made a little brighter. ... posted on Nov 25, 18173 reads

Moral Courage & The Story of Sister Megan Rice
When you look for examples of moral courage, do you think about the people who are in prison? Sister Megan Rice, an 84 year old nun, is serving a 35 month prison sentence for an act of civil disobedience to stand up for life itself and denounce the continued existence of nuclear weapons. Her words will reveal insight about the nature of courage and the enthusiastic spirit of satyagraha.... posted on Oct 1, 34364 reads

What I Wish I Knew When I Was A Freshman
What would you say to your younger self if you had the chance? Charles Howard, the University Chaplain for the University of Pennsylvia, shares his reflections on ego and insecurity, and the advice he would have given himself at the age of 18.... posted on Nov 6, 22601 reads

How To Practice Self-Compassion
We live in a society where we often feel as though we are in a state of constant competition in all areas of our lives: work, relationships, hobbies, and in turn, we are often overly self-critical. Practicing self-compassion can help us to restore feelings of self-worth and instill an inner peace to propel us in our actions.... posted on Oct 28, 111599 reads

Wisdom In The Age of Information
"We live in a world awash with information, but we seem to face a growing scarcity of wisdom." Maria Popova shares her insights about the difference between information, knowledge, and wisdom, and how storytelling can play a crucial role in helping us navigate the "open sea" of our technological age.... posted on Nov 9, 20508 reads

How To Realize True Wealth
The world is filled with abundance, but because we stay tuned into what we do not have, we can spend our lives grasping for more, never really arriving. In this heart-felt piece, Americ Azevedo at the University of California, Berkeley, asks us to awaken to the true and profound wealth we have all been blessed with. "To awaken to this very moment is truth wealth. This moment is in truth all we rea... posted on Nov 24, 21698 reads

Vancouver's Pop-Up Shelters
A Vancouver-based advertising company teamed up with a grassroots advocacy group to extend kindness to the city's homeless population in a beautifully creative way. "During the day, the [bus] benches serve as seating for those waiting for the bus to arrive. At night, the front lifts up and out to create an overhang." Acts of kindness like these stand out against the backdrop of many cities making ... posted on Nov 22, 22406 reads

The Dean Who Lives In A Dumpster
How much stuff do we really need to live happy, healthy lives? As people continue to scale down, living more simplistic, minimalist lives, many report feeling happier. Jeff Wilson, Environmental Science professor and Dean of Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, Texas,is conducting an experiment to see just how little a person needs to live happily and comfortably by living in a repurposed dumpst... posted on Nov 14, 33591 reads

FoodShift: Reducing Waste, Fighting Hunger
"Dana Frasz is a food entrepreneur. She wants to recycle food, taking the food that's not consumed and putting it into the hands of those who cannot afford it. She wants companies to stop wasting so much food -- at the grocery story and in restaurants. She wants us all to be aware of how much we're throwing in the dustbin. Too idealistic? Frasz would argue otherwise. Hear her talk about her passio... posted on Dec 3, 19147 reads

Let A Smile Be Your Umbrella
It was a cold rain, as author Kristi Jo Jedlicki made her way to the homeless shelter where she worked. While struggling to keep her umbrella from blowing away, she noticed an old friend standing by the doorway - his eyes gleaming with a soul filling joy, and in spite of the dreadful rain. When asked, he said simply "Waiting for you, of course. I had to see how my friend was doing and to make sure... posted on Dec 8, 23408 reads

The Science Of Attention
Neuroscientist Adele Diamond is challenging basic assumptions about education. Her focus on the brain's capacity for executive function -- also called "the science of attention" -- has also shown promise for children with ADHD and autism, and for narrowing the achievement gap between children of differing socioeconomic backgrounds.... posted on Dec 6, 26936 reads

The Magic Of A Garden
When the Cleveland Elementary School principal asked Mary Schriner, who was applying for a special education kindergarten teacher position, why she wanted to work there, Schriner responded, "Because your school looks like a prison yard, and I'd like to change that." Over the next six years, Schriner established six school gardens that serve as real-world classrooms, started an ecoliteracy program ... posted on Dec 27, 32650 reads

The Smart Way To Stick To Habits
When trying to form new, meaningful habits, there are always the usual suspects getting in your way -- forgetfulness, apathy, time constraints and self-doubt. Writer Leo Babauta offers up key guidelines for overcoming each of these common obstacles and articulates a smart habit system to help ensure success.... posted on Dec 4, 24496 reads

The Only Way We Really Change
People don't ever change by becoming someone else. People change by seeking, finding, and nourishing the best of who they are. They persist through the dark, heart-shredding times. They reach deeper into their true nature, the source of their best wisdom, courage, and passion. In this piece Wayne Muller tells a powerful story from the Civil Right's movement that illustrates how true transformation... posted on Nov 10, 23017 reads

