The problem with these secondary satisfactions is that we can never get enough of them. We always want more. But once we find our primary satisfactions, we don’t want much else. Though primary satisfactions are rare in our culture, we do experience them. We can remember what that felt like and let our longing for that state become our compass, telling us what direction we need to go to get back to those satisfactions. We can find them through our friendships, by spending time in nature, by risking being vulnerable with someone we trust. McKee: A minute ago you spoke of the “soul.” How do you define that word? Weller: I don’t use soul&nbs... posted on Feb 26 2019 (62,341 reads)

of building peace? We need all dimensions of the c’s in Ceeds of Peace – “courage without compassion is dangerous. Lots of compassion without critical thinking, then you don’t take compassion to take good work in the world. Central part of our message is you have to develop multiple arenas of self. But umbrella ceed is connection.” Maya’s organization tries to encourage people on how they can be more connected to self, others, sense of purpose, and to nature, and to transform opportunities to build real sense of connection. “For example, you don’t just have to meditate in isolation. Instead of 2 hours zazen, how can you connect to br... posted on Feb 24 2019 (6,091 reads)

of her heart-wrenching series, “Thoughts in Passing.”  “In making this work I came to observe a profound paradox: in talking with me about dying, these people taught me how to live more meaningfully and more intensely,” she writes in a statement on her website. “I found that, for most people, what mattered was how they had participated in the world and what they had created — whether that was through connection with their children, community, work or nature. Though I spoke with people from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds, nobody wished they had made more money, worked harder or bought more things.” The works in “Thoughts ... posted on Apr 9 2019 (13,378 reads)

from The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible by Charles Eisenstein, published by North Atlantic Books, copyright © 2013 by Charles Eisenstein. Reprinted by permission of publisher. A year or two ago a young man confronted me at a talk in Florida. I’d been describing my view that the paradigm of urgency, heroic efforts, and struggle may itself be part of the problem; that it comes from the same place of scarcity and domination as the conquest of nature; that coming from that place, we might blindly create more of the same. Instead, I suggested, we might try slowing down, perhaps even doing nothing sometimes. Instead of holding ourselves to a high... posted on Mar 28 2019 (9,891 reads)

in my face.  Hello, you who made the morning  and spread it over the fields  and into the faces of the tulips  and the nodding morning glories,  and into the windows of, even, the  miserable and the crotchety. For those of us who read her like a daily liturgy, her name is synonymous with other such essential words: mystery, wild, awe, terror, devotion, gratitude, grace. All of them come alive in her simple poems, that seem to rise from the crossroad of nature and spirituality, brimming with good questions. Since Whitman and Thoreau, no one had made the grass and the sky speak so eloquently, as ambassadors to the embodied sacred. Few were ... posted on Mar 24 2019 (25,002 reads)

violated. Warrantless raids on Greyhound buses within 100 miles of the border (an area referred to by some as the “Constitution-free zone”) are clear violations of human rights. These violations are not due to the current state of politics; they are the symptom of blatant racism in the United States and a system that denigrates and abuses people least able to defend themselves. It is not surprising that some of the mechanisms that drive modern American racism are political in nature. Human beings are predisposed to dislike and distrust individuals that do not conform to the norms of their social group (Mountz, Allison). Some politicians appeal to this suspicion and wrongly... posted on Jul 22 2021 (29,673 reads)

FILM BECOMES THE FIRE 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 not teach the children—rather, they create a “safe space” where the children  learn experientially. As we began screening the film in schools, juvenile detention centers, community groups and spiritual institutions, we experienced ... posted on Mar 20 2019 (8,630 reads)

have discovered. As a result, a certain kind of artwork has been emerging because of technological advances and a discerning eye. In a winning combination of science and art, what is observed microscopically can be magnified into large images that defy a viewer's guess as to what they might be. To me, they register as abstract paintings or textile designs. In fact, there are artists using such images to create their own work in these mediums. While the subjects have been aspects of nature, for the most part, imagine what would occur if you suddenly zoomed in on all those things you have lying around your house and studio or rusting outside. What new art might be inspired by such... posted on Jul 10 2019 (7,272 reads)

not approve of me using the present tense in this essay, I think, or what she termed “focused narrative tense”, but I would argue that in this case, the fixed bright beam is necessary. This is about the work. I know what I’m doing, Ursula. You taught me well. To make something well is to give yourself to it, to seek wholeness, to follow spirit. To learn to make something well can take your whole life. It’s worth it.– Steering the Craft Yes. * To nature lovers, pay attention. Matthew Keely over at Tor muses that if circumstances were different, she may have been known as one of the best nature writers. All my life I knew th... posted on Apr 30 2019 (7,045 reads)

and his work are the focus of a documentary, Griefwalker, directed by Tim Wilson and released in 2008. In it, we see Jenkinson in teaching sessions with doctors and nurses, in counseling sessions with dying people and their families, and in meditative and often frank exchanges with the film’s director. We glimpse his life on the land as a farmer, fur trapper, and canoe-builder—attempts to live simply and in harmony with the seasons and other demands of nature. Refusal to live within these demands is part of what makes death so difficult for contemporary Westerners; we have no experience with it. Contrary to everything we hear from those around ... posted on Apr 26 2019 (22,316 reads)

