GREENE lives in British Columbia in Canada, where the winters bring darkness and a quilt of snow over the garden. It’s a time of inward rejuvenation and recharging. How does that affect our own inner cycles of busy-ness and stillness? I’m working at the kitchen table these days instead of upstairs at my desk. It’s winter and the house is cold, especially where I usually write. This is my version of a seasonal migration, a tiny replica of the cyclic nomadic journeys that the indigenous peoples of the plains made. When winter’s freezing temperatures, wind, snow and ice conspired, they moved to a location that gave shelter from these forces. It just makes sense... posted on Dec 23 2017 (12,572 reads)

constructive alternatives: setting up schools, forming cottage industries, establishing farming cooperatives, devising community-friendly banking. As Buckminster Fuller said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Gandhi initiated 18 projects that enabled Indians to take charge of their own society, making it much easier to “dismiss” British rule and lay the groundwork for their own democracy. Constructive work has many advantages: It enables people to break their dependency on a regime by creating their own goods and services. You cannot get rid of oppresso... posted on Oct 3 2017 (24,970 reads)

sacrifice with a prayer to the deity worshipped as mistress of the jungle and of all its products? “Our mother,” he says, “by your kindness we have found. Without it we receive nothing. We offer you many thanks.” The expression of gratitude makes the original joy over a favor received rise to a higher level. Thousands of similar rites have been observed among the most primitive peoples. But this example (recorded by Christoph von Fuerer Haimendorf, who did field work among the Chenchu) stands out for its crystal clear structure. Each sentence of the simple prayer accompanying this offering corresponds, in fact, to one of our three phases of gratitude. “... posted on Nov 23 2017 (17,685 reads)

CALIF. U.C. Davis is among the schools leading the way in emissions reduction and waste diversion. The university boasts the largest solar power plant on any campus and diverts 73 percent of its waste from landfills. “We teach at least 180 courses a year with sustainability content,” says Camille Kirk, the school’s director of sustainability. “Our students are future leaders and active citizens, and they take their U.C. Davis training and go out and do great work in private, public and nonprofit settings.” College of the Atlantic Ornithology students get a close-up view of some of the bird life in nearby Acadia National Park. Photo courtesy o... posted on Nov 18 2017 (10,959 reads)

bonus was that the windows faced hilly forestland that was raw and undeveloped. On the small balcony outside my window, bright red cardinals flitted from the railing to a bird feeder a neighbor had hung. Ingenious squirrels had figured out how to leap from the balcony railing onto the feeder, make withdrawals and time their dismounts from the swinging platform so as to land safely back on the railing.      I had positioned a comfortable chair facing the window where I could work at any time of day or night.      Birds, light, privacy.      A lifetime making photographic images has engrained in me the habit of squinting at the world. It i... posted on May 19 2018 (1,215 reads)

links leaders from government, business, and civil society around the world who are pioneering new indicators and deep data tools that help communities and eco-systems to see themselves, in order to sense, and prototype new ways of operating. Where are you seeing the seeds of such new indicator systems or deep data tools today? What can be learned from these first examples? What would deep data mean for your self? What are the real sources of well-being and happiness in your own life and work and what metrics could help you to see and sense your own developmental path in a more meaningful way? How can we co-pioneer the shift from big data to deep data in business, society and self? ... posted on Oct 4 2017 (10,735 reads)

we know or think we know. That is felt as an unpleasant state, as an adversity state. It’s a bit like an itch that we need to scratch. That’s why we try to find out the information in order to relieve that type of curiosity. On the other hand, there is something that has been dubbed epistemic curiosity, which is a pleasurable state associated with an anticipation of reward. That’s our level of knowledge. That’s what drives all scientific research. It drives many artworks. It drives education and things like that. Knowledge@Wharton: There’s a basic difference between being unpleasant or unhappy and being happy. I would think many people feel both of thos... posted on Sep 25 2017 (12,467 reads)

Sharma was born to a family of farmers in a village close to Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. He started farming at the age of 10 along with his family but moved to Bhopal after class 8 for higher education. A few years later, Prateek – the boy from a small village, was appointed as a chief manager of Kotak Mahindra Bank. After 10 years of banking, he earned a good pay and had a comfortable life. He even married Prateeksha, who also worked at Kotak. But, Prateek could not continue the corporate life with ease, as his heart was always in farming. Prateek and Prateeksha “When I visited my village after 20 years, I realised that everyone was moving out of the villag... posted on Dec 27 2017 (12,585 reads)

contradictory, unjust, and inconsistent, somehow sadness and joy are able to coexist at the same time. The negative value of things no longer cancels out the positive, nor does the positive deny the negative. Whatever your personal calling or your delivery system for the world, it must proceed from a foundational “yes” to life. Your necessary “no” to injustice and all forms of un-love will actually become even clearer and more urgent in the silence, but now your work has a chance of being pure healing instead of impure anger and agenda. You can feel the difference in people who are working for causes; so many works of social justice have been undone by people... posted on Nov 7 2017 (21,250 reads)

mind’s eye to the immense journey of life on our planet by meditating on your hand. “See” its evolutionary development, one life-form to another from its origins as a fin in primordial seas. Behold in it also the countless generations of human hands whose tasks and skills shaped our world. Invite the future ones into your awareness. Feel the strength of your desire that they find clean air to breathe, water to drink, trees, topsoil. Try asking for their guidance in the work that is now to be done. And, for a practice I hope you’ll enjoy as much as I have, imagine a person of a century or two hence (perhaps related to you, perhaps not) who can see back through ... posted on Jan 29 2018 (48,889 reads)

or not at all. It is tired of trying to be stouthearted, tired beyond measure. We move on to the monoamine oxidase inhibitors. Day and night I feel as if I had drunk six cups of coffee, but the pain stops abruptly. With the wonder and bitterness of someone pardoned for a crime she did not commit I come back to marriage and friends, to pink fringed hollyhocks; come back to my desk, books, and chair. 8     CREDO Pharmaceutical wonders are at work but I believe only in this moment of well-being. Unholy ghost, you are certain to come again. Coarse, mean, you’ll put your feet on the coffee table, lean back, and turn me into som... posted on Nov 29 2017 (13,118 reads)

