How to Be Alone
This charming video pays tribute to the happy wholesomeness of being alone. Tanya Davis recites her poem about the ways of solitude, gently cataloging all the places where aloneness can bring freedom and healing. Whether at a lunch counter, park bench, mountain trail, or on the edge of a dance floor - all you have to do is love yourself enough, to love being alone.... posted on Apr 27, 4690 reads

Greg Tehven: Business, Local Community and Love
"I think we have to love our sense of place, and champion the heck out of it", says Greg Tehven, who is turning the world of economic development on its head, and inviting people to build the communities they want to live in. Confronted with the business failings of his beloved hometown of Fargo, North Dakota, he asked himself what the community could offer to the public that would help get it bac... posted on May 11, 3425 reads

bell hooks: Love as The Practice of Freedom
Social commentator, essayist, memoirist, and poet bell hooks is a feminist theorist who speaks on contemporary issues of race, gender, and media representation in America.In Black Looks (1994), she writes, "It struck me that for black people, the pain of learning that we cannot control our images, how we see ourselves (if our vision is not decolonized), or how we are seen is so intense that it ren... posted on Jun 7, 4241 reads

Amisha Harding: The Accidental Activist
"Amisha Harding was reluctant to join the crowd after seeing how some protesters clashed with police, vandalized property, and left shattered glass and burning cars in their wake opposite Centennial Olympic Park early in the Black Lives Matter protests. She took heed when Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms held a press conference and said, "If you love our city, go home." It was her love for her h... posted on Jun 25, 4517 reads

John Lewis on Love & the Seedbed of Personal Strength
"Once in a generation, if we are lucky, someone comes about who in every aspect of their being models for us how to do that, how to be that how to place love at the center, the center that holds solid as all around it breaks, the solid place that becomes the fort of what is unbreakable in us and the fulcrum of change. Among those rare, miraculous few was John Lewis (February 21, 1940July 17, 2020... posted on Jul 21, 9117 reads

How to Love a Country
The Cuban American civil engineer turned writer, Richard Blanco, straddles the many ways a sense of place merges with human emotion to make home and belonging -- personal and communal. The most recent -- and very resonant -- question he's asked by way of poetry is: how to love a country? At Chautauqua, Krista Tippett invited him to speak and read from his books. Blanco's wit, thoughtfulness, and e... posted on Nov 22, 4561 reads

The Clarinet in the Attic
"Pat and Peter went together to the doctor's appointment. In their eighties, theyd been married over sixty years. Pat was a poet; Peter, a retired minister. The specialist confirmed an earlier diagnosis: Peter was suffering from dementia, cause unknown. Some "accident in the brain" was robbing him of his short-term memory. Every ten or fifteen minutes, his mind would reboot, and he lost all recoll... posted on Dec 28, 5804 reads

For the Sake of One We Love and Are Losing: A Meditative Poem
The origin story of "For the Sake of One We Love and Are Losing" lies in a dream that writer Phyllis Cole-Dai had last year. This remarkable poem was published in the early days of the pandemic that has now claimed over 2 million lives worldwide. Cole-Dai's words have comforted many people through the grief and loss of these challenging times. What follows here is the poem's backstory in her own w... posted on Jan 28, 13439 reads

John Lewis: Love in Action
"Here is an extraordinary conversation with the late congressman John Lewis, taped in Montgomery, Alabama, during a pilgrimage 50 years after the March on Washington. It offers a special look inside his wisdom, the civil rights leaders spiritual confrontation within themselves, and the intricate art of nonviolence as 'love in action.'" More from On Being.... posted on Feb 1, 6201 reads

The Only Real Antidote to Fear
"That in love and in life, freedom from fear -- like all species of freedom -- is only possible within the present moment has long been a core teaching of the most ancient Eastern spiritual and philosophical traditions. It is one of the most elemental truths of existence, and one of those most difficult to put into practice as we move through our daily human lives, so habitually inclined toward th... posted on Apr 4, 7622 reads

Love Letters from Seaweed
"Love Letters from Seaweed was created during the summer months I spent exploring mid-Coast Maine. Each day just before sunrise, I biked to Birch Point Beach to witness the shores changing topography and the traces of ocean life spilled by the tide. Intrigued, I photographed spontaneous configurations of seaweed and natural artifacts in unworldly colors, brought together by spume and sand." Visua... posted on May 31, 4940 reads

The Wanting Memories Project
We have all lost someone we love and wondered how our lives could go on without them--without their touch, their encouragement and their wisdom. In this song, composer Ysaye Barnwell gives voice to our deepest longings to remember our departed loved ones and to find the strength to carry their deepest lessons into our lives now. "Songs have intention in themselves but when we sing together, we def... posted on Jun 19, 2985 reads

