Simon: You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today my guest is Mark Nepo. Mark is a poet and philosopher who has taught in the fields of poetry and spirituality for over 35 years. As a cancer survivor, Mark devotes his writing and teaching to the journey of inner transformation and the life of relationship. A New York Times #1 bestselling author, he has recorded eight audio projects and published thirteen books, including The Book of Awakening, which made the list of Opera’s “Ultimate Favorite Things.” With Sounds True, Mark has created an eight-session audio program called Staying Awake: The Ordinary Art, where he... posted on Dec 10 2016 (27,084 reads)

Mysterious B. Virdot “The year was 1933 and Christmas was just a week away. Deep in the trough of the Great Depression, the people of Canton, Ohio, were down on their luck and hungry. Nearly half the town was out of work. Along the railroad tracks, children in patched coats scavenged for coal spilled from passing trains. The prison and orphanage swelled with the casualties of hard times. “It was then that a mysterious “B. Virdot” took out a tiny ad in the Canton Repository, offering to help the needy before Christmas. All he asked was that they write to him and tell him of their hardships. B. Virdot, he said, was not his real name, and no one would ... posted on Dec 13 2016 (14,624 reads)

paternal grandmother who raised me had a remarkable influence on how I saw the world and how I reckoned my place in it. She was the picture of dignity. She spoke softly and walked slowly, with her hands behind her back, fingers laced together. I imitated her so successfully that neighbors called me her shadow. "Sister Henderson, I see you got your shadow with you again." Grandmother would look at me and smile. "Well, I guess you’re right. If I stop, she stops. If I go, she goes." When I was thirteen, my grandmother took me back to California to join my mother, and she returned immediately to Arkansas. The California house was a world away from that littl... posted on Dec 16 2016 (25,000 reads)

shopper covets the expensive item and worries vaguely about the credit card bill. The dieter contemplates the fine dessert. The ex-addict looks longingly at the cigarette, the bottle, or the drug, recalling the sweet feelings but also the problems and promises. The man and woman prepare to kiss, warm with alcohol and new intimacy, but are held back by thoughts of their respective spouses back home.  The procrastinator thinks of the tough, worrisome task ahead but notes the deadline is still a week off, so perhaps it is fine to leave it one more day. Such moral and practical dilemmas pervade daily life. Doing what is right requires strenuous effort to resist the alluring temptatio... posted on Dec 19 2016 (14,389 reads)

uses photography as a way to help others around the world. For the background scenes, she used several photos she had taken around Australia and put them together with Photoshop. She also worked with her “team of elves” (and Santa, of course) to print, frame, wrap and deliver the photos to the families in the hospital. Alsop told The Huffington Post she wanted to make sure they had “a true keepsake” for the holidays. “The families did not expect the magical images and there were many happy tears when they opened their special gift,” she said. The photographer said she was moved every step of her project, from taking the photos to interacting wit... posted on Dec 25 2016 (10,583 reads)

Angel Garcia Rodriguez (right) claps beside homeless people eating a free dinner at the Robin Hood restaurant in Madrid. — AFP It is early evening at a restaurant in central Madrid and Jose Silva sits down for a meal of rice, meatballs and vegetables as waiters flit from one table to another. All very normal, except for one crucial detail: Silva, 42, cannot afford to pay. He lives rough under the platform of a cable car station in Madrid’s sprawling Casa del Campo park, one of dozens of homeless people who have started dining for free at the “Robin Hood” restaurant that earlier opened this month. The project is the brainchild of the “Messe... posted on Dec 29 2016 (14,151 reads)

article is the third in a series exploring the effects that unconscious racial biases have on the criminal justice system in the United States. Officer Tina Latendresse of the Hillsboro Police Department in Oregon meditates during a mindfulness training program for police. Benjamin Brink/The Oregonian When I was promoted to tenured full professor, the dean of my law school kindly had flowers sent to me at my home in Pacific Heights, an overpriced San Francisco neighborhood almost devoid of black residents. I opened the door to find a tall, young, African-American deliveryman who announced, “Delivery for Professor Magee.” I, a petite black woman, dres... posted on Jan 5 2017 (11,953 reads)

of Experience, George Vaillant writes that “there are two pillars of happiness revealed by the seventy-five-year-old Grant Study. One is love. The other is finding a way of coping with life that does not push love away.” We all do things — perhaps daily — that push the people we love away from us. We sneak “harmless” glances at our smartphones while playing games with our children. We forget to take thirty seconds to greet our spouse warmly when we haven’t seen her or him all day. We decline a call from our friend or grandmother because we don’t feel like mustering the energy to truly listen. This modern world we live i... posted on Jan 8 2017 (20,158 reads)

Miles hadn’t had a stable job in years. He bounced around from temp agency to temp agency, never sure when his last day would be. Sometimes, he lost a position with less than a day’s notice. This wasn’t due to a poor work ethic—from arriving early to staying late, Miles says he did everything he could to build a good rapport with employers around Lancaster, Pennsylvania. But because Miles had a criminal record, he was always cut loose when it came time to let staff go. “It was like walking on eggshells. You just never knew when you’d be gone,” he recounted. He says it’s the best job he’s ever had. After his release from pris... posted on Jan 9 2017 (10,326 reads)

year, about fifteen of us had a breakout call with some visionaries of World in Conversation and Laddership Circles, around working with volunteers.  Below is a glimpse of the Q&A that emerged, on the call and afterwards.] Our efforts attracts many volunteers, but we don't use them effectively. What do you suggest? The most fundamental design principle is our mindset. Typically, volunteers are used as a means to an end -- this is our mission, we need this stuff done to achieve our mission, and you can help us do these chores. ServiceSpace doesn't work that way. For us, volunteer experience is an end in itself. We believe that if a volunteer ha... posted on Jan 12 2017 (20,015 reads)