to earth. Without blackboards or chalk we were shown the passage of the seasons and the inter-connectedness of birds, seeds, insects, bark, fruit, worms and soil. The excitement of feeding mulberry leaves to silk worms kept in shoe boxes exposed our fertile minds to a riveting life cycle. These first pets plumped corpulently into caterpillars as they munched towards their grand finale spinning gossamer threads into soft creamy cocoons. This miniature cardboard diorama showcased close-up nature’s ingenious design. In summer the first mulberry fruit would bud, tight fisted in delicate shades of pink. We’d watch and wait impatiently until they puckered fat and sweet and b... posted on May 5 2019 (7,301 reads)

of pure being. One of my clients reported that she is starting to become more aware of things in her life she never noticed before. She loves it when someone unexpected shows up at her door. She flows through the day responding with ease to everyone and everything. And she is attuned with all her senses when she takes a walk outside. These are new experiences for her, but this deepening awareness has always been available. Things aren’t becoming more tender or sacred. The way nature appears to her hasn’t changed. What’s changed? Her perspective. Rather than living in the mental noise, she’s more willing to say a friendly, “Hello,” to her... posted on Apr 12 2019 (9,009 reads)

understand what during sleep actually transacts these memory benefits, because there are real medical and societal implications.  And let me just tell you about one area that we've moved this work out into, clinically, which is the context of aging and dementia. Because it's of course no secret that, as we get older, our learning and memory abilities begin to fade and decline. But what we've also discovered is that a physiological signature of aging is that your sleep gets worse, especially that deep quality of sleep that I was just discussing. And only last year, we finally published evidence that these two things,... posted on Jun 16 2019 (26,734 reads)

or deliver us readily into the gaze of the cosmos, depending on how we approach life in the moment. Much of our freedom depends on cultivating greater perspective about being with uncertainty, however and whenever we can. When we practice grateful living, we create a welcoming space for the surprise of uncertainty, knowing that it arrives naturally in each of those moments when we truly take nothing for granted. Without expectations, life is one surprising unfolding after another. The exact nature of the surprises that arrive in our lives is not up to us, but the nature of our response to surprise is ours and ours alone. Each time we let go and welcome life instead of holding onto our id... posted on Nov 5 2020 (23,442 reads)

the cosmos.  Who could fault anyone for regarding the nightmare as the only reality, the only option?  Naturally, I am subject to programming just like anyone. But perhaps I am fortunate to have familiarity with a potent and primal antidote – a widely available antidote. Alexandre Buisse, Suorvajaure from Vakkotavare, in Stora Sjöfallet Park, northern Sweden. (Wikipedia) I grew up a little wild, and have always sought wildish, mystical thresholds in so-called nature where I could find solace and solitude to track my own wandering, mytho-poetic thoughts, as well as fascinations with the wilder Others.  From the beginning, the wildish Earth was leafed a... posted on Jul 25 2019 (8,466 reads)

and a caring for the sorrow of another. Pity, in turn, derives from piety, Latin pietas, or pius. This in turn means to be dutiful. It’s quite the word salad. I think we can safely say that the idea that the Lord might pity us (care for our fallen state of sin and suffering) is a core meaning in today’s Christian practice; we earnestly wish to be forgiven for our transgressions against a higher, sacred principle. Yet this is a conceptual approach. What’s the nature of experience? In practical terms, Mercy isn’t just an idea or a concept; in its metaphysical and esoteric sense, it’s a substance. That is to say, it’s of a material na... posted on Sep 13 2019 (4,778 reads)

mended fences of excessive safety, false security, and shallow notions of “happiness,” when all the while the world has been inviting us to stride through the unlocked gate and break free into realms of greater promise and possibilities. Our human psyches possess, as capacities, a variety of astonishing resources about which mainstream Western psychology has little to say. By uncovering and reclaiming these innate resources, shared by all of us by simple virtue of our human nature, we can more easily understand and resolve our intrapsychic and interpersonal difficulties as they arise. The alleviation of personal troubles is, of course, important to all of us, but our ... posted on Sep 25 2019 (8,691 reads)

wild. It makes you focus on what really matters, to see such beauty in the shape of birds, plants. On the books publication I began to learn so much more. One of the first lessons was that protest does not have to be loud and angry. What we had made with our book was a hymn of protest against the depletion of our natural world and our place in it. Our hope had been to draw the eye, the heart, and in this I think we have, to a point, been successful. But it also taught me so much about human nature. The book has become a gift, given within families, to schools, to libraries, by so many people working together, giving time, money to campaigns, and these groups of people has become connecte... posted on Dec 12 2019 (7,017 reads)

is what calls from the depths of the soul. It is the song that sings us into life. Whether we have a meaningful life depends upon whether we can hear this song, this primal music of the sacred. The “sacred” is not something primarily religious or even spiritual. It is not a quality we need to learn or to develop. It belongs to the primary nature of all that is. When our ancestors knew that everything they could see was sacred, this was not something taught but instinctively known. It was as natural as sunlight, as necessary as breathing. It is a fundamental recognition of the wonder, beauty and divine nature of the world. And from this sense of the sacred, real meaning... posted on Jan 31 2020 (8,311 reads)

that most major religions have a very similar set of base principles that can be summed up in two points: The self is an illusion of the ego, and consciousness (or God, or life force/chi, or whatever you want to call it) is universal Love yourself and love other beings (plants, animals, people) with the same force (“do unto thy neighbor...”), and make this the guiding principle behind all your actions Journey into wilderness. Much has been written about the tonic of nature — whether you call it “forest bathing” as they do in Japan, or being a hermit a la Thoreau and Muir, go and spend time in places where there are no signs of humans. You cannot... posted on Feb 8 2020 (8,484 reads)