— the first university to admit women, and the first to admit students of ethnic minorities — then devoted herself to teaching Western music to Native Americans (the academic term for whom was then “American Indians”) and learning their own traditional songs as they taught her in turn. With her simple box camera and cylinder phonograph, wearing trousers and a bow-tie, Frances Densmore spent years traveling to remote settlements where no scholar dared venture. She worked with dozens of tribes — the Sioux, the Chippewa, the Mandan, the Hidatsa, the northern Pawnee of Oklahoma, the Winnebago and Menominee of Wisconsin, the Seminoles of Florida, the Ute of U... posted on Nov 10 2022 (3,771 reads)

we are,” says Harper. “A sense of appreciation and of gratitude. Sometimes a sense of fear — a healthy recognition that we’re not the center of the universe.” Harper, an Episcopal priest, is Executive Director of GreenFaith, an international interfaith and multi-faith environmental organization that conducts education and advocacy, and provides environmental sustainability services, to faith-based groups. GreenFaith uses the power of religious networks to help people from diverse backgrounds put their belief into action for the Earth. It works with houses of worship, religious schools, and people of all faiths to help them become better e... posted on Nov 17 2022 (2,098 reads)

law in a cloak of complexity. Law is like riot gear on a police officer. It's intimidating and impenetrable, and it's hard to tell there's something human underneath.” In 2011, Vivek founded Namati to demystify the law, facilitate global grassroots-led systems change, and to grow the movement for legal empowerment around the world. Namati and its partners have built cadres of grassroots legal advocates in eight countries. The advocates have worked with more than 65,000 people to protect community lands, enforce environmental law, and secure basic rights to health care and citizenship. Globally, Namati convenes the Legal Empowerment ... posted on Jan 26 2023 (1,206 reads)

happens when a Syrian refugee, an Israeli aid worker and an American Jew walk into a room? (Laughter) No, this is not the start of a really bad joke, I promise. This actually happened to me. Starting in 2015, I found myself holding a series of secret meetings in various European capitals with a small group of Syrian and Israeli civilians. And we were there to try and figure out how we can get aid to the Syrian people who were enduring the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II. But how did we end up at this table together? After all, Syrians and Israelis are sworn enemies, and technically they've been in a s... posted on Jan 31 2023 (2,797 reads)

well-being these days without talking about what’s going on in the world, whether that’s the mental health fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, political polarization, or global crises like climate change. All of us are affected by these problems, and that’s reflected in Greater Good’s 2022 selection of top scientific insights. But this research doesn’t just suggest how we might cope with bad situations. These studies also show us the power of connecting, working together, and being open to other perspectives—and the hope for a less gloomy future. The top insights also give us practical ideas of ways to grow, be kind, and find meaning in our ever... posted on Feb 4 2023 (8,256 reads)

was also very controlling. After experiencing the trauma of her own mother's death when she was just 11-she felt the survival need to control everything and everybody around her. As my siblings and I were growing up, one didn't really have a conversation with my mother; she kind of gave lectures to you. We even had shorthand for them: LFTs or Lecture for Today. At the same time, she was also very creative and innovative. She wrote, she painted, having a one-woman show of her work in New York and Paris; She was very involved with trying to bring more peace to the world, so she worked with the UN, and with the Foreign Policy Association. She thought the world would be more ... posted on Jul 1 2016 (47,108 reads)

question: How might we DO this? How might we become more loving, more open, less selfish, more present, less delusional, etc., etc? Well, yes, good question. Unfortunately, I only have three minutes left. So let me just say this. There are ways. You already know that because, in your life, there have been High Kindness periods and Low Kindness periods, and you know what inclined you toward the former and away from the latter. Education is good; immersing ourselves in a work of art: good; prayer is good; meditation’s good; a frank talk with a dear friend; establishing ourselves in some kind of spiritual tradition — recognizing that there have been countle... posted on Feb 11 2023 (52,435 reads)

From a musical point of view, distinguishing between interruption and sharing could get quite blurry. What one person hears as jamming the signal could, to another, come across as just plain jamming, trying to make interesting music together. This is because music is far from a simple sign. It depends on what one believes music, in either a human or an avian context, to be all about. Perhaps artistry and form constitute not just an advertisement of territory and skill, but an attempt to work together to create something no one species could make on its own. It was with this idea in mind that I felt compelled to bring people and nightingales together to make interspecies music in t... posted on Feb 21 2023 (2,773 reads)

real, unprocessed foods Wild regeneratively-raised or grass- or pasture-raised meats and eggs and fatty fish Fiber Phytonutrients Micronutrients (e.g., vitamin D, zinc, magnesium, B vitamins, omega-3 fatty acids) Optimal hormone levels (supported by healthy lifestyle or bio identical hormone replacement) Adequate and ideal light exposure at the right times of day Optimal hydration Clean air Exercise and movement Restorative practices (yoga, meditation, breath work) Sleep and health circadian rhythms Community, love, and belonging Meaning and purpose By adding the good stuff and removing the bad, you activate your body’s natural healing... posted on Mar 2 2023 (4,525 reads)

is the sunshine of life — the quiet radiance that makes our lives not only livable but worth living. (This is why we must use the utmost care in how we wield the word friend.) In my own life, friendship has been the lifeline for my darkest hours of despair, the magnifying lens for my brightest joys, the quiet pulse-beat beneath the daily task of living. You can glean a great deal about a person from the constellation of friends around the gravitational pull of their personhood. “Whatever our degree of friends may be, we come more under their influence than we are aware,” the trailblazing astronomer Maria Mitchell observed as she contemplated how we... posted on Mar 27 2023 (5,913 reads)

