wonderful purity of nature at this season is a most pleasing fact. Every decayed stump and moss-grown stone and rail, and the dead leaves of autumn, are concealed by a clean napkin of snow. In the bare fields and tinkling woods, see what virtue survives. In the coldest and bleakest places, the warmest charities still maintain a foothold. A cold and searching wind drives away all contagion, and nothing can withstand it but what has a virtue in it; and accordingly, whatever we meet with in cold and bleak places, as the tops of mountains, we respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan toughness. All things beside seem to be called in for shelter, and what stays out must be part of... posted on Mar 19 2018 (10,948 reads)

Pilgrim’s Last Interview: WKVI in Knox, IN July 6, 1981 Conducted by Ted Hayes, manager of radio station WKVI in Knox, Indiana, the day before she was killed in an automobile accident. This interview can be found at the end of the Campbell House audio tape and in Appendix V of the Peace Pilgrim Book. Ted Hayes: Peace, let's talk a little bit about this wandering that you have done for peace. How did it all come about? Peace Pilgrim: Well, it started January 1, l953 from Los Angeles, California. That year I set out to walk across the country, which I did: zig-zag across 5,000 continuous miles. And then I just continued. I'm on my seventh pilgrimage route now whi... posted on Oct 15 2023 (18,166 reads)

I was 14 years old, I boarded a plane for a weeklong backpacking trip in the Rocky Mountains. I had already been to the Rockies a few times with my parents, but this time I was headed out to a “primitive skills week,” run by the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies. For a week, we were to live as close to the land as possible. We crafted our own bowls and knives, made fires with bow drills, caught fish with our own hands, and stalked elk for hours. I remember coming over a mountain pass and looking down at what looked like hundreds of ants moving around in a beautiful open meadow. As we started coming down the hill I realized they were elk—hundreds of elk sca... posted on Feb 16 2018 (268,252 reads)

I heard about Anne Firth Murray through a close friend, I was immediately intrigued. She’s a professor at Stanford University who teaches courses on international women’s health as well as a course entitled “Love as a Force for Social Justice,” the Founding President of the philanthropic organization, the Global Fund for Women, and a warm individual known for her tea gatherings and unusually exotic pets at her home in Palo Alto. I’ve been interested in women’s empowerment issues for quite some time, but to learn about someone who brings love into the field really piqued my interest.       Through this interview, I wanted to l... posted on Apr 4 2018 (13,163 reads)

flashes across the nursing home lobby when I enter. By degrees the brightness dims as the door swings shut. My eyes adjust to a line of wheelchairs, their occupants so still they might be in deep meditation. One woman rouses, her brown eyes searching me out. “Feet don’t work a’tall,” she says politely. “Not a lick of good.” I walk down the hall past living koans. A man is held in a chair with padded restraints resembling a life jacket. His arms extend forward as if he is about to swim, but he doesn’t move. He repeats over and over, “I, I, I, I.” An aide explains in a loud, cheerful tones to a w... posted on Feb 20 2018 (16,419 reads)

Caregivers, This piece isn’t dainty. Because healthcare is never dainty. Earlier this year, my mother was hospitalized for the sudden rupture of an aneurysm in her brain. You can read about an aspect of that experience here. Last week, she came home. Just two days after she was home, I found her out of the bed and sitting on the ground. She had wet herself. And the feeding tube that was supposed to stay in her stomach while she relearned how to swallow safely? It was next to her pillow. My father had stepped away to the bathroom for two minutes before this happened. Fortunately, she was okay - and as a gastroenterologist, I knew what to do about the feeding t... posted on Mar 20 2018 (18,760 reads)

you ever wondered what makes it easier for some to bounce back after a tragedy than others? Or why hundreds facing the same life-changing event wind up on drastically different paths? Imagine a young woman whose childhood was rife with trauma: perhaps she grew up in impoverished conditions, where she experienced chronic abuse, and lacked a proper support system. Now imagine this same young woman went on to earn an advanced degree and developed a nonprofit organization to help youth living in poverty. Though not often so cut and dried, stories like this are not uncommon. But unfortunately, neither are their counterparts. Imagine this woman had a sister, who began using drugs at an... posted on Mar 1 2018 (39,463 reads)