The Seinfeld Strategy To Stop Procrastination
Jerry Seinfeld, co-creator of one of the longest running comedy series in television has a brilliant strategy for getting things done. And, it's not what you might think. It involves taking your mind off the results, and focusing on the joy of the process instead. Read more to learn the importance of 'not breaking the chain.'
... posted on Dec 31, 75311 reads

A Town Rallies To Make A Local Store Owner's Day
He runs a convenience store in Levittown, New York. For the past 10 years, Avi Gandhi has owned and solely operated the store -- working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, without a single sick day. He was, however, much more than a guy who punches numbers into the cash register. "He knew the names of everyone who came in, who their family was, what their disappointments were, the dreams they had. He ... posted on Nov 13, 4901 reads

Building Empathy In Healthcare
Doctors are now being taught the communication of empathy, along with the ability to understand patients' emotions, in the hope that it can facilitate more accurate diagnoses and more caring treatment. In an interview, Dr. Helen Riess, the founder of Empathetics, discusses her innovative work on fostering empathy in the physician-patient relationship and its implications for improving healthcare d... posted on Jan 10, 15483 reads

Awakening The Wisdom Of The Heart
What does it mean to live from the heart? According to Dena Merriam, founding member of the Contemplative Alliance, it means living with a fuller appreciation of what it means to be a human being on this earth. The wisdom of the heart shows us our connection to the whole. If we move from a consciousness of just thinking about ourselves first, to one of the well-being of the whole, things will evol... posted on Feb 8, 5491 reads

5 People Who Changed The World Through Extreme Compassion
What do Francis of Assisi, Beatrice Webb, John Howard Griffin, Gunther Walraff, and Patricia Moore have in common? They were radical empathizers--seeing empathy as a kind of an adventurous, extreme sport in an effort to change the social and political landscapes of their time. Read more about their remarkable journeys here.... posted on Jan 15, 29791 reads

Knitting Behind Bars
You wouldn't expect to find a knitting class 'behind bars', so to speak. But, for roughly two hours out of every week that's exactly where you'll find some of the male inmates incarcerated at the minimum security prison in Jessup, Maryland. The program is called, Knitting Behind Bars and it is the brainchild of co-founder, Lynn Zwerling. "It teaches you how to focus.It teaches you how to make a ta... posted on Jan 23, 6437 reads

If We Left They Wouldn't Have Nobody
When Valley Springs Manor home for the elderly closed, the staff left, except for cook Maurice Rowland and Miguel Alvarez, the janitor."There was about 16 residents left behind," says Rowland."If we left, they wouldn't have nobody," adds Alvarez. "I would only go home for one hour, take a shower, get dressed, then be there for 24-hour days." Rowland adds "I just couldn't see myself going home ââ‚... posted on Jan 17, 7309 reads

Food Runners
There are over 800 million undernourished people in the world today. Hunger and malnutrition are in fact the number one risk to health worldwide. Yet there is enough food in the world to feed everyone. In San Francisco, California, 1 out of 4 people go hungry at some point during the month. There are also more than 4,000 restaurants in the city that throw away excess food. Mary Risley, founder of ... posted on Sep 23, 3259 reads

6 Promising Trends For The New Nature Movement
When we view nature as a collection of resources, it's easy to lose sight of our place in the greater scheme of life on planet earth. Fortunately, more and more research is affirming what many feel in their bones: that connecting with the natural world is intimately tied to our health and development. Here are six promising trends for those striving to reintegrate nature into the lives of children... posted on Jan 7, 27772 reads

9 Inspiring Quotes About The Sacredness of Seeds
"Essential to survival, seeds have profound spiritual implications. For centuries the planting of seed in the earth not only nourished humanity, but also symbolized the mystery of life and the journey of the soul. In our current supermarket lifestyle of pre-packaged products, far removed from the cycles of planting, we have nearly forgotten this mystery. Now as the integrity of the seed is threate... posted on Jan 29, 40796 reads

The 21-Day Challenge: A New Way To Practice Our Values
Many of us seem to recognize the importance of making personal changes in our lives, and yet we struggle to put them into practice. Forbes Magazine points out that less than 10 percent of us actually stick to our New Years resolutions. Habits are hard to break and it turns out that as much as 40 percent of all our actions are habitual. We don't consciously do them. It's hard to change what we aren... posted on Dec 19, 27375 reads

It Is Now That My Life Is Mine
Imagine beginning a practice of gratitude that would someday help transform another's world. In 2008, and in the midst of her own personal challenge, Hailey Bartholomew did just that -- snapping one photo each day of something she was grateful for. This simple act led to the creation of 365.com -- a site which would soon inspire thousands. Among them, a young mother named Amy Gill - who, in the mi... posted on Feb 14, 5713 reads

