Belonging Creates & Undoes Us Both
Padraig O Tuama is a poet, theologian, and extraordinary healer in our world of fracture. He leads the Corrymeela community of Northern Ireland, a place that has offered refuge since the violent division that defined that country until the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. And Padraig and Corrymeela extend a quiet, generative, and joyful force far beyond their northern coast to people around the world. ... posted on May 6, 10035 reads

Music, the Brain & the Secret Language of the Heart
When was the last time you heard a song that brought you to tears, or reminded you of a favorite place? Music has the power to shape our moods, our minds, and even our memories. Barry Goldstein, a producer, composer, and music researcher, shares the incredible ways music can enrich our experience on conscious and subconscious levels. Through engaging in activities like singing or chanting, we can ... posted on Jul 27, 76616 reads

The Women in Spiti Valley who are Saving the Snow Leopard
In the Spitian language, "shen" means snow leopard. Located in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, Spiti Valley is one of the few remaining places on earth where snow leopards can be found. Since 2013, women from two of the region's villages have been working with the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) to help protect this endangered species. Known as Project SHEN, the women engage in communit... posted on Jun 24, 14571 reads

She Gave Street Children Her Cell Phone Number and That Changed
Jeroo Billimoria isn't one to see a person in need and hope that someone else will take action. She is a social entrepreneur who responds by getting involved in big and small ways. She became a social activist many years ago at the age of 11 when she encouraged her neighbors to open bank accounts and become financially literate. She wanted to enable their freedom from poverty. In recent years, Jer... posted on Jun 7, 9715 reads

How to Kick Your Digital Addiction
Technology can bring happiness. Anyone who's found the perfect meditation app or downloaded a grandchild's photo won't doubt that.But technology can also bring anxiety, stress, and frustration. And that seems to be a given, too, making us throw our hands in the air. Amy Blankson, author of the new book "The Future of Happiness: 5 Modern Strategies for Balancing Productivity and Well-Being in the D... posted on Jun 25, 12669 reads

Resilience After Unimaginable Loss
Sheryl Sandberg is synonymous with Facebook and Silicon Valley success, and she's the voice of Lean In. She joins On Being, host Krista Tippet, frank and vulnerable, together with the psychologist Adam Grant. His friendship and his research on resilience helped Sandburg survive the shocking death of her husband while on vacation. They share what they've learned about planting deep resilience in ou... posted on Jun 17, 17820 reads

David Whyte on Courage
We all have an idea of what courage looks like from the outside, but what about the inside? Is it angry? Energetic? Excited? Or something else? In this essay, poet David Whyte looks deep within to find the source of courage. Perhaps surprisingly, it's a place that's not hard but soft. And it can be both confusing and vulnerable. "We become courageous whenever we live closely to the point of tears ... posted on Jun 15, 17749 reads

Experiments in Kindness
Audrey Lin is a volunteer extraordinaire with ServiceSpace. With a degree in Peace and Conflict Studies, Lin has volunteered at the Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad, India; at Karma Kitchen in Berkeley, California;and has served as an educator on both the east and west coasts of the United States. While not everyone has the ability to travel abroad to volunteer, Lin's life and perspectives remind us tha... posted on Aug 15, 2720 reads

Guy Standing on an Economy that Works for Everyone
Through research and advocacy, economist Guy Standing has been fighting for an economy that works for everyone and for the environment for years. In his books and other publications, he argues that our current economic ideology has created an antagonistic world in which a small percent are "winners" and a large percent are "losers," resulting in an environment of insecurity and tension. In this in... posted on Nov 26, 21221 reads

Linda Cruse: Marmalade & Machine Guns
Linda Cruse spent a decade as a nurse, but needed a more steady schedule and extra income. She took an opportunity to work in pharmaceuticals, but it was killing her spirit, and she became very negative. After going temporarily blind from the stress of her new life, she made a promise to become more authentic and find her purpose. This led her to the decision to sell her possessions and travel the... posted on Aug 3, 4644 reads

