Embracing the Great Fullness of Life
"We all have our ideas about how life should go. Ideas painted within us as hopes, longings, opinions. Those painted around us as cultural norms, trajectories, worthwhile goals. We have ideas in mind about most everything how our bodies should work, how love should work, how the world should work. Politics. Sleep. Weather. What we want and do not want. Ideas that make things bad or good, yes or n... posted on Feb 10, 10657 reads

Maria Popova: Books are the Original Internet
Maria Popova is a Bulgarian-born writer, blogger, literary and cultural critic living in Brooklyn, New York. She writes Brain Pickings, a blog she calls "my one-woman labor of love." In this interview by Oscar Schwartz, she says "Books are the original internet." Schwarts calls her "switched on, irresistibly articulate, fully engaged...She talks about complex ideas in a way that transforms them in... posted on Feb 17, 9089 reads

Who Gets to Cry?
Climate change is destroying many places we love points out Trebbe Johnson, and while some of us turn away from admitting this, others are filled with sorrow. But here's what's most difficult: "Many of us are simply afraid that if we allow ourselves to wade, even for a moment, into the feelings of sadness for the living world that lap at the edge of our consciousness, we will find ourselves pulled... posted on Apr 1, 6547 reads

Seven Generations of Love
"The ranch, it turns out, is no ordinary ranch. It is a 13,000-acre property nestled next to Laramie Peak that Mark's grandfather bought in 1945. It is made up of hills and valleys, meadows and creeks, plains and buttes, caves and waterfalls. Sage and cheat grass cover the ground, and pine trees spring up near the hills. Giant granite boulders give way to cliffs and streams. All kinds of wildlife ... posted on Mar 7, 8547 reads

Holding Circles of Healing
"In 2017, we released our labor of love film, "TeachMeToBeWILD: A Story of Hurt Children and their Animal Healers". This film is a universal healing story that brings together many interconnected elements: children, animals, nature, silence and the power of safe, non-judgemental listening spaces. One of our greatest inspirations to make the film was witnessing how Steve Karlin and John Malloy do n... posted on Mar 20, 8575 reads

Befriending Our Despair
Joanna Rogers Macy is an environmental activist, author, and scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. In this short video she advises that pain alerts us to what needs attention. Pain is not the enemy of cheerfulness, but tells us there is suffering. When we face suffering, our hearts and eyes open to beauty. We are not alone in our despair and when we have the courage to spe... posted on Mar 31, 3560 reads

All My Best Words Were Hers: A Tribute to Ursula Le Guin
The impact of literature and specifically, an author, on a person can be "unfathomable." In this tender tribute, Isaac Yuen recounts the many ways Ursula K. Le Guin influenced his life and his writing. He admits he is "only a fan." He confesses his inadequacy in expressing how her work guides his: "I write about how reading her words transported me to strange worlds and into new souls, how that sp... posted on Apr 30, 7013 reads

A Good Death: An Interview with Stephen Jenkinson
Author of Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul, and subject of the documentary Griefwalker, palliative care counselor and theologian Stephen Jenkinson invites us to contemplate the mystery and meaning of a "good death" so we may more fully embrace life. Drawing on Buddhism and the ancestral wisdom of indigenous people, Jenkinson ponders the ways in which Western individualism has contributed ... posted on Apr 26, 22015 reads

Stress and the Social Self
"Relationships, Adrienne Rich argued in her magnificent meditation on love, refine our truths. But they also, it turns out, refine our immune systems. That's what pioneering immunologist Esther Sternberg examines in The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions--a revelatory inquiry into how emotional stress affects our susceptibility to burnout and disease." Maria Popova shares m... posted on Mar 2, 6512 reads

Parker Palmer Muses on the Season
"I will wax romantic about spring and its splendors in a moment, but first there is a hard truth to be told: before spring becomes beautiful, it is plug ugly, nothing but mud and muck. I have walked in the early spring through fields that will suck your boots off, a world so wet and woeful it makes you yearn for the return of ice. But in that muddy mess, the conditions for rebirth are being create... posted on Apr 20, 0 reads