Music Is Something You DO
Let me tell about an experience with Gregorian chant. It's just a few notes and we were doing it in English so we would understand the words. The group as a whole would try to find that moment when the silence ended and then come in together. After doing that for several days, at one point, the words really came in. I heard the words of this psalm in a way I've never heard before. If you read the ... posted on Jan 18, 28806 reads

Remembering An Outsider Artist
"The old man, Smith, was another story. For one thing, he possessed style. His hair, combed straight back, fell toward his shoulders. His straw hat was rakish. Smith was lean, and cut a figure. His walking, as was plain to see, was a pure pleasure; he took things in, savored them. I'd see him, with his blaze of white hair, walking up the hill, wooden staff in hand, stopping to gaze into the trees ... posted on Feb 15, 12870 reads

Why Happiness Is The Wrong Pursuit
"On some abstract level, we know that money and other outward signs of success won't ultimately make us happy -- perhaps because we know wealthy or famous or powerful people who are deeply unhappy -- but on another level, we don't really believe it ... or at least we don't believe it applies to us. Why do we experience such a disconnect between what we know to be true in the abstract and what we b... posted on Feb 5, 37076 reads

10 Ways To Live Simply In 2015
We are now entering radically changing times -- and it's only natural for our worldly expressions of simplicity to evolve in response. For more than thirty years Duange Elgin has explored the "simple life" and articulated it for tens of thousands of people all over the world. To Elgin, the most accurate way of describing this approach to living is with the metaphor of a garden. Here he describes 1... posted on Jan 5, 72443 reads

The Gifts of Hibernation
"So hibernation is a threefold time. It is a time for retreat and replenishment... a time for our wordless philosophy to finally be born...a time for our hidden destiny to whisper in our heart, You're not forgotten. I'm still here. We're in this together." For all of us who feel swept up in the buzz of achieving rather than being, Andreana A. Lefton's sincere reflection on rest and integration is ... posted on Feb 6, 26680 reads

Walking Our Way To Health & Happiness
"Walking is going places. Over recent decades, walking has come to be widely viewed as a slow, tiresome, old-fashioned way to get around. But that's changing now as Americans recognize that traveling by foot can be a health breakthrough, an economic catalyst, and the route to happiness...The evidence that millions of people are finally walking again is as solid as the ground beneath our feet." Rea... posted on Feb 10, 26187 reads

SpiritHorse: Helping Children With Disabilities Soar
Ex-telecom executive Charles Fletcher created a global network of therapeutic riding centers serving children with disabilities--free of charge. Noting that the special connection between children and horses was restorative, he wanted do more than offer feel-good pony rides. So he studied up on how to help heal and plowed his Social Security checks into launching SpiritHorse, an organization whi... posted on Feb 19, 25422 reads

Ecosophy: Nature's Guide to a Better World
The perfect storm of crises we now face may well prove to be the challenge that drives us into our greatest evolutionary leap. Ecology cannot be made subservient to economy if we want to continue our life on Earth as a healthy, embedded global human society. In this thought-provoking article, evolution biologist Elisabet Sahtouris explores the way of Ecosophy - "the human household in which econom... posted on Feb 26, 22801 reads

Teaching Our Children To Love Their Enemies
"Forgiveness can lead to understanding. Understanding plants the seeds for love." Loving our enemies may be one of the most difficult pearls of wisdom to live out in our day to day lives. It requires overcoming our fears, our egos, and our need to be right. This piece, that tells the story of one woman's compassionate response to a band of young neighborhood pranksters, reminds us of how powerful ... posted on Mar 14, 19071 reads

Steve Karlin: When Animals Are Our Teachers
"...to have a relationship with a wild creature, first you have to have a relationship with yourself." For thousands of years, human beings have lived side by side with animals. We share a common heritage here on earth, and, when we open our minds, we find there is much to learn from wild perspectives around us. Steve Karlin shares the insights he has gained after years spent caring for and connec... posted on Mar 15, 30109 reads

Why We Love Music
What is our fascination with music? And, why is it that it sometimes invokes such a deeply emotional response? Scientists have been pondering this question for years, and now -- with fMRI technology they are able to visualize the brain's musical connection. "Music affects deep emotional centers in the brain," shares neuroscientist, Valorie Salimpoor. "It's very powerful." How powerful? In one stu... posted on Mar 6, 30974 reads

Touch as a Form of Nutrition
Is it any coincidence that when a friend or loved one does something nice for us, we feel "touched"? As John Tuite, founder of The Centre for Embodied Wisdom, tells us, "We mistakenly think that touch occurs on the periphery of our self, a skin thing." But as he shares, touch is a crucial piece of our health and development, and one we all too often go without as we get older.... posted on Mar 3, 0 reads