E. F. SCHUMACHER LECTURES OCTOBER 2004, STOCKBRIDGE, MA EDITED BY HILDEGARDE HANNUM Judy Wicks is one of my heroes. She is a single woman who built and runs a financially successful business, which at the same time is socially responsible and ecologically accountable. The White Dog Cafe not only serves regionally grown organic food but actively supports the network of farmers who grow that food. Staff share in profits and decision-making. The White Dog Cafe hosts community discussions around global issues of peace, renewable energy, rights of workers in countries around the world, hab... posted on Apr 17 2018 (7,735 reads)

progress, society doesn't need 'leaders' anymore.  This doesn't mean that we won't have great men amidst us.  I think great men will come and they will be vital for progress of humanity, but they will be so great that they will refuse to take up this position of leadership.   People will not follow the great men, but will listen to their thoughts, philosophies and views and through their sharing, society will find its way forward. Take a look at the Bhoodan (Land Gift) Movement, for example. Because it was entirely executed while walking, there was never any centralized leadership. If you think about it, the Buddha too, walked on foot for thousands of... posted on May 2 2018 (5,669 reads)

me present a logic that has immersed me ever since I became aware of the state of the planet as a teenager: The world has some big problems right now. The crisis is urgent. There is no time to indulge in small, insignificant solutions that will be swept away by the tsunami of climate change, economic meltdown, nuclear holocaust, resource-scarcity fueled wars, and so forth. We need big solutions to big problems. Therefore, whatever you do on a local level, you’d better make sure it is scalable. You’d better make sure it can go viral, because otherwise its impact will be trivial. Contained within this logic is an implicit hierarchy that values the contributions of some peop... posted on Apr 7 2018 (23,597 reads)

following is an excerpt from Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu's book, "From Mindfulness to Heartfulness: Transforming Self and Soceity with Compassion"(Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2018) Why Heartfulness? Heartfulness describes a way of being in mindfulness, in compassion, and in responsibility. The word mindfulness, by itself, seems insufficient to explain how mindful consciousness extends into compassion and is expressed in active caring. Heartfulness portrays this expansive sense of living with openness and clarity, being true to ourselves, acting in sympathy with all beings, resonating with and being part of the world around us. The word com-passion literally means &ld... posted on Mar 8 2018 (13,928 reads)

about this time in the long stretch of winter that I begin to ache for spring. By March, I tend become a bit dulled to the beauty of winter. Though my prayer and meditation keep my heart open to seeing the passage of time and seasons with appreciative eyes, mostly I just want the cold days to be over. As the earth begins to thaw, we often want the process to hurry up.  I long for bright flowers blowing in a spring breeze and warm summer evenings on the porch. While impatience with winter is only human, I pause and remember the need to move slowly through this time of year.  If we rush through the change in seasons in nature and in our lives, we will find ourselves... posted on Mar 25 2021 (13,024 reads)

are graduating to the most amazing and stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation,” he told them. When Paul was a young man, the world had other problems, many of which persist today: the war in Vietnam, civil rights abuses, racism. At just 18, he became Martin Luther King Jr.’s press co-ordinator, helping to organise the historic March on Montgomery. He photographed voter registration drives in Bogalusa, Louisiana and Florida. Later, in Mississippi, he captured images of the Ku Klux Klan—the group kidnapped Paul and held him prisoner. At 20, Paul moved into business, opening one of America’s first natural food stores, Erewhon. With every step ... posted on Apr 13 2018 (13,647 reads)

time to celebrate crooked things. We often seek perfection but will we ever get it all straight? I don’t think so. Maybe we once believed that “straight is the gate and narrow is the way” and went in search of it. But by now most of us are pretty sure we’re not going to find it. And even if we did manage to squeeze through that narrow aperture from time to time, didn’t our pathbecome pretty crooked from then on? How often do we stray from our intention out of curiosity or stupor or to smell the roses! Nature moves in curves and curlicues. Perhaps that’s why I love the many crooked trees even more than the few arrow-straight ones. They look li... posted on Apr 16 2018 (10,569 reads)