have been working with young people for a number of years now, Joshua. How is this generation different? Joshua Gorman: There’s a new generation of young people waking up and coming of age all across the planet, a generation rising between an old world dying and a new world being born. We are the make-it-or-break-it generation. The all-or-nothing generation. It’s the crucible through which civilization must pass or crash. That’s the significance of these times, the significance of who we are. That’s what we are being called to. Young people today are being swept up by the new story and it’s defining our lives, it’s who we... posted on Jan 18 2017 (12,459 reads)

him, when she returned. “Yes, you silly woman, why make such a secret of it when there is nothing in it? The basket’s empty.” “You saw nothing?” She gave him a tragic look, turned her back and disappeared into the sunset. And the Bushman who told me the story said to me, “it wasn’t the looking but the fact that he could not perceive in the basket all the wonders she had brought him from the stars.” And that, for me, in a sense, is one of the images that the story is to the human spirit. The basket brings us its star-stuff and the pundits–the intellectuals and the critics–look into it and say it’s all rubbish and supersti... posted on Jan 21 2017 (9,538 reads)

The elder Reba prepares dinner for roughly 50 people every Wednesday for “Happiness Hour,” when families and elders convene for a meal, conversation, and, later, playtime. The atmosphere is casual, familial. People drift in and out. Children snuggle up to elders, and friends catch up on each others’ days. Little Reba, as she’s known, shows a visitor her small digital camera—a gift from her elder buddy Eileen, a photographer herself. Little Reba clicks through images of flowers and insects (“all from outside here,” she explains, pointing to the back patio), along with one of her at the Portland Art Museum. Just a few weeks prior, Little Reba&rsq... posted on Jan 25 2017 (10,662 reads)

various corners of the US and globe—from CA to North Carolina, Boston to India, Dubai to China—a crew of our October Laddership Circle tuned in on Tuesday for a deeper dive breakout call on Gift Ecology. "Holding the Questions" Prior to the call, everyone shared initial reflections online. Then, after an opening couple minutes of silence, we each tossed in a question for the conversation—ranging from practical implementations and sustaining gift-based systems to notions of an “inner gift-ecology” and how to honor our families’ wishes along the way. Chris, who comes from many years of monastic living, qu... posted on Jan 26 2017 (11,987 reads)

science is realizing that the world is a living network – with profound implications, says Fritjof Capra. One Earth, One Humanity, One Future, the theme of the recent gathering to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the launch of Resurgence, is one that has been conveyed by poets, philosophers and spiritual teachers throughout the ages. One of its most beautiful expressions is found in the celebrated speech attributed to Chief Seattle of the Suquamish and Duwamish tribes of what is now the state of Washington in the north-west of the USA: This we know: all things are connected like the blood that unites one family... Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons an... posted on Jan 31 2017 (19,085 reads)

recently had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. James Doty who is the founder and the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at the Stanford University School of Medicine of which the Dalai Lama is the founding benefactor. He also happens to be a professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford and the New York Times bestselling author of “Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart” that has been translated into 22 languages. Dr. Doty also is an inventor with multiple patents and is a well-known entrepreneur who at one-time was the CEO of Accuray, a company... posted on Feb 1 2017 (12,260 reads)

we put all our energy into staying focused on the Main Chance or making it to the top of the heap, we miss half of the equation of life. By that I mean there’s taking but also giving, there’s acquiring but also letting go. What’s more, let’s face it, there’s always someone bigger, wiser, or smarter than we are! Perhaps the Taoists make it clearest with their principles of yin and yang, which represent the opposites: day — night, hot — cold, masculine — feminine, sun — moon, etc. These opposites are also inside us. In other words, you can go only so far in one direction before the wind in your sails weakens and b... posted on Feb 5 2017 (13,090 reads)

can all help small independent newsrooms. Share their work with a friend or family member via email, social media, or in person. Subscribe to their podcasts, email newsletters, social media accounts. Participate by attending local events, meetings that they are hosting, call-in to talk shows, share feedback when it’s asked for. Be engaged with the journalism you care about, participate in the news that matters to you, and give what you can to support it. ## Article and images cross-posted from Medium. Author Josh Stearns is Associate Director, Public Square Program at the Democracy Fund. Journalism and democracy of, by and for the people. Formerl... posted on Feb 6 2017 (20,696 reads)

visited the tomato house this morning: a shelter constructed of arched white plumbing rods covered in plastic. It keeps them warm in a mountain area where spring can stay cool until late June and nights stay cool most of the time. Right now the tomatoes are strong and full of large green fruit between deep green abundant leaves. The fruit is just beginning to tinge towards red and I’m excited at the prospect of eating delicious vine-ripened tomatoes, grown from the tiny seeds begun indoors in March. Every morning I visit the garden and relish what is growing. Today when I step into the tomato house, I feel a sense of welc... posted on Feb 7 2017 (14,243 reads)

We Know Everything About Empathy? It must have been a thrilling moment when Ernest Rutherford came up with his revolutionary model of the atom. The image of Rutherford’s atom is probably the most iconic, familiar and favourite symbol in the world of science. Remember the adorable little bunch of coloured marbles in the nucleus, with a few electrons whizzing around them in elliptical orbit? Humanity was enamoured with this symbol, every classroom had a picture of it up on the wall The Rutherfordian model for what was then believed to be the unit of existence was eminently useful for a number of purposes, and it helped to answer many questions that had mystified physicists until... posted on May 15 2021 (43,513 reads)