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 (13,116 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 (13,191 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 (23,669 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 (10,150 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 (14,060 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 (19,616 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 (15,010 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 (12,719 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 (6,871 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 (10,978 reads)

of the Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque in Isfahan, Iran. Credit: By Phillip Maiwald (Nikopol) - Own work. I say ‘Allahu akbar’ dozens of times a day. I say it during prayer. I say it as an expression of reaffirmation and gratitude to God. I said it when my daughter was born, and there will be someone to say it over me when I am buried. I say it when I witness beauty. ‘Allahu akbar.’ In 1985, Lutheran Bishop Krister Stendahl, in defending the building of a Mormon temple by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Stockholm, enunciated “Three Rules of Religious Understanding:” “When tryin... posted on Mar 14 2020 (3,724 reads)

wait to soften in the rain. At last they dream of nothing and simply unfurl.  Photosynthesis is how this waiting is described in the physical world.  The mystery of waiting is what turns light into food.  To wait beyond what we think we can bear is how things within turn sweet. ********* Mark Nepo is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Book of Awakening. Beloved as a poet, teacher, and storyteller, Mark’s recent work includes, The One Life We’re Given (Atria, July 2016), Inside the Miracle (Sounds True, November 2015), and his book of poetry, The Way The Way Under the Way: The P... posted on Apr 8 2018 (27,328 reads)

walk is a sort of crusade,” Thoreau wrote in his manifesto for the spirit of sauntering. And who hasn’t walked — in the silence of a winter forest, amid the orchestra of birds and insects in a summer field, across the urban jungle of a bustling city — to conquer some territory of their interior world? Artist Maira Kalman sees walking as indispensable inspiration: “I walk everywhere in the city. Any city. You see everything you need to see for a lifetime. Every emotion. Every condition. Every fashion. Every glory.” For Rebecca Solnit, walking “wanders so readily into religion, philosophy, landscape, urban pol... posted on Jan 27 2018 (12,736 reads)

in what constitutes happiness in countries around the world, there are some common threads. The most notable has to do with material wealth: Few, if any, people around the globe find happiness through personal possessions and financial success. Rather, they tend to attain it by appreciating the little things in life and, more importantly, the people in their lives. Here are some of the secrets to happiness, from a variety of countries around the world, and the research behind why they work for the people who practice them. So read on, and find a multiculural approach to happiness!   The Secret to Happiness Around the World, courtesy of Home To Go ... posted on Feb 21 2018 (21,443 reads)

we’re going to be continually humbled. There’s not going to be much room for the arrogance that holding on to ideals can bring. The arrogance that inevitably does arise is going to be continually shot down by our own courage to step forward a little further. The kinds of discoveries that are made through practice have nothing to do with believing in anything. They have much more to do with having the courage to die, the courage to die continually. In essence, this is the hard work of befriending ourselves, which is our only mechanism for befriending life in its completeness. Out of that, Chödrön argues, arises our deepest strength: Only to the extent that we... posted on Mar 13 2018 (17,739 reads)

of bone, the tea-colored stains left by earth. Here, no layers of soil obscured the find. To get to the daybed, I had only to move the piles of bedding. Her hall closet must now be empty, for here were ironed sheets, blankets, table linen, and the kind of embroidered and crocheted cloths that are found in old women’s attics. When I saw these, my own mourning resumed.     Evenings at my grandmother’s had been spent with the two of us huddled together on the divan, working needles of colored thread through squares of muslin, as she taught me how to give shape to the birds and flowers we ironed onto future kitchen towels. The few I have left are like gold to me. ... posted on Apr 1 2018 (1,243 reads)

gift land to their brothers. In fact, our real strength lies in the fact that we are servants. The divinity in each and every person can be witnessed and reached, only when you approach them as a faithful servant. Think of how the various organs and limbs come together as servants to our body. If somebody tries to strike your head, the hand comes forth to protect it. It does not do so out of an expectation or out of fear. It does it because it sees itself as part of the whole and therefore works out of a sense of duty. When we will all see our role in society as servants, we will all light up the sky together like countless stars on a dark night. Don’t think of society as the s... posted on May 2 2018 (5,791 reads)

where she was eventually taken to Auschwitz, they found copies of both the Koran and the Talmud in her bag. The result of her spiritual journey was a growing inner peace that allowed her not only to accept the horrible truth of what was happening to her people, but to thrive in spite of it. On 3 July 1942 she wrote: “Very well then, this new certainty that what they are after is our total destruction, I accept it. I know it now and I shall not burden others with my fears… I work and continue to live with the same conviction and I find life meaningful, yes, meaningful.” It might seem perverse that someone could find life meaningful amid the senseless horror of th... posted on May 14 2018 (15,925 reads)

one would generally move across in relationship to the geological forms: wash, ridge, gentle slope, ragged steps, slot canyon, or stone bridge. When the way is somewhat hazardous, rather than concentrate on the obstacles, my body focuses on the route through. Maybe I leave a kind of wake in the imaginal field as I wander, singing praise to bitterbrush and basalt. Maybe everything we do initiates a wave in the sea of psyche, moving beyond our own moment and time. Maybe an aspect of the great work of our time is to cultivate the capacities of our forward-seeing imagination in coherence with the rest of life. My letters, phone calls, and modest support of particular environmental organiz... posted on Mar 15 2018 (19,460 reads)

an instrument—the Planck Space Telescope—that has detected the dim remnants of radiation emitted when the cosmos was a mere 380 thousand years old—or 0.00002 billion years after its birth. Said another way: if the entire history of the cosmos were compressed into a year, we human beings have peered all the way back to the first ten minutes. These Olympic feats of enhanced perception are among the crowning achievements of our species. Yet even as we celebrate them, our workaday senses remains stubbornly parochial. Walking down the street, we easily sense changes that occur at a one or two meters per second, especially if those changes occur where our experience t... posted on Aug 5 2018 (10,767 reads)