The Jai Jagat Journey
This spring, 17 children from six slums in India are embarking on a one-of-a-kind journey to share a message of love and oneness with the world. The Jai Jagat Show they will present is a 90-minute dance, drama and musical production celebrating the values that Mahatma Gandhi embodied. The show includes inspiration from other global heroes, like Malala Yousafzai, Wangari Mathai, Masahisa Goi, Yusra... posted on Apr 22, 1835 reads

The Seasons of the Soul
In The Season of the Soul: The Poetic Guidance and Spiritual Wisdom of Hermann Hesse, Ludwig Max Fischer, Ph.D., makes Hesse's vivid, evocative poems on love, imagination, nature, the divine and the passage of time available in English. Through his commentaries, Fischer helps readers understand Hesse's poetry and wisdom within the context of his life. Although Hesse, author of the novels Steppenwo... posted on Jun 9, 8925 reads

George Orwell: Some Thoughts on the Common Toad
Novelist and essayist Eric Arthur Blair, pen name George Orwell, is perhaps best known for his prescient depictions of creeping totalitarianism and social injustice as captured in 1984 and Down and Out in Paris and London. Blair is also recognized as an avowed appreciator of the living world who intuitively understood nature's role in transforming the human spirit in the aftermath of war: "I think... posted on May 29, 5740 reads

The Courageous Mary Oliver
Lisa Starr shares her insights from the last years of her friend Mary Oliver's life. From this deep perspective of love - we see Mary's courage, strength and generosity. She lived her craft - listening for the words - to the very end - using them to transform the heartbreak of living into things of beauty.... posted on May 26, 32092 reads

Mother's Day: Belonging to Each Other
"Mother's Day offers us opportunities to express our love and thanks to the women who have cared for us in our lives --the birth or adoptive mother, the grandmother, the teacher, or the elder friend who have helped grow us up. But it's not all Hallmark cards and breakfasts-in-bed. This particular holiday can stir up feelings of grief and pain for some of us. We may suffer for the mother we have lo... posted on May 12, 8424 reads

Trailhead
In their award-winning short film Trailhead, documentary filmmakers Emily Fraser and Henry Weiner offer an exploration of the history and heart behind the creation of hundreds of miles of interconnected wildland trails minutes from downtown Oakland, California. Profiling the volunteer network of hikers, bikers, dog walkers, historians and educators who donate their time to help maintain this cheri... posted on May 15, 2166 reads

The True Life of the Forest
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger, botanist, medical biochemist, writer and broadcaster, combines medical training with a love of botany. She is an expert on the medicinal, environmental and nutritional properties of trees, and author most recently of The Global Forest. When her parents died, she was raised by an uncle who taught her everything from physics to Buddhism and Gaelic poetry. She was one of ... posted on Sep 12, 6956 reads

Coastal Communication: A Mother and Son's Moving Collaboration
When New York based author and social activist, Jane Jackson suffered an aneurysm, it affected both her memory and language skills. Over the months that followed she recovered through the unconditional support of her family, and the power of poetry. As a way to promote healing and reestablish language skills, she and her son began writing poems together. The poems were crafted line by line in emai... posted on Jun 29, 9444 reads

Befriending Ourselves: An Invitation to Love
Is self-improvement sometimes a disguised version of self-agrression? If the focus is always on how I might be "better" in the future, it can be hard to extend toward myself a hand of friendship and compassion. I miss out on the present miracle of who I am NOW. Maybe moving from a perspective of improvement toward one of healing actually begins with loving my current messiness.... posted on Jul 28, 9055 reads

Soft Power: A Magnetic Approach to Practice
"The desire to be in control is a normal survival response, but what I love about the art of aikido is that we can move beyond survival to a vast and universal perspective in which all life is connected and interwoven. Such an orientation is not self-conscious. Since it relates to the connecting aspect -- that of the space and energy -- rather than individuals, there is no thing that needs to be o... posted on Jul 18, 9528 reads