To Honor the Sacred
It was after losing the sight in his right eye that David Ulrich began photographing the Hawai'in Islands. As he struggled to capture the intense beauty and the terrifying destruction of Kaho'olawe he learned "right seeing." In this article, he describes how he was tested by the island. He took a step back and listened. He began seeing the dark sacredness of the land, the higher energies that cann... posted on Oct 5, 9744 reads

The GreenHouse Project
In a small urban park in Johannesburg, South Africa, Dorah Lobelo founded the Greenhouse Project, a dynamic center that has grown to become a seedbed for organic farming, sustainable design, and community-building. Using donated park space, she has created an environmental demonstration center in a dense inner city that tackles the extremes of poverty, environmental degradation, and community rege... posted on Jul 22, 1732 reads

Edmund Benson: A Life of Hard Work and Giving Back
In this Awakin Call interview, Edmund Benson discusses his life from his difficult childhood through retirement when he began the ARISE Foundation, a program teaching global skills to at-risk youth. After feeling like the black sheep of the family, Benson joined the military in his teens where he was exposed to people struggling with alcohol, anger, and other problems, teaching him to live in a mo... posted on Nov 1, 8405 reads

The Reformed Prisoner Who Is Paying It Forward
Raul Baez spent twelve years in prison for armed robbery. While incarcerated, he found God and Christianity and became determined to help others who had also lost their way at some point. He decided to create WITO (We Innovatively Transform Ourselves), a nonprofit organization named after his son. WITO helps inmates make good decisions regarding personal finance and character development before th... posted on Dec 5, 4275 reads

Burundi Genocide Survivor on How Running Helped Him Heal
In 2013, Gilbert Tuhabonye spoke with Celeste Headlee on National Public Radio about running, forgiving, and healing. On the 20th anniversary of the genocide of the Tutsis, he recalls how he, his classmates, and teachers were beaten, locked in a burning building and left to die. He was the only survivor. An Olympic class runner before this tragedy, running became his physical and emotional therapy... posted on Jan 10, 3943 reads

Six Principles of Non-Violence
At a time when some feel resistance is inevitable and many are frustrated in effecting the change they seek, non-violence remains the best course of action. Michael Nagler, author of The Nonviolence Handbook, provides six guidelines for engaging with others more safely and effectively. Drawing on the works and wisdom of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., Nagler describes the underlying attitudes ... posted on Oct 3, 24782 reads

Who Do You Choose to Be?
There have been other historical times that were volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, and leaders arose to guide people through them. We are again in one such time. Margaret Wheatley calls on each of us to step forward to serve, rather than withdraw into denial and self-protection. She implores us to become leaders who create islands of sanity where good work still gets done and people enj... posted on Dec 8, 23994 reads

The Courage to Feel: E.E. Cummings on Art, Life and More
In the face of pressure to conform, expressing oneself is not only an art, but an act of bravery. "To be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting," wrote poet e.e. cummings, who eschewed literary form, bunked tradition, and created his own style of poe... posted on Jan 8, 11238 reads

The Revolutionary Power of Diverse Thought
Elif Shafak is a Turkish author, columnist and speaker who writes stories of women, minorities, immigrants, subcultures, and youth in both Turkish and English. In this Ted Talk, she exposes the unprecedented challenges facing the world today, the attraction to and fallacy of following demagogues, and how these same problems will show us the way forward: the indispensability of democracy, the need ... posted on Feb 18, 0 reads

The Myth of the Risk-Taker
What is the one common attribute that's consistently found among wildly successful people? Money? High education? Lucky breaks? According to Adam Grant, a psychology professor, best-selling author, and researcher in the realm of originality, a love of learning is the key to finding success. It all starts with curiosity. To challenge what is already the norm. To go against the grain and put our ene... posted on Jan 19, 12885 reads

