as a leaf hanging on a tall tree about to tumble to earth  in autumn   And to be apart  May mean to be apart longer than anyone may have predicted And to be apart now May cost us our lives   What I am learning from my two little ones:   give in to the jubilant joy of being with the ones we love And mourn when they are not near   What could be more honest? Or more important   My loves *** For more context on the work Dr. Shamasunder and the HEAL Initiative are involved with on the ground in Navajo Nation check out these links: Three minute segment on NBC evening news live On Democracy Now  UCSF ... posted on May 8 2020 (8,549 reads)

to an unmanageable simplicity.” A complex instability is our typical default setting.  Restless with where and how and who we are, we think we need to be somewhere else, or live some other way, or be someone else.  We dream up all sorts of alternative versions of our lives and of our selves, and pursue them, without paying real attention to where and how and who we actually are.  We expend great effort in trying to get “there,” while what we most need to work at is trying to  get “here”…feeling safe and secure in the simple, unmanageable, groundless depths of our own hearts. And then there is that complex inhospitality that ... posted on May 27 2020 (6,322 reads)

the big hits come along, my heart can open instead of explode? I think the answer is that daily life presents us with all kinds of little deaths. There's the death of a friendship, the death of a dream, the death of a positive feeling, the death of a sense of hope itself. Instead of yielding to the cultural temptation, to try to pretend that this little death isn't happening, or to anesthetize ourselves against it with some drug of choice, whether that be a substance or overwork or just noise and entertainment, we choose to embrace those little deaths and experience them as fully as we can in a way that exercises the heart muscle and keeps it supple, so that when the big... posted on Jun 9 2020 (7,952 reads)

mountains, here with sponges and hard-eyed birds. In times of sorrow the innocence of the other creatures — from whom and with whom we evolved — seems a mockery.” How to end the mockery and the minstrel show is what poet Jane Hirshfield — one of the most unboastfully courageous voices of our time, an ordained Buddhist, a more-than-humanitarian: a planetarian — explores in “Spell to Be Said against Hatred,” a miniature masterwork of quiet, surefooted insistence and persistence. Included in the anthology Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy (public library) alongside contributions by Je... posted on Jun 12 2020 (6,634 reads)

didn’t know how basic it is for maintaining balance. That Africans are always dancing (in their ceremonies and rituals) shows an awareness of this. It struck me one day, while dancing, that the marvelous moves African Americans are famous for on the dance floor came about because the dancers, especially in the old days, were contorting away various knots of stress. Some of the lower-back movements handed down to us that have seemed merely sensual were no doubt created after a day’s work bending over a plow or hoe on a slave driver’s plantation. Wishing to honor the role of dance in the healing of families, communities, and nations, I hired a local hall and a local band ... posted on Jul 1 2020 (9,950 reads)

we reassure our children about the monsters beneath their beds. May we create new rituals of togetherness. May we laugh from our bellies. May we cultivate wonder. May we help our society to do better than it has done. May we examine problems from all angles and talk straight as lines. May we base decisions on collective wisdom rather than contagious fear. May we invest our trust in those who are experts, not those who pretend. May we value health over wealth. May we dedicate our daily work both to those we love and to the common good. May we sustain those workers whose invisible labor sustains us all. May we protect those who put themselves at risk to protect us. May we transfor... posted on Jul 2 2020 (45,518 reads)

bookshelves filled with books of all sizes and colors, hundreds of them. Grandpa Max never had any formal schooling beyond age 12 in the old country. At age 15 he was able to get a steamship ticket and traveled alone to America, not speaking a word of English, seeking a better life. By age 20 he was running his own successful business, a dress factory. He was able to bring his parents, and all of his brothers except the oldest, who wanted to stay in Europe, to America. Whenever he wasn’t working, Grandpa Max loved to read. He had an insatiable desire for books and learning. Grandpa Max opens the door, smiles at me, puts his hands on my shoulders and invites me into the living room.... posted on Jul 13 2020 (6,721 reads)

“For anyone with a good education, the needs of physiology, safety and esteem are non-issues, then why not focus on self-actualization?” Rashmi Bansal, author of the bestseller “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” featuring stories of 25 MBAs from IIM Ahmedabad who left lucrative jobs to take the road less travelled remarks “Venkat’s nickname on campus was ‘Fraud’ which is ironic because both in the honesty with which he speaks to me, and the actual work he does, Venkat is one of the most genuine people I have ever met.”  3 years of working in a corporate job at “The Times of India” was enough to pay back his student loa... posted on Jul 28 2020 (5,762 reads)

pain, respiratory illnesses, depression, grief, heart conditions, digestion problems, asthma, vision issues, circulation problems, stamina and more.  It also has especially transformed the lives of thousands of children who suffer from all types of neurological conditions including cerebral palsy, autism/asd/add, epilepsy and other brain injuries. In 1996, Linda founded a charity, Advance Centre, to support children with neurological issues and she has since expanded her work to support thousands of people with a wide range of physical and mental health conditions. The story of her center and its connection to her son's journey are beautifully captured in thi... posted on Jul 30 2020 (13,824 reads)

of stone or a hand shaped pottery bowl on which the glaze has dripped into beautiful random patterns. The opposite of li is zi, the rigid order of logic or of things that are clearly the result of human manipulation, such as an automobile. A perfectly round bowl with a symmetrical design along its circumference demonstrates zi and soon bores the eye.​ I learned about the difference between li and zi the first time I tried to draw a bamboo with a Chinese brush. My teacher gazed at my work and frowned, “This is not a bamboo, but a lamp-post! Have you ever seen a bamboo straight up and down or with exactly the same number of leaves on each side?” The teacher took my brus... posted on Aug 17 2020 (9,625 reads)