having an illness. Perhaps you distracted yourself tackling 14 things on your to-do list. Or you had an irresistible urge to check your social media feeds or watch endless TikTok reels of dancing cats. Or maybe you started telling yourself threatening stories (“What if they’ve been in an accident?”; “There’s something wrong with me”; “I can’t cope”; “I shouldn’t be feeling this way”). In my experience as a psychologist working with clients for 30 years, what is going on in these moments is we are escaping from our inner lives—and this happens when we are confronted with vulnerability. We are triggered by uncom... posted on Apr 5 2023 (6,333 reads)

always been fleeting. But it seemed real, even if it wasn’t something he felt comfortable talking about, except with close, trusted friends. Even then, he sometimes felt a little silly and self-conscious, as if others would consider him odd for having such experiences. In truth he did sometimes feel odd. But also blessed. Besides that, in recent years the man had stretched his sense of ethics and “right behavior” to include his relationship with insects. That was still a work in progress, though he’d even experimented with seeing how far he could go into summer without killing a mosquito. But back to the dragonfly. The man went into the cabin and grabbed a br... posted on Apr 6 2023 (5,835 reads)

1925, Frida Kahlo was on her way home from school in Mexico City when the bus she was riding collided with a streetcar. She suffered near-fatal injuries and her disability became a major theme in her paintings. Over the course of her life, she would establish herself as the creator and muse behind extraordinary pieces of art. Iseult Gillespie dives into the life and work of Frida Kahlo in this riveting TED talk.  ... posted on May 8 2023 (3,011 reads)

itself in healthy eating, yoga, ChiRunning and spirituality. After several years, my current partner, Jeroen, came into the picture with whom I can now share all that. And we started to do a lot of trainings to together. It did not mean that from then on, the road became a fully paved highway. Together we were challenged quite a few more times in letting go and following the voice of our hearts. First, the idea of starting a retreat center that after 4 years of hard work turned out not to be our path. Meanwhile, I was a vitality coach, yoga teacher and taught yoga&run classes. And yet my heart wanted me to partially let go of all of this, no more w... posted on May 9 2023 (3,132 reads)

to reveal what is real, to reveal the roots of what matters. And we all experienced that during the pandemic: The revelation of what matters—kindness, compassion, care for our fellow human beings. The realization of what shared breath really means. And from this space of what might be real, what is real, a new future, possible futures, can emerge. Leaving behind what isn’t real, you return to what is real, and from that place something can emerge. And this was the framework that we worked with for this issue, finding stories that explored this, finding stories that evoked the questions that were emerging out of that time. Gathering artists, gathering writers, gather... posted on Jun 1 2023 (3,484 reads)

on a short “workshop” given for Harvard Divinity School’s “Ecological Spiritualities” Conference, 2022) To shift my own awareness toward a more-than-human perspective, I sometimes take a wooden flute outside and begin to play, offering simple music to pine and stone, offering gratitude to billions of ancestors – from elements born in supernovas, to bacteria and trees, insects and trilobytes, to lineages of human ancestors both known and unknown. Offering wild prayers for all the beings who come after us, as well as gratitude to all of the teachers, both human and wilder Ones, is a practice to help destabilize my everyday mind and perceptions... posted on Jul 1 2023 (2,597 reads)

Fall for someone impractical. Reacquaint yourself with desire and all her slender hands. Bear beauty for as long as you are able, and if you spot a sunning warbler glowing like a prism, remind yourself – joy is not a trick. - J. Sullivan  I didn’t write for nearly 8 years. Well, to be fair, I did write email campaigns and landing pages and flashy paragraphs called brand narratives which read like bad poems but occasionally still made my clients cry. I worked hard and got promotions and always felt a little impressive when I ordered Manhattans on the company card.   But the truth is I began to develop chronic pain in my hands from 60+ h... posted on Jul 6 2023 (8,485 reads)

sum of which can disqualify you from becoming a pilot. Grounded by such shortcomings, you may find yourself commiserating with the ratites, a motley clan of birds that includes the emu and the kiwi and the cassowary, most born sans a keel bone upon which to hang their aerial ambitions. Unlike them, you can flunk your vision test and still be cleared for takeoff; all that is required is a statement attesting to your demonstrated abilities to soundly operate an aircraft. But this workaround would still be a diminishment of sorts, since you will not be permitted to fly commercially or at night, when cockpit lights conspire with the runaways below and the stars above to overtax ... posted on Jul 10 2023 (2,824 reads)

tree in full bloom can transport you in an instant, but only if you aren’t trying to get somewhere. Efficiency is always trying to get somewhere. This is why it does not gallivant,  daydream, linger, or lounge. Unlike Walt Whitman, efficiency has never been known to ‘lean and loafe’ at its ease observing a spear of summer grass– or a California buckeye tree in bloom. No. Efficiency is ever-preoccupied in getting you from here to there. For it to work you must be firmly tethered to space-time, not lifting veils, traversing realms and hitchhiking with eternity (things liable to happen when meandering or being Whitmanesque.) For most of ... posted on Jul 24 2023 (4,484 reads)

in her has gone so still she doesn’t need to breathe. And anyway, the iced-over pond will soon be empty of oxygen. Sunk in its bottom-mud, for six months she will not draw air into her lungs. To survive a cold that would kill her, or slow her so that predators would kill her, she slows herself beyond breath in a place where breath is not possible. And waits. As ice locks in the marsh water and howling squalls batter its reeds and brush, beneath it all she waits. It is her one work, and it is not easy. Oxygen depletion stresses every particle of her. Lactic acid pools in her bloodstream. Her muscles begin to burn—her heart muscle, too, a deadly sign. That acid has to ... posted on Aug 7 2023 (3,865 reads)