photography. It took me several years before I got a job, so I did my own work while waiting to get clients. Because I was doing work close to my heart, it really propelled my advance in photography. Then, I began getting commercial work and became pretty successful at it. I shot covers for 50 romance novels. Eventually, I asked myself, “Is this really what I dropped out of dentistry for?” That's when I decided to do a project in Tibet on the Tibetan people. That project put my images in galleries across the country and in Europe. I didn't have to do commercial work anymore. And I started doing work centering on human rights issues that people, especially in the developi... posted on Apr 25 2017 (17,136 reads)

as well as its devastation have prevented development and tourism and an endless stream of visitors from further altering the Hawaiian legacy of earth, stone, and ancestral voices. Mua Ha‘i KÅ«pana, Kaho‘olawe, Hawai‘i In the early period of attempting to make photographs of this unusual, reverberating landscape, I sensed the need to listen, to learn, to step back and get to know the island as intimately as possible. I felt at least the possibility of making images that integrated in a single gesture the massive destruction and underlying feeling of sacredness, of something very real and special that I couldn’t quite grasp, which remained elusive to... posted on Oct 5 2017 (9,790 reads)

and Saints Don't Collect: A Conversation with Larry Brilliant at Awakin Circle by Richard Whittaker, Oct 20, 2016   It's been my good fortune for many years now to be acquainted with ServiceSpace's weekly Awakin Circle. The original circle began almost 20 years ago and has inspired many others around the world. Generally, the circles facilitate a rich quality of shared experience among the people in attendance, but from time to time a featured guest may show up and present his or her story and enter into an exchange with those in attendance.      Over the years, remarkable people have regularly appeared in the living room where these circle... posted on Nov 8 2017 (16,024 reads)

introduction by Maria Jain Earlier this year, I sat in an airplane waiting to take off from New York. The sun was setting beyond the edge of the tarmac. In the distance, the Manhattan skyline stood like a row of tiny charred matchsticks against the burning horizon. For a moment, I admired this instant art. Then, I shifted my gaze to the book on my lap: “That Bird Has My Wings” written by Jarvis Jay Masters, a Buddhist practitioner on Death Row in California. As I opened the first page, graceful italics shot Masters’ resounding dedication straight into my heart: To all those who who have lost someone by an act of violence, to the memory of those who... posted on Sep 28 2017 (13,448 reads)

rip-off Have you or any of your loved ones experienced our health care system lately? If so, how was that experience for you? Were you pleased with your care? Were you able to access the system easily? Did it treat you with dignity, respect, and competence? Did you feel well after your engagement with the system? And were you satisfied afterward that you got what you paid for? Or did you feel like the system failed you? That it addressed your acute illness but not your overall health? That it moved you around like a cog in a vast machine? That it never met your unique need? And ransacked your pocketbook in the process? According to a study by Fidelity Investments, a m... posted on Aug 25 2018 (9,681 reads)

month, Nickelodeon, in partnership with KidsRights Foundation, launched #KidsCan, an international campaign that spotlights the stories of nine International Children's Peace Prize winners and nominees from around the globe who are creating positive change in their communities.  Says Bradley Archer-Haynes, a vice president, at Nickelodeon International, “Kids everywhere have the power to make a difference, regardless of age or location. We wanted to provide a platform to help amplify their stories, while pointing to resources that help young people remember they can do anything.”  From Kehkashan's efforts for environmental sustainability to Fahima's wor... posted on Apr 3 2018 (8,937 reads)

