of today's society is designed through the lens of financial wealth, but is our world richer for it? Nipun Mehta uses that question as a springboard to make a compelling case for alternative forms of wealth that are often overlooked -- like time, community and attention. Drawing on his personal journey with ServiceSpace, as well as fascinating research and real-world examples, below is the transcript of an inspiring TEDx talk that invites listeners to consider a catalytic question: what forms of wealth do we care to amplify?] Decades ago, one of my friends was volunteering with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, India, and one of these major donors walks into the place, checks ... posted on Apr 19 2016 (52,909 reads)

composer in residence with the Portland Chamber Orchestra I had a commission coming up. And I decided I wanted to find a story I could set to music that would address the climate crisis on a root level. My artistic partner and wife found something. She said, “Have you ever heard of the Modern Prometheus?” I said the modern what? She said, “Well, its the earliest sci-fi novel.” I said okay. She said, “It has fantastic nature writing.” I said okay. She said, “It has a beautiful evocation of the human drama with real ecological consequences.” She said "look at this line rig... posted on Feb 27 2023 (2,256 reads)

of rest is creative rest. This type of rest is especially important for anyone who must solve problems or brainstorm new ideas. Creative rest reawakens the awe and wonder inside each of us. Do you recall the first time you saw the Grand Canyon, the ocean or a waterfall? Allowing yourself to take in the beauty of the outdoors — even if it’s at a local park or in your backyard — provides you with creative rest. But creative rest isn’t simply about appreciating nature; it also includes enjoying the arts. Turn your workspace into a place of inspiration by displaying images of places you love and works of art that speak to you. You can’t spend 40 hours a... posted on Mar 21 2023 (15,224 reads)

that silence that is so integral to growth. And you might think, “Well, yeah, I could do that, but I’d feel bored.” Boredom is not a bad thing. Tippett:No. Murthy:Boredom can be generative and creative. So anyway, these four simple steps are things that you can do. And that solitude, by the way, it can look different for each person. It can just be a few minutes. It could be a few minutes sitting on your front porch before the day begins. It could be a few minutes in nature, a few minutes in prayer, a few minutes in meditation, a few minutes listening to music that inspires you or stills you. I’ll tell you for me, one of the things I do toward the end of ... posted on Apr 14 2023 (4,168 reads)

and I have a book called Full Voice. So if you had that thought, act on that — that’s how people find me. And another way is to share my music. Same thing. I write the songs so they can go out there and do stuff. And I have a lot of music videos on my website, and there's stuff around. There’s a funny song about negative self-talk called “Brain Rats.” There's a tender song I wrote for a friend facing his death. There's some love songs to nature and a really good birthday song. So spread the songs out so they can do their jobs. And the third thing would be to stay in touch. I do these little concerts, I lead little classes from my livi... posted on Apr 28 2023 (2,736 reads)

could sit for hours along the edge of the stream near Grandpa's vegetable garden, marveling at the grandeur of every small detail. A world full of freedom, where coloring outside the lines of "the normal" is allowed, then unfolds. Thus, in the moment, I move beyond learned insights about beautiful or ugly, good or bad. And I create dreamy, colorful images that breathe a new world of simplicity, serenity, silence and transcendence. For hours I want to wander through nature. Preferably through the mountains. This is where I feel so at home.... I can't explain why. It is a primal feeling. During those years the Course in Miracles a... posted on May 9 2023 (3,132 reads)

Pacific Northwest of America. I was struck by the fact that the vast majority of human prayer has historically been in wooden churches, long before the amazing stone monuments we have today. First White Hair The thought of your eyes heather brown, make my pale blue eyes glisten, and I wonder how God chose which strand to grant your first white hair. You make an artform of disappearance, and teach me that life is second nature. I reach out at your request, finding the strand between my thumb and finger. Stillness while you wait for the pinch of the pluck. Your eyes widen as I rip the ... posted on May 11 2023 (5,111 reads)

let go and enjoy the ride, because the ride takes you to some remarkable and unexpected places. And here, on this platform, today, is one of those places. (I am enjoying myself immensely.) To all today's graduates: I wish you luck. Luck is useful. Often you will discover that the harder you work, and the more wisely you work, the luckier you get. But there is luck, and it helps. We're in a transitional world right now, if you're in any kind of artistic field, because the nature of distribution is changing, the models by which creators got their work out into the world, and got to keep a roof over their heads and buy sandwiches while they did that, are all changing. I&... posted on May 21 2023 (4,796 reads)

on the call to David, the deer was gone. She had walked down our driveway, across the street and disappeared into the woods. I never saw her again. I always remember that I saw her on November 16, 2001 - the day Aunt Tessie died after a long struggle with ALS. ​ Note: You might wonder, did I ever find any logical answer to why this deer visited me? The simple answer is, no. The encounter left me with many questions that had no answers. I spent much time, even years, telling my horse, nature and animal friends this story and asking if they knew of or had any such a connection with a deer.  I even spoke with people I know that are hunters hoping maybe this story would open them... posted on May 22 2023 (7,342 reads)

if I just went ahead and told you what I think is the truth of your spiritual identity ... Actually, I don't have a clue. I do know you are not what you look like, or how much you weigh, or how you did in school, and whether you get to start a job next Monday or not. Spirit isn't what you do, it's ... well, again, I don't actually know. They probably taught this junior year at Goucher. But I know that you feel it best when you're not doing much -- when you're in nature, when you've very quiet, or, paradoxically, listening to music. I know you can feel it and hear it in the music you love, in the bass line, in the harmonies, in the silence between notes... posted on Jun 5 2023 (4,296 reads)

