burn-out is to let one’s light languish until it disappears. As interdependent beings, we are responsible for making sure our flame is fueled.” - Jennifer Jean I’ve taught poetry writing workshops for 13 years, so classes now are pretty much duck soup. They’re always fun, and I always learn from my students, whether I’m teaching middle-schoolers, graduate students, or seniors at my local library. However, when I received a call two years ago from the director of Amirah, asking me to teach a poetry course to sex-trafficking survivors at their safe-house, I knew I would need to draw on more than a plucky, can-do attitude. And, I’d definitel... posted on Jun 30 2018 (12,885 reads)

and less able to act appropriately. Author Maggie Jackson put it this way: “The (distracted) way we live is eroding our capacity for deep, sustained, perceptive attention — the building block of intimacy, wisdom, and cultural progress. Moreover, this disintegration may come at great cost to ourselves and to society. . . . The erosion of attention is the key to understanding why we are on the cusp of a time of widespread cultural and social losses.”2 The best way to work with distraction is to notice how it operates in our lives. We can learn to recognize the countless diversions we create or encounter every day, understand how we are habitually hooked by them, a... posted on May 3 2021 (59,614 reads)

from their competition. And to be innovative doesn’t necessitate brand spanking new ideas or reinventing the wheel. Leveraging what already exists and adopting new ideas into the mix can prove effective — and profitable. But, as we’ll see in this chapter, for social entrepreneurs it’s more than being disruptive for the sake of competitive advantage. It’s about finding new ways to tackle social and environmental challenges because the old ways are simply not working — or not scaling at a pace that makes longterm change feasible. It’s about looking for new, creative answers to old, seemingly unchangeable problems. For Komal Ahmad, the old pr... posted on Aug 10 2018 (7,967 reads)

argue with the wisdom of slapping a dollar value on nature, there’s no denying that these are some seriously important critters. To society, though, beavers still appear more menacing than munificent. In 2013 I lived with my partner, Elise, in a farming town called Paonia, set high in the mesas of Colorado’s Western Slope. Our neighbors’ farms and orchards were watered by labyrinthine irrigation ditches, each one paralleled by a trail along which the ditch rider—the worker who maintained the system—drove his ATV during inspections. In the evenings we strolled the ditches, our soundtrack the faint gurgle of water through headgates, our backdrop the rosy suns... posted on Aug 15 2018 (8,235 reads)

ways to combat stress is to view it as a good thing. This simple mental reset stops the secondary stress of ruminating about being stressed that can last for hours or days, after we are triggered by a stressful situation. What’s more, our old unconscious expectations that are stored in the emotional brain can block our creativity. Stressful moments open the brain to revising those expectations, so it’s easier to experience a breakthrough in a love relationship, a work project, or a new perspective on life. Through the portal of stress, the synaptic connections that link neurons to bring forward in time old expectations unlock. They become fluid ... posted on Aug 17 2018 (31,129 reads)

cold…” By my friend says, “No, no, we will achieve something. Let’s carry on, we have a mission, let’s complete it.” So when I was feeling low and despondent, my friend was feeling strong. And sometimes, if my friend was feeling low and despondent, I was feeling strong. We supported each other. So I think to walk in two is a good idea [laughs]. [Laughs]. That day, I gave this leaflet to two ladies. And when they read the flier, they said, “We work in this tea factory. Would you like to have a cup of tea?” So they made a cup of tea and brought some lunch. Then, one of the ladies went out of the room and came back with four packets of ... posted on Sep 11 2018 (10,037 reads)

the natural universe, which is part of our humanity,” Rachel Carson wrote in reflecting on our spiritual bond with nature shortly before she awakened the modern environmental conscience. The rewards and redemptions of that elemental yet endangered response is what British naturalist and environmental writer Michael McCarthy, a modern-day Carson, explores in The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy (public library) — part memoir and part manifesto, a work of philosophy rooted in environmental science and buoyed by a soaring poetic imagination. McCarthy writes: The natural world can offer us more than the means to survive, on the one hand, ... posted on Aug 22 2018 (10,021 reads)