14, 2017 Sometimes life seems a bit like a never-ending battle between doing and being. if I wish to be present, I need to turn my attention toward myself, noticing my thoughts, reactions, sensations, as I try to answer with my whole self the question: Who am I? But who has time for that? I’ve got all these obligations. All of us have work that must be done, much of it with deadlines. Plus there are those things we want to do that give life its juices, like write the Great American Novel, convince a prospective client ours is the best product, or simply get those to-do items checked off the list. So we have to tear ourselves away from larger questions and focus our ... posted on Dec 13 2017 (13,193 reads)

capacity to create community. Without a community, it is nearly impossible to achieve voice: it takes a village to raise a Rosa Parks. Without a community, it is nearly impossible to exercise the “power of one” in a way that allows power to multiply: it took a village to translate Parks’s act of personal integrity into social change. In a mass society like ours, community rarely comes ready-made. But creating community in the places where we live and work does not mean abandoning other parts of our lives to become full-time organizers. The steady companionship of two or three kindred spirits can help us find the courage we need to speak and act as... posted on Jan 2 2018 (23,684 reads)

They say, "Someone has to take responsibility for this problem. And that someone is me." Since Socheata responded to that first moment of obligation by lugging a borrowed video camera to Cambodia, she's had many more moments and has found new and innovative ways to respond to them. Today, Socheata is the Chief Executive Guru at goBlue Labs, which combines ancient wisdom about mindfulness with 21st century neurotechnology in order to help people perform better in life and work. And I am sure she will have more moments that will allow her to build a meaningful, purpose-driven life and have an impact on the world. As will you. But will you recognize them? Will you not... posted on Oct 6 2017 (10,154 reads)

Mindful Perception, and the Art of Knowing What You Really Want “I did not know that I could only get the most out of life by giving myself up to it.” “One must know what one wants to be,” the eighteenth-century French mathematician Émilie du Châtelet wrote in weighing the nature of genius. “In the latter endeavors irresolution produces false steps, and in the life of the mind confused ideas.” And yet that inner knowing is the work of a lifetime, for our confusions are ample and our missteps constant amid a world that is constantly telling us who we are and who we ought to be — a world which, in the sobering words of ... posted on Jan 1 2018 (14,063 reads)

with data and metrics that they seem to forget those things in life that are difficult to measure and perhaps impossible to cluster under statistical models. But I think this is a mistake, for two main reasons. Firstly, because we are emotional beings. As human beings, I think we all are like that. But secondly, and this is new, we have entered a new stage in world history in which collective sentiments guide and misguide politics more than ever before. And through social media and social networking, these sentiments are further amplified, polarized, and they travel around the world quite fast. Ours is the age of anxiety, anger, distrust, resentment and, I think, lots of fear. But here... posted on Feb 28 2022 (19,624 reads)

from another it has a motivating force that urges us to give back. One of the most powerful ways to give back is to acknowledge to others what we have received from them. This brings about what the social anthropologist Margaret Visser describes as “reconnaissance” – recognition of the others’ value in their very humanness through expressing gratitude to them. For example, if we go to the corner store and the shopkeeper looks tired at 9 pm after a long day’s work, we might say something like: “I really appreciate your efforts in keeping the store open this late at night so I am able to buy this milk”. It seems like such a small gesture but one... posted on Jan 9 2018 (15,014 reads)

service but would ultimately have a social mission behind it rather than shareholders making loads of money, then hopefully customers would come and choose us.” The homeless connection didn’t arrive until a couple of weeks after the first shop opened in August 2012. “We got to know a young guy who sold The Big Issue outside,” says Littlejohn. “He came in and plucked up the courage to ask if we had any job vacancies.” Social Bite took him on and when it worked out successfully, they asked him if he knew anyone else from a similar background. His brother was also homeless and so they took him on too. Soon they were rapidly employing more and more home... posted on Dec 10 2017 (12,723 reads)

had our launch on the 26th of April in Berlin. We launched with a tomato called Sunviva. A tomato is quite a good symbol – everybody likes tomatoes, and everyone can grow a tomato. From all over in Germany we got requests from gardeners, plant breeders, from open-source activists for our open source tomato. We are an offspring of AGRECOL, [which] is about 30 years old and focuses on sustainable and organic agriculture – mainly in the developing world. Within AGRECOL we started working on open source seeds about five years ago – first as a small working group.  There is a similar initiative in the United States – the Open Source Seeds Initiative, based in... posted on Dec 3 2017 (6,877 reads)

folks who are moving the needle in low-income communities and people of color. Our first stop, Oakland Avenue Farms. Oakland Avenue Farms is located in Detroit's North End neighborhood. Oakland Avenue Farms is transforming into a five-acre landscape combining art, architecture, sustainable ecologies and new market practices. In the truest sense of the word, this is what agriculture looks like in the city of Detroit. I've had the opportunity to work with Oakland Avenue Farms in hosting Detroit-grown and made farm-to-table dinners. These are dinners where we bring folks onto the farm, we give them plenty of time and opportunity... posted on May 15 2018 (10,988 reads)