Jane Baker: An Artist Who Gives It All Away
One day, San Francisco artist Jane Baker realized something. Now she operates from a new place -- new, but also very old: "I don't know art history that well, but it is only in the last few hundred years that art has been a commodity. Before that, most artists were doing it out of their love for, frankly, for God or their church. Most of the art that's been made has not been made for money. So I'm... posted on Aug 6, 2177 reads

The Power of MLK's Anger
Unlike many who struggle to channel their anger into positive action, Martin Luther King Jr. learned from an early age how he could transform this emotion into something greater. In this compelling article from NPR, King's complex relationship with anger and injustice is explored. "Looking at how King dealt with anger reveals its dual nature--how it can be a motivating force for change, while also... posted on Aug 18, 4181 reads

Love and Philosophy Between Prison Walls and Ivory Towers
In 1987, while teaching a class at MIT [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology] on nonviolence, philosophy lecturer Lee Perlman had a novel idea: "Why not take the students to a prison, to talk with men who had committed extreme forms of violence?" Now, 30 years later, through the MIT Prison Initiative that he founded, Perlman teaches classes to a mixed cohort of both MIT students and prisoners... posted on Dec 28, 7052 reads

Janwaar Castle: A Modern Skate Park in Rural India
When is a skatepark more than a skatepark? When it is Janwaar Castle, a local playground in Janwaar village. Between 50-60 children visit the park every day where they learn English, music, dance, painting, 3D modelling, and general life skills. It is a place where Adivasis and Yadavs, boys and girls, and all age groups play together. There are two rules: no school no skating and girls first. Sinc... posted on Sep 10, 4345 reads

Look With Your Heart: Lessons from My Time with My Grandmother
In 2003 theater artist Mia Tagano relocated to California from NYC to be with her grandmother who was living with dementia. Over the next sixteen years she would navigate the poignant territory of loving and caring for someone she could not build shared memories with, someone who would open Mia's heart to life's deepest lessons, someone she would learn to love tenderly, diligently, and uncondition... posted on Sep 1, 50311 reads

The Beginner's Guide to the End
“If you knew that you were going to die tomorrow, would you still be holding on to those grudges? Have you healed the old wounds with people that you love in your life?” These are questions that Shoshana Berger asked a captive audience after her book, "A Beginner's Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death" was published. Co-authored by BJ Miller, the book exp... posted on Mar 7, 3852 reads

The Butterfly Effect: Detained Children Spark a Youth-Movement
11-year old Kaia and 10-year old Lily were heartbroken when they first heard about the 15,000 kids at the US-Mexico border locked up and separated from their parents. With the help of friends and family, they aspired to gather 15,000 butterflies to help raise awareness. To date, this kid-led effort has gathered over 30,000 love-filled butterflies, and The Butterfly Effect is quickly gaining trac... posted on Nov 16, 5016 reads

13 Life Lessons From 13 Years of Brain Pickings
"On October 23, 2006,Brain Pickings was born as a plain-text email to seven friends. It was then, and continues to be, a labor of love and ledger of curiosity, although the mind and heart from which it sprang have changed --have grown, I hope -- tremendously. At the end of the first decade, I told its improbable origin storyand drew from its evolution the ten most important things this all-consumi... posted on Oct 31, 17565 reads

A Physicist's Message for Humanity
In this thoughtful video, physicist Peter Russell pays tribute to kindness, suggesting that the world would be a drastically different place if we all showed one another more consideration. For Russell, the idea is simple: by approaching interactions with the intention of enabling others to feel better as a result, we can pave the way toward a society that is built on a foundation of love and resp... posted on Nov 10, 2752 reads

Falling in Love With the Earth
"The natural world is one of the most resplendent and consistent sources of generosity in our lives whether we experience it directly moment-to-moment or not. When we allow ourselves to tune in and pay attention, our Earth is perpetually nourishing and providing for us, sustaining life and offering its abundant gifts with a breathtaking and consistent flourish. We are fed, literally and figurativ... posted on Nov 25, 6718 reads