What a great joy to be with you on this special day. Thank you, Dr. Carmen Valdes, Miss Ana Lim, distinguished staff and colleagues, and the larger Assumption family. And to you, the graduating class of 2018 -- congratulations! Assumption College might be the only place where two alumni have gone on to become president of the country, many alumni go on to become pioneering entrepreneurs, and numerous alumni go on to become nuns!  What an honor to be here in a space that encourages such a wide spectrum of value for society. Now, usually, commencement addresses are meant to affirm that you have the grit to conquer the world. But that's not sufficient for a class that chose its mot... posted on Jun 11 2018 (15,611 reads)

children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.” —Kahil Gibran Parents today are overwhelmed with demands on how to raise their kids. We want the very best for our kids. We want them to be smart, athletic, healthy, kind, happy, polite, disciplined, creative and more. We want to give them everything! And before everything, we focus on getting them into good schools so that they can have the best possible education. Kids on the other hand, are growing up bombarded by technology, needing to compete in every way, comparing themselves with others, trying to be perfect and please their parents, wanting to fit in... posted on Oct 15 2018 (40,743 reads)

a restaurant where there are no prices on the menu and where the check reads $0.00 with only this footnote: “Your meal was a gift from someone who came before you. To keep the chain of gifts alive, we invite you to pay it forward for those who dine after you.” This restaurant exists, and it’s called Karma Kitchen, a self-described “volunteer-driven experiment in generosity.” Karma Kitchen was first opened in Berkeley, California in 2007 by volunteers inspired to seed the value of a gift economy. Karma Kitchen has served over 74,700 meals and generated over 60,300 volunteer hours in Berkeley alone, but ultimately, it’s impossible to measure all t... posted on Dec 24 2018 (8,364 reads)

need hopeful news. Research suggests that people who consume negative news regularly “tend to have less trust in political leaders, lower evaluations of other people and communities, and more psychological problems,” as Jill Suttie reported this year in Greater Good.  Hearing good news has the opposite effect: People become more generous, politically active, and mentally and physically healthy. “Journalists will always have to report on inherently negative issues,” says media researcher Karen McIntyre of Virginia Commonwealth University. “But reporting in a constructive way would hopefully help people have a more realistic picture of th... posted on Jan 27 2019 (9,170 reads)

Bolte Taylor, Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy and Chef Grant Achatz are an unlikely trio. What do this brain scientist, late eye surgeon, and a leader of the molecular gastronomy movement [yes there is such a thing] have in common? At a takeoff point in their careers they were each dealt a sucker punch -- one that robbed them of what was arguably their greatest gift. Yet none of them threw in the towel. And each would rise to greatness after mining their unthinkable experience of loss for deeper insight into the human experience. Loss. Consider the paradox of how that one word, brief as a seed, can swallow our world whole. We’ve all experienced it, in ways that range from the m... posted on Apr 25 2012 (32,904 reads)

I awoke early with a good bit of unfinished business on my mind. My first scheduled appointment for the morning was at 9AM, and there I was awake and alert considerably earlier than I needed to be. I decided to take advantage of this early morning awakening and energy surge. I got up stimulated by the possibility of arriving at the office early and getting the jump on the day by tying up those loose ends that needed attention before the formally scheduled work day began. As part of the preparation for this flurry of activity, I prepared my preferred morning eye-opener drink. This high powered beverage is a blend of a vital green powder, which began as algae and seaweed, augme... posted on May 6 2012 (9,484 reads)

living through an experimental cancer treatment my sister Barb was left unable to work. When she was offered the opportunity to do a mission trip in India if she could come up with $3,000 - she was left thinking there was no way she could go. No way to raise the funds. She asked me to brainstorm with her as to ways she could raise money. "The only thing I can do is hug," she told me - and thus her adventure began.   I designed a "Hugs Around the World" card for her which she used to solicit donations. For any amount donated, she promised to hug a person in India. On the back of the cards the donor could write their name, below which it said “..... posted on Jul 18 2012 (16,390 reads)

visited the Bay Area, where she lived on a horse ranch south of San Francisco. The exposure to the beauty of the place—the coast, the hills, the redwoods—made a deep impression. One day, as she stepped out of her house, she looked up and saw a red-tailed hawk soaring above her. “As I stood looking up at the hawk, in a voice as clear as day, I heard these words: ‘Tell my story’.” Rosen’s drawings and sculptures are born from the perennial questions: What can nature show us? And what is seeing? Her work shows us something about that. I met the artist at her studio and ranch in San Gregorio, California to talk specifically about seeing&hel... posted on Jan 19 2014 (24,726 reads)