Seven Ways to Help High Schoolers Find Purpose
How do we bring engagement, real-life lessons, and a sense of meaning into teens' lives? Patrick Cook-Deegan discovered after years of experience and research that the most fulfilling and useful real-world lessons are not being taught in typical high school classrooms -- like collaboration, passion, and learning from failure. In a system that values extrinsic rewards over internal values, students... posted on Dec 12, 47245 reads

Cheryl Angel: Water Is Life
Cheryl Angel is an indigenous leader, wise (Sioux) Lakota elder woman, mother of five children, and lifelong devoted water protector who helped initiate and maintain the Standing Rock camp since April 2016, and who was vital in the nonviolent resistance to the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines. Her voice among the water protectors is one of integrating deep prayer with nonviolent direct acti... posted on Jan 7, 1457 reads

Why the Moral Argument for Non-Violence Matters
There is a difference between using nonviolent tactics and having nonviolent principles. That difference matters even more today. Kazu Haga, a Kingian Nonviolence trainer based in Oakland, California and founder and coordinator of East Point Peace Academy, explains that nonviolent tactics have victory as the goal and define people as opponents. Nonviolent principles have reconciliation as the goal... posted on Jan 15, 15599 reads

The Spirit of Restorative Justice
Sujatha Baliga serves as the Executive Director of the Restorative Justice Project at Impact Justice, in Alameda County, California. Her background as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, criminal law attorney, and meditator inform her critical and revolutionary work in restorative justice today. Following a life-changing encounter with His Holiness the Dalai Lama who advised her to meditate an... posted on Mar 5, 18818 reads

Trauma in the Body: An Interview with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.founder and medical director of the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusettsis professor of psychiatry at Boston University Medical School, and director of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. His newest book, The Body Keeps The Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma, offers a revolutionary new understanding of the causes and consequences of trauma a... posted on Apr 21, 61447 reads

David Fryburg: Inspiring Kindness Through Images
We live in a world where news stories are riddled with negativity; wars, crashes, political and social strife fill our living rooms and enter our most personal of space, our homes. What are the implications on our neurological and physical health? And what are the effects when this is turned around and people are exposed to positive news, see acts of kindness and learn of human goodness? This wa... posted on Feb 27, 15064 reads

The Benefits of Being a Misfit
When master biographer Walter Isaacson sits down to chat with bestselling author Adam Grant, he shares secrets and insights on the inner and outer lives of great innovators like Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, and Leonardo da Vinci. Who was a misfit? Who was a perfectionist? Who had a notebook full of unfinished projects? What did they have in common? In this fascinating conversati... posted on Apr 6, 12744 reads

Under the Volcano
Charlotte Du Cann is part of the core editorial team behind The Dark Mountain Project. In this essay, she describes The Dark Mountain Project and their new offering, Walking on Lava. The Dark Mountain Project is a collective body of work by recovering journalists who have faced the reality of our current ecological crisis and are producing narratives that look at things differently than the mainst... posted on May 22, 5486 reads

What If We Believed No Lives Mattered Less Than Other Lives?
"Homeboy Industries provides hope, training, and support to formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated men and women allowing them to redirect their lives and become contributing members of our community. Each year over 10,000 former gang members from across Los Angeles come through Homeboy Industries doors in an effort to make a positive change. They are welcomed into a community of mutua... posted on Mar 7, 2586 reads

The Third Self: Mary Oliver on the Artist's Task
In "Of Power and Time" found in "Upstream: Selected Essays," poet Mary Oliver delves deep into the psyche of the artist and explores the external and internal factors affecting creativity. In it she describes three parts of herself -- two ordinary ones, and one third self "where the wellspring of creative energy resides." This third self cannot be controlled, and is often its worst enemy. "What d... posted on Apr 23, 14051 reads