Annie Dillard on the Winter Solstice
"Rilke considered the cold season the time for tending ones inner garden. 'In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer,' Albert Camus wrote a generation later. 'If we didn't remember winter in spring, it wouldn't be as lovely,' Adam Gopnik observed after many more revolutions of the Earth around the Sun in his lyrical love letter to winter. But if we ar... posted on Dec 21, 12304 reads

Leading Above the Line
"In this Farnam Street interview, Jim Dethmer, founder of The Conscious Leadership Group shares practical advice about becoming more self-aware, ditching the victim mindset, and connecting more fully with the people in our lives. This episode is a masterclass in understanding and regulating your thoughts and emotions. Dethmer covers how to operate from a place of love rather than fear and anger, t... posted on Dec 30, 4588 reads

Late Migrations: A Jeweled Patchwork of Nature and Culture
"The 112 essays in Renkl's first book, Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss, range from seven lines to just over four pages in length. Together they create a jeweled patchwork of nature and culture that includes her own family. This woven tapestry makes one of all the world's beings that strive to live and which, in one way or another, face mortality." This piece from NPR shares mo... posted on Jan 1, 3148 reads

Rachel Remen: The Soul of Medicine
"The heart has had a very central role in medicine. Aristotle describes the temples of Asclepius, which was the first medical center. He described this as a group of buildings with courtyards and, in one of the courtyards of the temples of Asclepius there was a statue of Venus, the goddess of love. What that's about is that the perspective of the heart is central to the practice of medicine." In t... posted on Jan 28, 3491 reads

The Soul of Care
Arthur Kleinman's wife, Joan, began to struggle with a rare form of early Alzheimer's disease at 59. Eight years after losing her, the Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of Anthropology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and professor of psychiatry and of medical anthropology at Harvard Medical School chronicles their journey in "The Soul of Care: The Moral Education of a Husband and a Doctor." The... posted on Feb 21, 5128 reads

The Monkey and the River
"The simplest and hardest thing to do each day is to be here --fully, completely, without turning away. There's a story I love about a master who sends his apprentice to meditate by a river until he's learned all the river has to say." Mark Nepo shares more in this short piece.... posted on Feb 29, 11641 reads

Living Gratefully in the Time of Corona Virus
"In the midst of times of uncertainty it serves us to reflect on how gratefulness might help to calm us, reduce fears and expectations, open us to greater clarity and love, and fuel action grounded in our deep intentions. Gratitude is not a panacea. It may not cure or solve our anxiety or concerns but it can foster ease, connection, kindness, and well-being -- all valuable qualities which would be... posted on Mar 15, 54488 reads

Oriah Mountain Dreamer: The Call
"I have heard it all my life. A voice calling a name I recognized as my own.
Sometimes it comes as a soft-bellied whisper.Sometimes it holds an edge of urgency. But always it says: Wake up, my love. You are walking asleep.
There's no safety in that! Remember what you are, and let a deeper knowing color the shape of your humanness. There is nowhere to go. What you are looking for is r... posted on Apr 1, 3983 reads

Powered by Love --- an Emerging Worldview
"There is a worldview that has come to dominate every aspect of global reality affecting human civilization, the natural world and planetary climate conditions. It can be summarized as the quantitative worldview. The quantitative worldview is in a crisis so deep it is leading, in an interconnected and interdependent world, to deep systemic disruptions, chaotic conditions and signs of complete fail... posted on Apr 17, 11245 reads

Rachel Remen: The Grace of Being Seen
"I wanted to share with you a letter that meant a great deal to me that was posted to my website in response to my blog. Carol addresses it to physicians but it is true of us all; everyone who goes to work every day in this broken healthcare system in the hopes of helping others, despite everything. It has never been harder to be a health professional and I have never been prouder to be counted am... posted on Apr 21, 8354 reads

