landscape, the journey from creation to home. JIM RUNS HIS HAND over a fish carved into a red sandstone wall that towers over the dusty, cracked ground dotted with cacti, yucca, and pine. Several hundred yards away, the land drops abruptly into an arroyo. For thousands of years, the A:shiwi etched animals, events, and stories into rock, painted rainfall and gardens onto pottery, and composed songs that told the way to springs and rivers. This, too, is mapping, says Jim. The names and images connected with places conveyed a symbiotic relationship between the people and the land. After their lands were colonized by the Spanish in the sixteenth century and later claimed by the Uni... posted on Jul 17 2018 (11,397 reads)

Worline is Executive Director of the CompassionLab at the University of Michigan, a research scientist at the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University, and co-author of Awakening Compassion at Work, forthcoming in February 2017 from Berrett-Koehler. She sat down with author and entrepreneur Nir Eyal to discuss why empathetic teams make better business deals, how more caring leaders can help prevent corporate scandals, and the steps for cultivating compassion at work. This conversation originally appeared in Heleo: In-Depth Conversations with the World’s Leading Thinkers. Nir Eyal: What is the business case for c... posted on Sep 13 2018 (7,712 reads)

U.S. Vishal Rao, 40, developed a voice prosthesis for throat cancer patients that costs less than a dollar and is the cheapest in the market (Photos: By Special Arrangement) It is a traumatic experience for stage four throat cancer patients when the larynx or the voice box is removed and they lose their ability to speak. Till a few years ago, such patients used expensive imported voice prosthesis – costing between Rs 15,000 and Rs 35,000 - to be able to speak again. Those who could not afford the device remained voiceless for the rest of their lives. But not anymore, thanks to Dr. U.S. Vishal Rao, a Bengaluru based oncologist, who has developed an incredibly low-priced voi... posted on Jan 3 2019 (5,835 reads)

left to right, Cephus X (Uncle Bobby) Johnson, Stevante Clark, brother of Stephon Clark, 22, who was killed by Sacramento Police, and Beatrice X Johnson gather at the Families United 4 Justice event in Oakland, California. Photo by Nissa Tzun/Forced Trajectory Project. Oscar Grant III was an unarmed Black man killed by a police officer in Oakland, Calif., years before Black Lives Matter drew national attention to the growing number of unarmed Black men, women and children who die at the hands of law enforcement officers—what some scholars are calling an epidemic. Jan. 1 marked 10 years since the 22-year-old father was fatally shot by the Bay Area Regional Transit of... posted on Mar 16 2019 (3,610 reads)

NOVEMBER 2013  Oscar Schwartz on Maria Popova “Books are the original internet,” Maria Popova tells me with a grin. She is switched on, ballsy, irresistibly articulate, fully engaged. This is Maria’s gift. She talks about complex ideas in a way that transforms them into something I want to talk about with my friends. She makes big concepts relevant. “My bookshelves are completely full, and I’m still buying new ones compulsively,” she adds. “They’re piling up around me!” Undoubtedly, it is this gift that makes Maria’s blog, Brain Pickings, such a success. Her thirst for knowledge means that she looks pa... posted on Feb 17 2019 (9,192 reads)

mushrooms, fish, or clams, since for years she and her partner, the photographer Molly Malone Cook, were too poor to buy food. “I built myself a world out of words…” Nothing in Mary’s life was easy or light. She had a cruel childhood: an abusive father, a neglectful mother. Her response was to seek refuge in the woods of her native Ohio in the company of Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Emerson, and her alma mater Whitman — just her and the treetops, her and the images of the pages that spilled onto the earth. “I built myself a world out of words,” she said. At 17 she visited the home of the poet (also a Pulitzer winner) Edna St. Vincent M... posted on Mar 24 2019 (25,018 reads)

our computer screens for a time to return to the roots of being. Hiding under the covers, I tried talking, whispering, croaking, anything. Nothing came out, just a ghostly whoosh of air. Canceling was an option, but the event was new and it was doubtful that a replacement teacher could be found on such short notice. Standing up did not help. Neither did stretching or walking or smiling bravely in the bathroom mirror. I padded through a quiet house awash in golden summer light. Terrible images flashed before my eyes: faces looking up at me, uncomprehending, dismayed. People heading for the exits. Once the Buddha taught without speaking, holding up a single white flower. That wordl... posted on Aug 1 2019 (7,845 reads)