Bhutan's Living Laboratory For Education
"Camp Rural-Urban Friendship is really a living laboratory for trying something different in education, just as Bhutan, with its philosophy of Gross National Happiness, is a living laboratory for trying something different with development." When youth from urban and rural areas of Bhutan united with visionary volunteers at Camp RUF this past summer, co-created sparks began fly. Volunteer Tim Huan... posted on Mar 1, 3685 reads

The Power of Story
For thousands of years stories we've heard have altered our thinking and how we engage with the world. Recently research has shed light on how this transformation takes place from inside. Using modern technology like functional MRI (fMRI) scanning, scientists are examining what effect powerful narratives have on our brains and how a story-inspired perspective might result in behavioural change...<... posted on Feb 21, 23058 reads

The Opposite Of Spoiled & How To Get There
Many parents walk a fine line when trying to teach children about the importance of money: on one hand, they want to make sure not to spoil their children or raise them with a sense of entitlement; and on the other hand they also want to ensure that their kids don't grow up too naive or unaware of the role that money plays. In an effort to address this challenge, Ron Lieber, a columnist for The Ne... posted on Mar 19, 22364 reads

Thoughts On Hope, Cynicism & Stories We Tell Ourselves
"Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. Hope without critical thinking is naivete." What is the capital "T" truth when it comes to the state of affairs in our world today? Are we better off than we were before? Are we coming apart at the seams? Can we even know? Maria Popova of Brain Pickings offers her thoughts on how news and the media shape our perceptions of the now, and the crucial impor... posted on Apr 1, 15228 reads

A Classroom With Love At The Center
Peggy Sia has some remarkable fifth grade moments. "One morning, as we were discussing the meaning of resilience, a student recalled something his coach said to the team during a practice. The things one chooses to do that others will not do today, will enable one to do the things that others cannot do tomorrow. Such powerful words coming from that of a 10-year-old." Every day, they move her to ri... posted on Feb 27, 19694 reads

Goals & Happiness: A Virtuous Cycle Infographic
The trick to being a happier person? Turns out it may lie in setting small, simple goals that can help you to focus on the important things in your life. This engaging infographic shares some startling data on the truth about happiness, it illustrates how setting goals and being happy are part of a virtuous cycle, and also reveals what kind of goals lead to the greatest joy.... posted on Mar 20, 35649 reads

Couple Renounce Wedding To Do Acts of Kindness In 50 States
Can you imagine forgoing the wedding of your dreams for the purpose of performing 50 completely selfless acts? For New York couple, Mark and Ismini Svensson, the decision was an easy one. Though the couple had ample funds for a wedding reception and honeymoon, they opted instead to use their savings to finance their journey. "We both realized that what makes us happiest is helping people in need,"... posted on Apr 10, 9945 reads

Replace The Gospel of Money
Change or die. That's the provocative belief of former Harvard Business School professor David Korten as he seeks to radically change the way the world thinks, especially when it comes to the subject of money. Wanting to steer away from the old paradigm that holds money and markets sacred, he believes the world needs to quickly shift into the emerging "Sacred Life and Living Earth" story. This art... posted on Mar 31, 18375 reads

The Girl Who Gets Gifts From Birds
"Lots of people love the birds in their garden, but it's rare for that affection to be reciprocated. One young girl in Seattle is luckier than most. She feeds the crows in her garden - and they bring her gifts in return." Read on for more about 8-year old Gabi, her generosity toward her winged friends, and their sweet relationship!... posted on Mar 22, 26621 reads

7 Ways To Help Kids Unplug From Technology
Parents and teachers alike worry about the impact that constant multitasking is having on children's developing brains. While kids swim comfortably in the floods of information, the problem, according to neuroscientists, is that multitasking is changing our human brains as we prioritize juggling over digging deeply into thinking, relationships, and planning.... posted on Apr 14, 30708 reads

What Are Your Non-Negotiables?
"Many of us were not taught self-determination. We were not taught to trust our intrinsic natures, our own personal sense of knowing, our internally directed discrimination. Instead, life presents itself externally as a banquet, from which we choose.If the item is not in the banquet, then we go without, or bend ourselves to choose something 'sort of like' the thing we really want." In this article... posted on May 14, 27061 reads

How I Work To Protect Women From Honor Killings
Up until she was 16, Khalida Brohi attempted to heal the sadness she felt when she witnessed atrocities committed on women in her community by crying into her pillow, silently at night, not knowing how else to help. However, a personal tragedy in her life -- the honor killing murder of her close friend -- moved Brohi into fierce action. A teenager herself, Brohi became a champion of women's righ... posted on Apr 19, 11178 reads