discovered that breathing more deeply helps us center ourselves, but did you know why? A friend recently emailed me an article by Dr. Shawna Darou, ND in the 11/30/15 issue of UPLIFT magazine (http://upliftconnect.com), on the mechanics of how it works. Included are exercises that can help us reduce inflammation in the body, as well as jack up a flagging immune system. The secret is to activate the Vagus nerve, which travels all the way from the brain to the digestive system, operating via the parasympathetic nervous system. So if you or someone you know complains of digestive disturbances, high blood pressure, depression or some inflammatory condition, don’t ... posted on May 8 2019 (17,009 reads)

darkness.  He brought them to a desolate cave and sealed the door.  It was completely dark.  “Find a way to dispel the darkness,” he told them. One monk found a large stick. “I will beat the darkness,” he said.  That will fix it.” The second monk found a broom and said, “I will sweep the darkness away.” The third monk pulled out a shovel, saying “I will dig a deep hole and the darkness will escape.” Nothing worked.  The darkness persisted. Then a fourth monk found a candle. He lit the candle and revealed other candles stashed in the crevices of the cave. The monks lit them and eliminated the dark... posted on Oct 27 2018 (8,592 reads)

Shamasunder is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCSF, and co-founder of Heal Initiative. He completed his Internal Medicine residency at Harbor UCLA. He has worked extensively in Rwanda, Liberia, Haiti, Burundi, and India. In 2010, he was named an Asia 21 fellow as well as the Northern California Young Physician of the Year. The piece below was originally published in the October 2006 edition of New Physician. Photo credit Frederic Martin Duchamp  The largest Tibetan refugee colony in the world lies five hours from where I spent the summers of my childhood at my grandmother’s house in Bangalore,India. Neither my mother nor my father n... posted on Mar 14 2019 (5,690 reads)

this memory, this old, dead moment which the magnetism of an identical moment has travelled so far to importune, to disturb, to raise up out of the very depths of my being? I cannot tell. Now that I feel nothing, it has stopped, has perhaps gone down again into its darkness, from which who can say whether it will ever rise? Ten times over I must essay the task, must lean down over the abyss. And each time the natural laziness which deters us from every difficult enterprise, every work of importance, has urged me to leave the thing alone, to drink my tea and to think merely of the worries of to-day and of my hopes for to-morrow, which let themselves be pondered over without eff... posted on Nov 9 2018 (46,933 reads)

Rutland is a 12-year Army veteran who served a tour of duty in Iraq in 2004, followed by two more tours in South Korea. He left the military in 2014, suffering from multiple medical conditions related to his service, including mild traumatic brain injury (TBI), sleep apnea, and hearing loss, to name a few. Most importantly, he suffered from depression and often thought about suicide. Thinking he could do it alone, Rutland tried healing from the trauma on his own. That wasn’t working. “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you always got,” says Rutland. What Life Without Dunkin? -- James Rutland of K9s For Warriors  ... posted on Nov 15 2018 (10,723 reads)

and building the homes. Future partners will be able to use those models to build affordable housing in their own communities. Through the partnership, the studio will continue to research, design and build homes over three years. Rural Studio said the main goal of the partnership is to develop a scalable, sustainable, and resilient process for building affordable but quality homes in other underserved rural communities. And it will share its findings with other groups and organizations working to address affordable housing needs. “Auburn’s program aims to find solutions in Alabama that can be applied nationwide,” Michael Hernandez, vice president at Fannie Mae, ... posted on Nov 30 2018 (4,018 reads)