Eight Verses for Training the Mind
The Prison Mindfulness Institute's mission is to provide prisoners, prison staff and prison volunteers, with the most effective, evidence-based tools for rehabilitation, self-transformation, and personal & professional development. In particular, they provide and promote the use of proven effective mindfulness-based interventions (MBI's). Their dual focus is on transforming individual lives as wel... posted on May 31, 19665 reads

Educate the Heart
Poet and author Shane Koyczan narrates this poignant short video on the importance of educating children's hearts as well as their minds. While children need knowledge to prepare them for life, those who love and care for them must also educate their hearts. Teaching compassion, acceptance, tolerance and respect are needed along with knowledge to adequately prepare children for the world.... posted on May 19, 3735 reads

Grieving My Way Into Loving the Planet
"In this excerpt from the new anthology 'A Wild Love for the World: Joanna Macy and the Work of Our Times,' journalist Dahr Jamail describes how Macy and her work helped him survive profound war trauma and climate grief. Macy, a scholar and teacher of Buddhism, systems thinking, and deep ecology, is the author of 13 books and a respected voice in movements for peace, justice, and ecology. She orig... posted on May 22, 5420 reads

Manifesto for a Moral Revolution
"Moral reckonings are being driven to the surface of our life together: What are politics for? What is an economy for? Jacqueline Novogratz says the simplistic ways we take up such questions -- if we take them up at all -- is inadequate. Novogratz is an innovator in creative, human-centered capitalism. She has described her recent book, 'Manifesto for a Moral Revolution', as a love letter to the n... posted on May 26, 6878 reads

Deep Water-- A Conversation with Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee of the Global Oneness Project is a surfer, a filmmaker and an environmentalist inner and outer. His love of water led to his film, Elemental. The destruction of our water systems is a prime example of how separated we've become from whats fundamental to our survival. Rajendra Singh is one of the three people in Vaughan-Lees film. He brought seven rivers back to life in an ari... posted on Jun 3, 2473 reads

Educate the Heart
Poet and author Shane Koyczan narrates this poignant short video on the importance of educating children's hearts as well as their minds. While children need knowledge to prepare them for life, those who love and care for them must also educate their hearts. Teaching compassion, acceptance, tolerance and respect are needed along with knowledge to adequately prepare children for the world.... posted on Jun 11, 3471 reads

Totto Chan: The Little Girl at the Window
"This engaging series of childhood recollections tells about an ideal school in Tokyo during World War II that combined learning with fun, freedom, and love. This unusual school had old railroad cars for classrooms, and it was run by an extraordinary man--its founder and headmaster, Sosaku Kobayashi--who was a firm believer in freedom of expression and activity. In real life, the Totto-chan of the... posted on Jun 23, 4033 reads

Hidden Stories: Paintings by Diane Ding
Painter Diane Ding reflects, "Painting this series was a healing practice. I do my art and hope it can spark my imagination in new ways, and only then do I hope the work can spark reactions in others to inspire a love of life and of life's mysteries. Humans are imperfect in many ways, but we are, deep down, one and the same; we share blood from genes from long ago, and we have no true reason to di... posted on Jul 3, 2256 reads

Freedom in Prison: The Story of My Great-Grandfather
Aryae Coopersmith recounts the moving story of his great-grandfather Shmuel, a Talmud scholar who was forced war front in Bosnia-Herzegovinae. When it was discovered he didn't have the makings of a soldier in him, he was given prison guard duty instead. "How was Shmuel, a naive young kid who knew nothing about prisons, going to run a prison full of battle-scarred soldiers? He offered the prisoners... posted on Jul 13, 6644 reads

DH Lawrence on Trees, Solitudes and What Roots Us
"A supreme challenge of human life is reconciling the longing to fulfill ourselves in union, in partnership, in love, with the urgency of fulfilling ourselves according to our own solitary and sovereign laws. Writing at the same time as Hesse, living in exile in the mountains, having barely survived an attack of the deadly Spanish Flu that claimed tens of millions of lives, the polymathic creative... posted on Jul 27, 6137 reads