The Frightfully Wondrous Experience of Being Here
Ra Avis didn't call herself a writer till she was accused of the crime that would eventually result in 437 days of incarceration. In the four years between the accusation and the handcuffs, after a friendly push from her husband--a writer himself--she started a blog and named it Rarasaur (frightfully wondrous things happen here). It became a space for writing about love and grace and grief, and wo... posted on Jun 23, 4486 reads

Be Earth Now
"In Rainer Maria Rilkes seminal collection of poetry, The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, the great twentieth-century poet explores the nature ofand his relationship toGod through divinely received prayers. Nearly twenty-five years ago, Anita Barrows, an award-winning poet and translator, and Joanna Macy, a Buddhist scholar and eco-philosopher, collaborated to translate this collection. Now, on ... posted on Aug 29, 3316 reads

While I Yet Live
The quilters of rural Gee's Bend, Alabama, many of whom are descendants of slaves, learned to quilt from their mothers and grandmothers. They also learned, sitting under the quilting table as small children, valuable life lessons, and the hopes and dreams their families had for them. Their brightly colored quilts speak of love, peace, joy, and the value of hard work. Like their mothers and grandmo... posted on Dec 10, 2325 reads

Love Letters to Presence: Three Poems
"My name is Micheal 'Moley' O Suilleabhain. I am a poet from Ireland. These three poems are love letters to presence. That presence we feel when we are close to the source of this life. Gratitude, Wisdom, Determination, and Belief. The first poem, Turas d'Anam, means 'journey of your soul'..."... posted on Dec 16, 7482 reads

Thich Nhat Hanh: Ten Love Letters to the Earth
"Dear Mother Earth, I bow my head before you as I look deeply and recognize that you are present in me and that I'm a part of you. I was born from you and you are always present, offering me everything I need for my nourishment and growth. My mother, my father, and all my ancestors are also your children. We breathe your fresh air. We drink your clear water. We eat your nourishing food. Your herbs... posted on Feb 3, 11347 reads

When Love Breaks Your Heart
When science journalist Florence William's husband of 25 years unexpectedly asked for a divorce, William found herself feeling dazed and ill. ""Physically, I felt like my body had been plugged into a faulty electrical socket," she writes. "In addition to weight loss, I'd stopped sleeping. I was getting sick: My pancreas wasn't working right. It was hard to think straight."To help understand what w... posted on Apr 13, 7822 reads

Four Poems Born from Stillness
"When I was a child and my mother needed me to entertain myself, she would give me a poem to memorize. So began a lifelong love affair with poetry. There are so many poets I love; and new ones I discover each day. I've written poems for most of my adult life. They emerge through deep stillness. Through paying attention to what is stirring in my heart, and what is happening in the world around me. ... posted on Apr 14, 5403 reads

Neurodiversity and Creativity
"If we put neurodiversity with creativity together, what can we get? At the moment, what is dominant is what we call the deficit approach meaning, that we see neurodivergent processes as problems, disorders and abnomality. We have a medical model. There is a process of diagnosis, and various remedies are prescribed such as special equipment and human support, medication, etc. This essentially put... posted on May 16, 1959 reads

Surrendering and Opening to Hope in Times of Crisis
When Anna-Zoe Herr's father passed four years ago, she grappled with almost unbearable pain and grief and was finding it difficult to find hope. One night, she had a dream in which her father appeared, sitting opposite her. "I came back because you have a question for me," he said. Zoe was taken aback and then said quickly, "Yes, I do. How do I overcome your death?" "You don't overcome my death," ... posted on May 24, 3164 reads

For One Day of Freedom
""Even if life stops, love goes on." This quote of Bishop Steven Charleston's has never been more real to me than this year, which has seen the posthumous publication by ANTIBOOKCLUB of my husband Blyden B. Jackson Jr's final novel, 'For One Day of Freedom,' completed before his death in April of 2012. The publication of this novel, which was passed over by mainstream publishers when we tried unsu... posted on May 31, 2792 reads

Mary Ruefle's Stunning Color Spectrum of Sadnesses
"Nearly two centuries after Goethe contemplated the psychology of color and emotion, Mary Ruefle's chromatic taxonomy of sadness cracks open the eggshell of our fragility to reveal within it a kaleidoscope coruscating with irrepressible aliveness. What emerges is the feeling -- something beyond the reasoned understanding -- that sadness is not the tip of the Atlantis-sized iceberg of our hard-wire... posted on Aug 21, 6044 reads

Horse Medicine, Horse Mystery
"Whether we love horses or not, whether we have contact with horses or not, they can teach us a lot about wisdom, love, and beauty. How do we get close to an honest openness to the potential magic of horses? And what does it even mean? The horse as a mirror for the soul and a vehicle for the soul could show us our true nature, and carry us into sacred spaces, initiating us into transformational he... posted on Oct 19, 3871 reads