Nathan exploring the headwaters of the Mississippi River at Itasca State Park, MN, this summer. Starting when you were just a toddler, you’d crawl into my lap to play a game. I’d lay hands on each part of your body, naming it aloud. We’d begin with the “grass” of hair on your head and slowly work our way down to your “piggy” toes. You soon learned even the regions of your brain, the organs in your torso, and your seven chakras. Our game wasn’t just about naming and knowledge, though. Even more, it was about attention and loving touch. You craved the physical sensations as my hands tenderly pressed and poked, tickled and caressed... posted on Aug 30 2020 (11,203 reads)

after finishing graduation joined Rajghat Besant School, in Varanasi, as a teacher. In those 4 years, he taught who he was, with no sense of hierarchy and found himself learning and evolving in the process.   Parents’ illness brought him back to Mumbai, and with his natural creative gifts in writing and storytelling, he joined the advertising industry. A few years later, he co-founded and continues to lead a brand consulting firm “chlorophyll” which has worked with hundreds of brands, including the world’s largest biometric identity brand Aadhar. chlorophyll (in lowercase), a well respected agency, is a home to questioning, ideation and creativ... posted on Sep 25 2020 (4,601 reads)

it with me: dugnad (doog-nod). It’s a Norwegian word I learned this week; an ancient word, traceable to the Viking Age, when villagers would labor together to bring ships ashore after long seafaring trips. That’s dugnad. In later centuries, Norwegian farming communities would work together to prepare for harsh winters and to survive other hardships. Dugnad. In the 1940s, Norwegians rallied to resist five brutal years of Nazi occupation. Dugnad. Traditionally, dugnad is the collective effort of individual Norwegians who sacrifice their personal desires, and allow their own sense of “normal”... posted on Oct 3 2020 (8,306 reads)

solid and permanent, then everything is changing and open. Feel this openness as a freedom, a freshness, an exhilarating vastness. Relax into this openness, and feel its beauty. This is the openness of groundlessness. Nothing is solid, nothing is fixed, but this is the good news! Openness is unconstricted, free, peaceful, and gorgeous. Learning to Find the Beauty in Groundlessness So things seem out of control, uncertain, groundless — and it brings up anxiety in you. How can we work with this? First, we can allow ourselves to feel the sensations of uncertainty in our body, as physical sensations. How does your fear, anxiety, frustration feel in your body (dropping the nar... posted on Oct 7 2020 (10,011 reads)

on public spending and on schemes for the poor. Philanthropy isn’t only fascinating in itself; it’s also a window into the structure of the contemporary world. | Picture courtesy: Charlotte Anderson Government departments are also playing an increasing role in directing the behaviour of both civil society and philanthropy by openly pushing and calling for both consultations and financial support for efforts they deem critical. So, while we continue to believe that working with government is important to achieve long-term systems change, the space in which that dialogue can be had is getting smaller. A deepening of inequalities The Credit Suisse Global Wea... posted on Oct 9 2020 (5,027 reads)

own mind, unbound. The wide open space of the spiritual heart is our own heart, free of constrictions. In some contemporary spiritual teachings, the self-arising nature of fundamental consciousness is confused with the Western religious idea of grace, in which an entirely foreign but wonderful state lands on us because we have somehow pleased God. Several people have told me, sorrowfully, that they have waited and waited for this to happen, but so far have had no luck. This is not how it works. Fundamental consciousness arises when we have become open enough for it to appear. It is not something alien to us; it is our own basic nature that is revealed when our body, heart, and mind ar... posted on Oct 16 2020 (5,991 reads)

branch of your autonomic nervous system and slows down your reactivity. Breathing slowly, deeply, can de-escalate a full-blown panic attack in a matter of minutes. Remembering to breathe throughout the day de-stresses you, and helps you install calm as your real baseline, not stress as the new normal. Hand on the heart. Neural cells around the heart activate during stress. Your warm hand on your heart calms those neurons down again, often in less than a minute. Hand on the heart works especially well when you breathe positive thoughts, feelings, images of safety and trust, ease, and goodness into your heart at the same time. Meditation. Sylvia Boorstein’s book&n... posted on Oct 21 2020 (11,602 reads)

it is written, "The kingdom of God is within man."  Not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men -- in you, the people. You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let's use that power.  Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security.  Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a... posted on Nov 3 2020 (9,856 reads)

Work is what you do for money, and that's what counts. How could it be otherwise? And the converse of that last rule, of course, is that if you're not paid to do a thing, it can't be important. If a child writes a poem and proudly reads it, adults may wink and ask, "Think there's a lot of money in that?" You may also hear this when you declare a major in English. Being a good neighbor, raising children: the road to success is not paved with the likes of these. Some workplaces actually quantify your likelihood of being distracted by family or volunteerism. It's called your coefficient of Drag. The ideal number is zero. This is the Rule of Perfect Efficiency. ... posted on Nov 4 2020 (10,337 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. Or making love, as we... posted on Nov 20 2020 (8,222 reads)