Obrist: Lately, the word “curate” seems to be used in an greater variety of contexts than ever before, in reference to everything from a exhibitions of prints by Old Masters to the contents of a concept store. The risk, of course, is that the definition may expand beyond functional usability. But I believe ‘curate’ finds ever-wider application because of a feature of modern life that is impossible to ignore: the incredible proliferation of ideas, information, images, disciplinary knowledge, and material products that we all witnessing today. Such proliferation makes the activities of filtering, enabling, synthesizing, framing, and remembering more and more... posted on Jan 14 2014 (35,509 reads)

a 13,000-year-old eucalyptus tree reveals about the meaning of human life. “Our overblown intellectual faculties seem to be telling us both that we are eternal and that we are not,” philosopher Stephen Cave observed in his poignant meditation on our mortality paradoxAnd yet we continue to long for the secrets of that ever-elusive eternity. For nearly a decade, Brooklyn-based artist, photographer, and Guggenheim Fellow Rachel Sussman has been traveling the globe to discover and document its oldest organisms — living things over 2,000 years of age. Her breathtaking photographs and illuminating essays are now collected in The Oldest Living Things in the World (publi... posted on May 29 2014 (20,244 reads)

startling physiological effects of loneliness, optimism, and meditation. In 2013, Neil deGrasse Tyson hosted a mind-bending debate on the nature of “nothing” — an inquiry that has occupied thinkers since the dawn of recorded thought and permeates everything from Hamlet’s iconic question to the boldest frontiers of quantum physics. That’s precisely what New Scientist editor-in-chief Jeremy Webb explores with a kaleidoscopic lens in Nothing: Surprising Insights Everywhere from Zero to Oblivion(public library) — a terrific collection of essays and articles exploring everything from vacuum to the birth and death of the universe to how the concept of zer... posted on Sep 13 2014 (27,653 reads)

beautiful meditation on how we learn to stand at the gates of hope in troubled times. “How are we so optimistic, so careful not to trip and yet do trip, and then get up and say OK?”Maira Kalman asked in pondering happiness and existence. What is it that propels us to get up after loss, after heartbreak, after failure? What is that immutable rope that pulls us out of our own depths — depths we hardly knowuntil that moment when the light of the surface vanishes completely and unreachably? That’s precisely what the Reverend Victoria Safford explores in a gorgeous essay titled“The Small Work in the Great Work” fromThe Impossible Will Take a Little Whil... posted on Dec 15 2014 (23,349 reads)

“every walk is a sort of crusade.” “Go out and walk. That is the glory of life,” Maira Kalman exhorted in her glorious visual memoir. A century and a half earlier, another remarkable mind made a beautiful and timeless case for that basic, infinitely rewarding, yet presently endangered human activity. Henry David Thoreau was a man of extraordinary wisdom on everything fromoptimism to the true meaning of “success” tothe creative benefits of keeping a diary to the greatest gift of growing old. In his 1861 treatiseWalking (free ebook | public library | IndieBound), penned seven years after Walden, he sets out to remind us of how that prim... posted on Jan 2 2015 (30,869 reads)

means different things to different people. But for the majority of us, regardless of our definition, the road to success is paved with challenges and tests. It can be a roller-coaster ride filled with highs and lows and fruitful learnings. One thing is clear -- all those of us who reach for the stars and actively stretch towards our dreams emerge from our efforts transformed. If you have a dream and are working hard to see it realized, be assured, the journey counts just as much, and sometimes more than the destination. Our failures are not a waste of time, humble persistence can sometimes serve us better than strokes of genius, and great heights can, and have been re... posted on Apr 2 2015 (20,494 reads)