The Sunray Peace Village
The Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo is Chief of the Green Mountain, Ani Yun Wiwa, the 27th generation holder of the ancestral Ywahoo lineage of the Tsalagi/Eastern Cherokee tradition and a well-respected teacher of Vajrayana in the Drikung Kagyu and Nyingma traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. She founded the Vajra Dakini Nunnery and is Director of the Sunray Meditation Society, an international spiritual orga... posted on May 31, 9691 reads

Looking for the Light in Vulnerability
Sarah Kay, a 29 year old spoken word poet from New York City touches audiences with her realistic portrayal of life, while focusing on 'finding the light' in life. In this interview Sarah discusses how her parents influenced her childhood with art, photography, and poetry, and how she in turn, influences students, teachers, and audiences around the world - encouraging them to listen to one another... posted on Jun 17, 10821 reads

Unu Spiro: One Breath Meditation Paintings
In 2016, artist Filiz Emma Soyak became a mother: "My heart expanded, my life changed, and I changed. But as I transitioned into motherhood, I felt more chaos than clarity as the days and nights blurred by with dizzying speed. I observed myself handling everything with less grace and more discomfort than I had anticipated. Intuition had always been my guide, but I couldn't hear my own thoughts cle... posted on Jun 8, 11222 reads

Kelly Orians: Getting Out and Staying Out
Kelly Orians, co-founder of Rising Foundations and attorney at The First 72+ has dedicated her life to helping the less fortunate, with a focus on the injustice and failing policies of the correctional system. In this interview Kelly discusses the unique challenges facing former inmates as they attempt to reintegrate into society, and the people and organizations attempting to change that for the... posted on Jul 16, 7710 reads

Cooking Stirs the Pot for Social Change
Every time we step to our stoves to make a meal we're engaging with the society around us. Each ingredient that we use, every technique, every spice tells a story about our access, our privilege, our heritage, and our culture. The foods and dishes we consume are all part of larger forces that impact our lives. Our appetites and what we crave are the result of our place in the world at that time. E... posted on Jul 9, 8080 reads

What Borders Are Really About
"The wonderful writer Luis Alberto Urrea says that a deep truth of our time is that we miss each other. We have this drive to erect barriers between ourselves and yet this makes us a little crazy. He is singularly wise about the deep meaning and the problem of borders. The Mexican-American border, as he likes to say, ran straight through his parents' Mexican-American marriage and divorce. His work... posted on Jul 15, 9091 reads

Burning Insight
Dr. Jay Bansal lost his home in the Tubbs fire last year in California. He reflects: "Fire is a powerful and destructive force, as well as a potentially purifying and healing force in just about all spiritual traditions. It is up to each person whether to treat fire's destruction as a tragic loss or as an opportunity for transformation and healing. In the fire's aftermath, I saw up close examples ... posted on Aug 31, 3050 reads

The Dinner Party
Loss is part of life for all of us, but the tendency in our time is to carry that burden alone. Lennon Flowers had lost her own mother to cancer and was carrying that burden alone when her friend and colleague Carla Hernandez reached out to her. Carla invited Lennon over to share dinner with other friends who'd lost a loved one, and the Dinner Party was born. Today, there are thousands of Dinner P... posted on Oct 10, 9729 reads

Against Self-Righteousness
Maria Popova shares insights on Anne Lamott's latest offering - "Almost Everything" Notes on Hope. How do we see past the illusions of polarity of right and wrong? Can we let go of these tightly held convictions that keep us small and separate and move into more mindfulness of our shared living beingness? It starts by bringing our awareness, curiosity and forgiveness - what we are designed for to... posted on Jan 8, 7064 reads

Breaking Out of Our Resistance Bubble
Explore the intersection of spiritual journey and social change with this riveting interview from Sounds True and Van Jones, NY times best selling author, public speaker and host of the Van Jones show on CNN. He calls on our collective soulfulness, grounded into life, and our strong sense of self, joy and dignity. Van challenges us to work with others that are unlike ourselves, to be in the chaos ... posted on Mar 5, 8543 reads