I  asked who knew what a wren was. Wren, that small brown bird, feathers small as splinters with a sharp song so loud that threads its way through hedges in parks and gardens. Not one. Not even the teacher. An absence of knowledge. So the book, of poems and paintings, went out into the world and into bookshops and libraries, into homes and schools. Teachers began to work with it and children wrote their own spell-poems using the book as a catalyst, learned the names, created beautiful images. Some children escaped, out from the classroom into playgrounds and beyond to search for The Lost Words. Outdoor classrooms sprung up, Lost Words gardens and trails. And such beautiful, rich wo... posted on Dec 12 2019 (7,023 reads)

a young man he trained for a decade in the classical dance form of bharatanatyam. As an adult he studied yoga, and ran a studio of his own. Until one day he decided to put aside every shred of training he had received and announced he was going to observe his students in silence, and see what arose …it was a radical decision, and for Gert van Leeuwen, it was a moment that changed everything. Gert van Leeuwen is the founder of Critical Alignment Yoga and Therapy, and the director of two Critical Alignment schools in Amsterdam and Russia. Over the last forty years his work has largely flown under the radar, drawing a small and dedicated following around the world. He has... posted on Feb 20 2020 (5,192 reads)

of people gathered on the Malieveld in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 2, 2020, in protest of violence against Black people in the U.S. Photo by Robin Utrech / SOPA Images / Light Rocket / Getty Images. In the past week, demonstrations have erupted in big and small cities across the United States and in countries around the world over the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Amid the outpouring of outrage over Floyd’s death, the killing of Breonna Taylor by a police officer in Louisville, Kentucky, and of Ahmaud Arbery by vigilantes in Georgia, along with pent-up anger, exhaustion, and fear experienced by Black, Brown, and Indigenous ... posted on Jun 4 2020 (8,366 reads)

by Diane Barker The present pandemic, which in a few short months has wreaked havoc across our world, is most likely caused by an imbalance in the natural world, as loss of habitat and biodiversity is not only driving animals to extinction but directly causing animal viruses to spread to humans. In response our leaders are using the images of conflict: “We are at war with Covid 19,” we keep hearing; it is an “invisible enemy” we need to “vanquish.” But although this virus is disrupting our lives, causing sickness, death, and economic breakdown, it is itself a completely natural phenomenon, a living thing reproducing itself in the way nature in... posted on Aug 9 2020 (15,723 reads)

finally killed by exploitation and grief, we need to find this story, song, dance, dream, and so help the Earth become alive again, its colors to sing in the air.  Because just as stories nourish our soul, give us a sense of belonging, so too do stories nourish the Earth in hidden ways. This is part of the ancient covenant between humanity and the natural world, how magic is woven into the web of life and how that magic can come alive again, in the songlines of Dreamtime, in the images of the First Peoples, spirals engraved on stone, or the animals, bison and bulls, even a rhinoceros, painted on the cave walls in Southern France. Our rational world may have banished magic fro... posted on Sep 20 2020 (7,215 reads)

Jam 2017, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU),  photograph courtesy VCUArts Excerpts from an unpublished manuscript... Creativity makes us kin . . . the goal is to quickly and easily engage participants in a relaxed and creative state by transforming cloth strips into soft sculpture, using folk-art tradition of rag-rug making. Crochet Jam . . . is a bridge that unites people and cultures. I grew up on a small farm. My father harvested a bounty of vegetables–cabbage, green peas, onions, white and sweet potatoes, green beans, corn, beets, squash, cucumbers, watermelons, cantaloupes, green and red peppers, lettuce. We raised pigs, chickens; and even earthw... posted on Oct 14 2020 (6,604 reads)