Satish Kumar: In Service of Humanity and Mother Earth
In 2020, a dialog was held at Plum Village with environmental, and multi-faith peace activist Satish Kumar. What follows are two excerpts from that evening, the first titled, "Activism -- Caring without Burning Out," and the second, "Encouragement to Young Activists -- on Anger, Love and Grief." In these excerpts Kumar shares "how he has been able to find an inexhaustible source of energy to conti... posted on Nov 28, 1585 reads

Fishpeople: Lives Transformed By The Sea
This breathtaking film tells the story of people who are dedicating their lives to the sea. From Hawaii, Tahiti, Catalina Island, Antarctica, Australia and San Francisco, we witness spectacular images of the ocean as we are introduced to: a woman spearfisher who expresses compassion for her prey, an endurance swimmer, a photographer who captures the vast expansiveness of the ocean with his camera,... posted on Dec 17, 1625 reads

That's My Jazz
A father's love is center stage in this magical video of reflections from the renowned pastry chef Milt Abel II as he describes his relationship with his father, legendary Kansas City jazz musician Milt Abel, Sr. This relationship formed Milt as he strove to be the best in his chosen field just like his father, "a great man, someone to aspire to be just like," was in his own field. The memories of... posted on Dec 23, 1173 reads

The Quid for Which There is No Quo
"When one considers the facts, it appears undeniable that the human capacity to earn affects the human capacity to yearn. Purchasing power renders us prey to the sales pitch. And sales pitches befuddle the soul's longing. Animals have no purchasing power. They cannot easily be manipulated into yearning for things that are not aligned with their essence. This is why advertisers leave them alone. A... posted on Jun 3, 3766 reads

The Donkey & the Meaning of Eternity: A Love Letter to Life
"Beneath our anxious quickenings, beneath our fanged fears, beneath the rusted armors of conviction, tenderness is what we long for -- tenderness to salve our bruising contact with reality, to warm us awake from the frozen stupor of near-living. Tenderness is what permeates Platero and I (public library) by the Nobel-winning Spanish poet Juan Ramon Jimenez (December 23, 1881-May 29, 1958) -- part ... posted on Jul 25, 4302 reads

Shrine
Tracey Schmidt performs her poem Shrine, an evocative poem about love, about self, and about fitting into the world. Her whole being becomes a shrine through which divisions between herself and the rest of the world recede and "then the love fits perfectly," and her life shines brilliantly.... posted on Sep 8, 1900 reads

5 Tips on How to Live Like a Lichen
"I. Bow down.Bring your face, your heart, your hands, your belly, down, down, close to the groundto the rock of the world, the dirt, duff, sand. Let surface meet surface, warm cheek meet cool stone. Go ahead, belly flop flat on the sidewalk. Greet what you are not. Lichens love and adhere to their surfaces, love to sink into their substrates, mineral or wood, anything that stays still. Draw close.... posted on Sep 10, 1850 reads

Kintsugi: The Golden Joinery of Love
Sue Cochrane was a family court judge who sought to bring more love into the practice of law. The forces she battled were not confined to the court room -- among them, poverty, violence, addiction, abuse, a terminal diagnosis and more. In this powerful piece, she explores kintsugi -- a stunning Japanese art form in which broken pottery is repaired by filling the cracks with gold. Kingtsugi, poems,... posted on Oct 31, 54810 reads

Overcomer
This short film about self love by Hannah Grace animates a feeling of unworthiness that many of us have had at some point or another - or maybe most of the time - but we don't admit it to anyone. This simple and beautiful movie shows how destructive negative messages may become. We can absorb so many unhealthy messages from childhood that end up being reinforced by social media and more. Soon we a... posted on Nov 10, 2436 reads

How Sisterly Love Transformed a Brothel in Delhi
Fresh out of her university studies, Gitanjali Babbar embarked on a two-year fellowship that had her conducting health surveys with women in Delhi's red light district. Struck by the raw humanity she encountered in the brothel workers, Gitanjali began visiting the women in her free time, sharing meals and listening to stories from their harrowing life journeys, where they were often trafficked at ... posted on Apr 1, 2977 reads

Iris Murdoch: How to See More Clearly and Love More Purely
Maria Popova explores essays by Iris Murdoch around self-knowledge and relationships. She stresses that self-knowledge is a lifetime journey. When we do not see progress, or fail in our strivings, we may become anxious “where we feel the discrepancy between our ideals and our personality.” The discrepancies may show up as hurtful to others, and create more anxiety. She writes, “f... posted on Aug 13, 2677 reads

Arun-dada: I Just Love Thy Silently
Arun Bhatt, lovingly called "Arun-dada", dedicated his life to simplicity, service, and nonviolence. Born as the son of freedom fighters, Arun-dada spent parts of his childhood in jails, an unlikely setting where he encountered remarkable forces of love. At 19, he walked across India with Gandhi's spiritual successor, Vinoba Bhave, as part of the Bhoodan (Land Gift) Movement. His untiring equanimi... posted on Sep 3, 2884 reads