Inner Strength Foundation
Many adolescents growing up in poverty have limited resources to help them cope with the difficulties their circumstances may bring: violence, resource scarcity, homelessness, to name but a few. In Philadelphia, the poorest of America's ten largest cities, the Inner Strength Foundation is equipping aspiring youth from vulnerable communities with tools to self reflect, develop interpersonal skills,... posted on Mar 11, 6202 reads

Grateful for the Dark Stuff Too
Orienting ourselves toward gratitude is a cultural trend and a healthy practice. Whether we are keeping a daily list, posting on social media platforms, journaling, or praying each morning, practicing gratitude has positive results for physical and emotional health and even in our professional lives. Laura Grace Weldon suggests taking this practice even further and being grateful for those people,... posted on May 6, 8149 reads

Artists as Hoarders
When does collecting material for prospective art projects cross over and become hoarding? When it takes up so much space it requires a warehouse? When the time to collect and sort and store it all amounts to your entire lifetime? And what kind of imagination plus dedication does it take to finally assemble all the bits and pieces into something qualifying as art? Mirka Knaster opens the portal in... posted on Sep 8, 5570 reads

J.B. Priestley and Life's Delights
"I followed a path that led me into one of these woods, through a tunnel of green gloom and smoky blue dusk. It was very quiet, very remote, in there. My feet sank into the pile of the pine needles. The last bright tatters of sunlight vanished. Some bird went whirring and left behind a deeper silence. I breathed a different air, ancient and aromatic." A joyful observer of the quotidian, playwright... posted on May 1, 0 reads

God Who Weeps: A Story of Grief and Redemption
It all started in 1980 when Sister Marilyn Lacey responded to a call for volunteers at San Francisco airport to help refugee families from Southeast Asia make their connecting flights. The experience laid a galvanizing hand on her heart. Soon after, she flew to Thailand and spent a year working in a refugee camp. Later she would go to South Sudan and multiple other countries in Africa to witness f... posted on Apr 24, 8119 reads

James Fox and the Prison Yoga Project
James Fox is the founder and director of the Prison Yoga Project, an organization dedicated to establishing yoga and mindfulness programs in prisons and rehabilitation centers worldwide. Since 2002, Fox has been teaching yoga and meditation to prisoners in California and around the world. The Prison Yoga Project helps incarcerated men and women build a better life through trauma-informed yoga with... posted on Apr 25, 4911 reads

We Are Designed for Connection
Diane Poole Heller, a licensed therapist and noted expert in trauma, integrative healing, and secure attachment, talks to Tami Simon of Sounds True about the different attachment styles that we pick up in childhood and carry subconsciously into our adult behaviors. They discuss strategies for coping with and healing from insecure and disorganized childhood attachment. Diane explains how these atta... posted on May 27, 11301 reads

Mother's Day: Belonging to Each Other
"Mother's Day offers us opportunities to express our love and thanks to the women who have cared for us in our lives --the birth or adoptive mother, the grandmother, the teacher, or the elder friend who have helped grow us up. But it's not all Hallmark cards and breakfasts-in-bed. This particular holiday can stir up feelings of grief and pain for some of us. We may suffer for the mother we have lo... posted on May 12, 8383 reads

A New Republic of the Heart
When we face a moment of crisis, individually or collectively, a whole wave of radical conversations is inevitable. For these conversations to really make a difference, we must break through our personas and our inauthentic poses. This is a deeper level of discourse than has hitherto seemed thinkable in public--disarming, tender, and authentic. Such a conversation requires a level of trust, vulner... posted on Jun 2, 5684 reads

A Primer for Forgetting
"We live in a culture that prizes memory--how much we can store, the quality of what's preserved, how we might better document and retain the moments of our life while fighting off the nightmare of losing all that we have experienced. But what if forgetfulness were seen not as something to fear--be it in the form of illness or simple absentmindedness--but rather as a blessing, a balm, a path to pe... posted on Jun 27, 5246 reads