time of crisis and chaos, the kind that a pandemic brings, is, among other things, a time to call on our ancestors for their deep wisdom. Not just knowledge but true wisdom is needed in a time of death and profound change, for at such times we are beckoned not simply to return to the immediate past, that which we remember fondly as “the normal,” but to reimagine a new future, a renewed humanity, a more just and therefore sustainable culture, and one even filled with joy. Julian of Norwich (1342–ca.1429) is one of those ancestors calling to us today. After all, she lived her entire life during the worst pandemic in European history—the Bubonic plague that killed 4... posted on Nov 13 2020 (10,801 reads)

paths diverge     From the beginning, human beings have sought to understand the laws that govern the universe, their role in the great cosmic orchestra and   of an existence marked by the constant interplay of joy and pain,beauty and abomination, amazement and anguish, life and death.  Early on, this search for meaning led humanity to explore the spiritual dimension. This exploration took two main paths, following the two movements described by Plato and the Neo-Platonists: an ascending directionality, which follows matter to spirit; and a descending path,which goes from spirit to matter. According to this vision, the cosmos a multidimensional w... posted on Nov 18 2020 (7,389 reads)

friend of mine was looking to buy a horse that could be a backyard buddy, a friend to their current quarter horse mare and new member of the family. She didn't want to spend a lot of money, so I suggested we go to the local monthly horse auction to see if we might rescue one of the horses from a potential death sentence. For those of you who are unfamiliar with horse auctions, many times the meat buyers end up taking the unwanted animals at low prices. There are always horses there who have plenty of life left and just need someone to show up and recognize their value, see their heart, and offer them a space where they can just be a loved horse. We found a few older horses who se... posted on Nov 24 2020 (12,307 reads)

cool breath of evening slips off the wooded hills, displacing the heat of the day, and with it come the birds, as eager for the cool as I am. They arrive in a flock of calls that sound like laughter, and I have to laugh back with the same delight. They are all around me, Cedar Waxwings and Catbirds and a flash of Bluebird iridescence. I have never felt such a kinship to my namesake, Robin, as in this moment when we are both stuffing our mouths with berries and chortling with happiness. The bushes are laden with fat clusters of red, blue, and wine purple, in every stage of ripeness, so many you can pick them by the handful. I’m glad I have a pail and wonder if the birds will be ab... posted on Jan 19 2021 (11,607 reads)

us.  “People say, ‘Yes, I’m very happy,’ but that could change tomorrow,” Lopez says. “If the underlying spiritual and social and psychological bases are not strong enough, they’ll change.” *This story is based on a research project of a political nature. Therefore, pseudonyms are used to protect the participants’ identities. Interviews were conducted in Spanish and translated into English. People shown in these images were not a part of the research. ... posted on Jan 20 2021 (4,800 reads)

being traced with the delicacy of a paintbrush, my creativity blossoming with each new turn. Over time, I felt called to reconstruct the original visualizations, a pursuit that filled my waking hours. Crafting color schemes and uniting design elements was like learning a new language that you wish you’d always spoken. It was, and continues to be, a labor of love and an honoring of my innermost self in ways that I couldn’t have imagined. The combining of these inner messages with images -- first with my photographs, and then with my graphic designs, was a natural unfolding that neither words nor timelines can fully explain. If I told you that Emily’s Affirmations was bor... posted on Feb 14 2021 (7,461 reads)

good and I’m being paid to do this awesome work in the world, so what’s going on here? I became very interested in exploring the human nature connection, spending solo time in nature, depth psychology, dreams, altered states of consciousness and realms of knowing beyond the rational. Because really the world I’d been working in was for the most part very rational. I started having a series of really strong archetypal dreams that were littered with wild creatures, gypsy women, images of dismemberment. Some were truly numinous encounters, both in waking life and dreams. By numinous I mean an encounter beyond the ordinary that feels like it has a strong meaning or significanc... posted on Mar 1 2021 (4,757 reads)