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Known as "the hugging saint," Ammachi, from Southern India, spends 15 hours a day spreading love and compassion through her hugs. For the past thirty years, crowds have lined up daily to experience her warm embrace. To this day, it is reported she has hugged over 20 million times.... posted on Jul 29, 1168 reads

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Our intention behind this daily e-mail has always been to bring inspiration and to help encourage each other in being good forces in the world. Our daily actions may be small, but they have a ripple effect. With anger in the world, there is a clear need to keep increasing the love in our actions, until the ripples reach every heart on this planet. Until that time, we can always do more. If you... posted on Sep 19, 515 reads

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A small San Francisco based group is collecting all the new and used children's books they can get and bringing them to small villages in the Phillipines where they are cherished! The program is called Books for Love.... posted on Oct 27, 483 reads

Linking Relationships and Physical Health
Research on the link between relationships and physical health has established that people with close interpersonal relationships recover more quickly from disease and live longer. And now the emerging field of social neuroscience, the study of how people’s brains entrain as they interact, adds a missing piece to that data. The most significant finding has been that of "mirror neurons," brain ce... posted on Nov 20, 2128 reads

Pedaling Banner
Josh Kinberg just finished his master's thesis and hit print. It read only "I Love New York." His adviser loved it. Of course, Kinberg's degree is an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design in New York City, and his thesis is a bicycle that receives text messages and prints them in foot-high chalk letters, then blogs a digital photo and GPS map of the printing, all while the ri... posted on Aug 4, 1389 reads

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Built as an expression of one man's undying love for his wife, the Taj Mahal is, arguably, one of the most beautiful architectural structures on Earth. For a panaromic web tour...... posted on Jul 10, 799 reads

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A mom and her 3 year old son spent a harrowing seven days lost in the rugged forests of Oregan. Having been bitten by a snake, chased up a tree by a cougar, and confronted by hungry raccoons over a little cheese, their survival is a testament to a mother's love for her child.... posted on Jul 18, 431 reads

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Bruce Stephan was on San Francisco’s Bay Bridge when an earthquake hurled his car off the bridge and Stephan towards death. Both he and his wife were in the World Trade Center when terrorists struck on September 11. So what is like to survive two terrifying disasters? For Bruce, it was a learning experience in the power of love.... posted on Aug 13, 2018 reads

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Having been bullied as a sensitive child in the segregrated South, nine year old Vernon Kitabu Turner vowed "to become the protector of the weak," giving himself to the art of self-defense "with no less devotion than the samurai of Japan." With 'a mind like water,' he is now able to defeat the greatest of opponents -- with a single finger -- leaving them unharmed and himself with a heart full of ... posted on Sep 5, 1206 reads

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One of Geneen Roth’s perhaps most well-known and controversial exercises helps people to experience what they have as "enough": in conjunction with her advice to "carry a chunk of chocolate everywhere," Roth teaches how to eat that chocolate slowly and with complete awareness. The exercise, she writes, "reminds us to wake up, pay attention, stop reaching for what we don’t have, and focus on wh... posted on Oct 15, 1138 reads

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On Christmas Eve 1983, she suddenly lost her father to bladder cancer. Travelling the world to find answers, she came to this realization of life's purpose: love in action. In 1997, she started a nonprofit organization called Airline Ambassadors. In 1999, she was World Woman of Peace. Meet Nancy Rivard.... posted on Dec 21, 1126 reads

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In the summer of 1952 Mildred Norman, traveling alone, hiked the entire length of the 2050 mile-long Appalachian Trail. She was the first woman to accomplish this feat. It turned out to be a practice run. From 1953 until 1981, she walked more than 25,000 miles across the United States , bearing the simplest of messages: this is the way of peace-overcome evil with good, and falsehood with truth, a... posted on May 6, 1075 reads

Thai Flavors
They call him "Pak". In Iowa City, he runs an unusual Thai restaurant that has got the pollsters of DC, editors at NY Times, and the community in Iowa, all knocking on his doors. Many people will go to 'Thai Flavors' for its great food, many will go there to answer his polls -- ranging from controversial political and religious questions to "Do you believe in love at first?" and "Do you like to ... posted on Nov 16, 1275 reads

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A tidy father. A messy bedroom. And a determined teenage daughter. These ingredients spawned a grass-roots charity run by a 17-year-old girl who is donating 400 backpacks stuffed with notebooks, Pokémon folders and pencil boxes to needy kids. Winnie Kao's 'Packs of Love' began in spring 2002 when her father lectured her about the mounds of school supplies cluttering her room and about how privil... posted on Sep 9, 994 reads