consider what their actions, words, and thoughts leave behind, and how they may impact what is made available to them and others in the future. We are continually inventing what is available to us as individuals, and collectively we are continually inventing what is available to us as a species. I am someone who believes that our individual power to have doors be open for us, individually and collectively, rests in how we behave, how we act, talk and think, in the present moment. (I work to promote ordinary acts of kindness. Learn more at kindliving.net. The illustrations were drawn by artist Fish Astronaut. This article contains an affiliate link.) ... posted on Dec 15 2018 (7,812 reads)

ancient text against the scholarly English translations. In her twenties, Le Guin completed several chapters, then went on adding slowly each decade. Nearly half a century later, as she was inching toward seventy, she gave this private passion public form in Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching (public library) — a book Le Guin describes as “a rendition, not a translation.” Similar in nature to Proust’s far-more-than-translation of Ruskin, it is indeed the type of work which the great Polish poet and Nobel laureate WisÅ‚awa Szymborska meant when she spoke of “that rare miracle when a translation stops being a translation and becomes … ... posted on Mar 10 2019 (7,164 reads)

nudges us into baby steps of expansion. We’re all both irritating and a comfort, our insides both hard and gentle, our hearts both atrophied and pure. How did we all get so screwed up? Putting aside our damaged parents, poverty, abuse, addiction, disease, and other unpleasantries, life just damages people. There is no way around this. Not all the glitter and concealer in the world can cover it up. We may have been raised in the illusion that if we played our cards right, life would work out. But it didn’t, it doesn’t. […] Even with the Internet, deciphering the genetic code, and great advances in immunotherapy, life is frequently confusing at best, and g... posted on Jan 8 2019 (7,148 reads)

help us and help the world—help to bring the Earth back into balance. We need to remember that the power of the Divine is more than that of all the global corporations that continue to make the world a wasteland, even more than the global forces of consumerism that demand the life-blood of the planet. We pray that the Divine of which we are all a part can redeem and heal this beautiful and suffering world. Sometimes it is easier to pray when we feel the earth in our hands, when we work in the garden tending our flowers or vegetables. Or when we cook, preparing the vegetables that the Earth has given us, mixing in the herbs and spices that give us pleasure. There are many ways t... posted on Dec 16 2018 (8,138 reads)

in present-day Pleasanton. There, on the outskirts of the Bay Area, they survived in silence. But by the start of the 20th century, the people of Indian Town had dispersed into anonymity. Gould grew up knowing that she was Ohlone, but her mother’s generation rarely talked about what that inheritance meant. “It’s this historical trauma that still sits with us,” Gould said. “It’s really fresh.” Since the 1970s, however, Ohlone people have worked to revitalize the language and culture and to reassert their rights to ancestral lands. In the effort to pull themselves and their people out of the historical abyss, they have rediscovered the... posted on Dec 18 2018 (5,594 reads)

feel our united prayers for the sake of our Grandmother Earth are long overdue. I believe we as Spiritual people must gather ourselves and focus our thoughts and prayers to allow the healing of the many wounds that have been inflicted on the Earth. As we honor the Cycle of Life, let us call for Prayer circles globally to assist in healing Grandmother Earth (our Unc’I Maka). We ask for prayers that the oil spill, this bleeding, will stop. That the winds stay calm to assist in the work. Pray for the people to be guided in repairing this mistake, and that we may also seek to live in harmony, as we make the choice to change the destructive path we are on. As we pray, we will f... posted on Dec 20 2018 (4,495 reads)

at Innaumation Medical Devices, which makes the Aum Voice Prosthesis, is into synthetic rubber business and offered to help. “Vishal would get deeply moved seeing the plight of his patients, who are from the lower economic strata. He would always struggle to organise funds to get the imported voice prosthesis fitted on them. That’s when I encouraged him to develop something on his own, which is affordable,” says Shashank. “When we both decided to give it a try, we worked day and night for over two years. I got into R&D and tried to reverse engineer on the imported products and make it sustainable and affordable. I am happy that I am a part of this initiativ... posted on Jan 3 2019 (5,827 reads)