Note: From Chelsea Green Publishing, the publishers of Human Scale Revisited: There was a time when buildings were scaled to the human figure, democracies were scaled to the societies they served, and enterprises were scaled to communities. Against that backdrop, author Kirkpatrick Sale revisits his classic book Human Scale against recent global developments and offers compelling new insights on how to turn toward a scale that allows humanity to not only survive, but thrive. In this excerpt from Human Scale Revisited, Sale tackles the notion of human-scale technology. There is no such thing as a society without technology. Homo erectus and Homo sapiens for nearly two million years... posted on May 4 2018 (7,923 reads)

by Bharat Chauhan The love you bear for yourself is never unrequited. You are the generous giver and the sole receiver. You do not have to wonder if your sentiments will be echoed or your kind gestures returned. You need only love yourself fully. The love we bear for ourselves is guaranteed, each return exceeding its investment. Perhaps you're longing to experience this kind of love from someone you care about, or maybe your heart aches from loving someone who cannot fully love you back. The more we seek love like this, the harder we struggle, and the less we come to love ourselves. But who is more worthy of the careful attention and thoughtful affection we so readily dole... posted on Apr 5 2018 (39,531 reads)

winter, I went camping with my friend Bob in the backcountry near Sequoia National Park. After spending the day slogging uphill through deep snow, we were exhausted but needed to make camp. As the temperature rapidly dropped, Bob began shivering uncontrollably. He had poured out so much energy without refueling himself that he was sliding into hypothermia, the first stage of freezing to death. We hurried to set up the tent, get into our sleeping bags, light the stove, drink hot water, and eat hot food—and soon Bob’s teeth stopped chattering. Luckily, we had just enough resilience to turn this misadventure around. Mental resources like calm, grit, and courage kept us goi... posted on Apr 24 2018 (26,451 reads)

Brown is a professor of economics and director of the Center for Work, Technology, and Society at the University of California, Berkeley. Her recent book, Buddhist Economics: An Enlightened Approach to the Dismal Science (Bloomsbury), draws upon simple Buddhist ideas to argue for an economic system based on environmental stewardship, shared prosperity, and care for the human spirit. Brown measures economic progress by the well-being of all people, not Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or average national income. She advocates creating an economy that recognizes the interdependence of people with each other and the planet, and works toward achieving the goals of reduci... posted on Jun 22 2018 (9,067 reads)

“Moss-in-Prison” project helped me bring my love for trees and forest to men and women in the deepest windowless reaches of the prison system. “We learned that the inmates who viewed nature videos committed twenty-six percent fewer violent infractions than those who did not view them, a convincing result for the prison officers and administrators—and for ourselves.” Photo by Samuel Zeller/Unsplash When one is in love—especially with something as huge and beautiful and complex as trees—there is an urge to share this emotion with everyone, especially to those who have no opportunity to experience s... posted on Jul 2 2018 (11,231 reads)

Scolaro on Sarah Kay For over a decade, 28-year-old Sarah Kay has touched millions of people with her exquisite spoken word poetry. Her TED Talk, “If I should have a Daughter” has had over 9.5 million views, showing us the power of poetry in an often-cynical world. Whenever I watch Sarah perform, something remarkable happens. My heart rate quickens, I want to be more present. I want to feel more, love more, because she holds up a mirror to the deepest parts of our humanity—highlighting life’s nuances to make us taste, touch and feel the moment. Growing up in New York City the daughter of two photographers, Sarah was... posted on Jun 17 2018 (10,704 reads)