mind being woken up, your conventions jostled, and your ribs being tickled multiple times along the way. Arguably no other writer in the world waltzes so delightfully between scientific fact, poetic digression, philosophical conjecture, and a flair for the comedic. Her debut essay collection, Things That Are, shines a spotlight on everything from the passionate yearning of pea tendrils, and the particularity of panda bear palates, to the perturbability of caterpillars, the oracular nature of mushrooms, and the dynamic between planets and their moons. Described as "a descendent of Lewis Carroll and Emily Dickinson," Amy defines her genre simply: Words. And what she conj... posted on Jun 21 2023 (2,091 reads)

a narrative for people who want to judge but not be judged, who want peace without the rigor of practice, who want heaven without having to change how they live in any significant way. That feels like the opposite of accountability, to me. I know a lot of people for whom this, or some other story of God, or gods and goddesses, makes sense and provides meaning. I feel the holiness in these people, in their rituals and practices. Many of the rituals—lighting candles, letting aspects of nature represent divine material, asking for divine support and shaping of our lives—align with my own witchy practices of the present. But I always notice the contradictions between what peo... posted on Jul 12 2023 (5,379 reads)

me the same sense of grace and the presence of God. My case is no exception. Many who meet Father Ed experience this touch of the eternal. When Bill described the evening in the recording he made for Thomsen, he said that at the end of his and Dowling’s conversation, which went on long into the night, he “felt for the first time completely cleansed and freed.” As the author of the Fifth Step—“Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs”—Bill recognized this as a Fifth Step experience. Although Bill had composed the Twelve Steps, he himself had not made all of them; they were an adaptation and expansi... posted on Aug 2 2023 (6,927 reads)

you ever asked yourself “How did I end up here?” Wondered why you achieved some level of success while others you know have not? Or, conversely, struggled to understand why something bad happened to you, like losing your job or not getting the one you wanted, while your friends’ careers continued to flourish? Perhaps you have walked by a person experiencing homelessness and unconsciously judged them for their current plight. Or questioned the reasons that led to another person’s success or failure? How we explain what happens to people in life impacts our motivation, behavior, and attitudes toward others—and ourselves. It may also be at the root of ma... posted on Aug 5 2023 (2,919 reads)

29, 2013 Today is my father's birthday. If  he were living today, he'd be 102. I cannot even imagine that. He was 67 when he died, and that's too young, but lately, as I stare at some hard realities of aging and mortality, I begin to appreciate the fact that  he didn't have to endure a long period of frailty, pain, and dependence. My father was himself to very the end, brilliant and good and a force of nature, the most important person in my world, and I miss him terribly even now.  Maybe especially now. I find solace in these words from a poem my friend Naomi Shihab Nye wrote after the death of her own beloved father:  There's a wa... posted on Aug 6 2023 (3,959 reads)

in this house, but it means I have clearer expectations and therefore no resentment about what my work looks like. If I were to live in a house with another human being again, another adult, it would have to look really different from what I did before and in some ways, I think the idea of negotiating that– it’s not a place where I am right now. It’s not a place that I’m really ready to figure out how to negotiate that. Because I know I’m a caregiver by nature and so part of listening to myself– and this is one of the uncomfortable truths– is if I had another partner living in my house now, I think it would be really hard for me not to re... posted on Aug 10 2023 (3,362 reads)

security and certainty for the future — and yet we continue to grasp for precisely that assurance of the future, which remains an abstraction. Our only chance for awakening from this vicious cycle, Watts argues, is bringing full awareness to our present experience — something very different from judging it, evaluating it, or measuring it up against some arbitrary or abstract ideal. He writes: There is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity. But the contradiction lies a little deeper than the mere conflict between the desire for security and the fact of change. If I want to be secu... posted on Sep 19 2023 (4,308 reads)

how the dead go on living with them So that in a forest even a dead tree casts a shadow and the leaves fall one by one and the branches break in the wind and the bark peels off slowly and the trunk cracks and the rain seeps in through the cracks and the trunk falls to the ground and the moss covers it and in the spring the rabbits find it and build their nest inside and have their young and their young will live safely inside the dead tree So that nothing is wasted in nature or in love. ... posted on Sep 30 2023 (10,363 reads)

become part of the action. […] When you can and do entrain, you are synchronising with the people you’re talking with, physically getting in time and tune with them. No wonder speech is so strong a bond, so powerful in forming community. Illustration from ‘Donald and the…’ by Edward Gorey. Click image for more. In a complement to Susan Sontag’s terrific treatise on the the aesthetics of silence, Le Guin considers the singular nature of sound: Sound signifies event. A noise means something is happening. Let’s say there’s a mountain out your window. You see the mountain. Your eyes report changes, snowy in wi... posted on Nov 13 2023 (3,396 reads)

this deeply moving episode, Fill to Capacity podcast host Pat Benincasa speaks with writer and life coach Jennifer Bichanich. Jennifer opens a window on her experiences with profound loss, including losing her beloved husband when the church they were remodeling went up in flames. Despite immense grief and despair, Jennifer found ways to rebuild her life and discover her own creative resilience. Working with a shamanic energy healer, delving into art therapy, and joining the Modern Widows Club, she found community, healing and the possibility of creating something beautiful from the ashes of her life. This podcast explores themes of grief, healing, and the power of creativity in navigatin... posted on Nov 20 2023 (3,028 reads)