have a folding plastic chair that I keep near the horse paddock, home to a small family of six horses. Many times a week, I hoist the chair over the railing, unfold it in the middle of the enclosure and just sit. It’s the perfect way to not only ‘share territory’ with my equine companions (a deceptively simple but potent training technique), but to observe their behaviors. Sometimes things are tangibly still, like sitting inside a Tibetan monastery. Sometimes, things are moving—one horse pushing another with silent subtle gestures, which leads to the movement of others—a sea of to and fro. At other times, things are playful and robust, with dust flying and ... posted on Sep 22 2018 (20,992 reads)

by Sheila Menezes My dark skin, so much like my patients: In residency, I trained at a county hospital in Los Angeles. Black and brown patients lay on gurneys in the emergency room, and lined the halls on the wards. Our patients were mostly poor, often undocumented. The doctors were mostly white. One of my Guatemalan patients told me that on the difficult month-long walk into the US, with blisters and diarrhea, our hospital was known as the first place to get decent, free care. As residents, we worked and lived in the hospital so many nights. It felt like home. On one of my days off, in street clothes, jeans, and a T shirt, I went into the hospital to finish dictati... posted on Sep 25 2018 (9,981 reads)

want to be a member of a thriving and diverse social movement, not a cult or a religion. Occupy Love, Hella Love Oakland March, February 14 2012. Credit: Flickr/Glenn Halog. CC BY-NC 2.0. As an intersectional activist who is concerned about the future of our movements, I’m really worried that social justice activism in the West is stuck in a dangerous state of disrepair. Ideological purity has become the norm. Social justice movements, which were originally about freeing marginalized people from oppressive institutions and social structures, have become imbued with their own narrow framework of morality. Our knowledge base is made up of reactionary think-pieces, self-rig... posted on Oct 24 2018 (8,274 reads)

Angell at Longhaul Farm in the Hudson Valley, New York. Credit: Theo Angell. For most of my life I‘ve been a political activist, believing the story that social transformation comes through radical legislation pushed along by brave elected leaders. I once imagined becoming one of those leaders myself, and had a mental picture of giving a speech to a massive group of people in what looked like the National Mall in Washington DC.   I know I inherited that picture from my father, who harbored dreams of being a politician who had something true to say to people that would lead them out of the wilderness. He ran for Congress in 1972 unsuccessfully in the same commu... posted on Oct 28 2018 (7,308 reads)

summer, I invited our congregation to participate in a kindness challenge. I said, “Approach strangers and ask, ‘Is there anything I can do or say to help you have a better day?’ Since I encouraged the congregation to engage in this practice, I thought I should give it a try as well. Not that I wanted to. At all. I had many concerns. I’m reclusive by nature. I was afraid people would think I was weird. Or even worse, people would ask me to give something beyond my capacity to give – and then I would feel like a disappointment when I couldn’t deliver. I often tell people to serve beyond their comfort zone t... posted on Oct 6 2018 (11,721 reads)

Books, 1992 Have you ever read Badger’s Parting Gifts? It tells the story of an old Badger who knows he will be dying soon, and worries about how his friends Mole, Frog, Fox, and Rabbit will cope with his departure after he goes down “the Long Tunnel.” The rest of this beautifully illustrated book revolves around the touching and creative ways in which Badger’s friends end up cherishing his legacy, and working through their loss. It is one of my favorite children’s books, and it has a very special place in my heart because it was first read to me on the night before my mother died. She was a gifted psychotherapist who worked fo... posted on Dec 6 2018 (11,895 reads)

Shamasunder is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCSF, and co-founder of Heal Initiative. He completed his Internal Medicine residency at Harbor UCLA. He has worked extensively in Rwanda, Liberia, Haiti, Burundi, and India. In 2010, he was named an Asia 21 fellow as well as the Northern California Young Physician of the Year. The piece below was originally published in the October 2006 edition of New Physician. Photo credit Frederic Martin Duchamp  The largest Tibetan refugee colony in the world lies five hours from where I spent the summers of my childhood at my grandmother’s house in Bangalore,India. Neither my mother nor my father n... posted on Mar 14 2019 (5,489 reads)

Newton-John on Stephen Jenkinson Having taught classes on grief and dying, I’ve read many books on the subject of death, but nothing quite like Stephen Jenkinson’s Die Wise. From the moment I opened it, I was galvanised, not just by the depth of its insights, but by its remarkable prose style. Eschewing the cool, objective tone of most modern non-fiction, Stephen adopts a storyteller’s voice: passionate, poetic, at times elliptical and difficult, but always engaged at the level of heart and gut. For all the obvious intelligence, there is nothing academic here: these are the outpourings of a man who has grappled with death intimately, in the trenches of ... posted on Oct 19 2018 (12,394 reads)

out of line and questioned. Jamal: I showed the passport officer a flyer of the three of us doing an interfaith, inter-spiritual program, and she kept saying, “A Rabbi, a Muslim, a Christian pastor? This is good, very, very good.” She took it upon herself to guide me through all the procedures, escort me to a supervisor, wait with me in line, and her constant mantra was “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you. This is good, very good.” Ted: Two images were important to me during our trip. Many churches are built on places where a great teaching of Jesus occurred. But, the church buildings actually hide the place where something happened. And... posted on Oct 13 2018 (5,888 reads)

inch of water wobbles in the handmade bowl cupped between my hands. I raise the clay vessel to the cloudless sky, praising rains long past for nourishing the land, for allowing streams to flow, for recharging the subterranean aquifer whose miracle waters runs through my household tap. Although right now no water comes through the tap; something has gone awry with the shared well and our neighborhood is without water. The land that holds a community well also holds remnants of ancient pottery: plain potsherds buried in sand between pinyon and juniper. Some of the broken pots once held water, the priceless treasure of the desert. This land is dry and crisp with cheatgrass. The monsoo... posted on Oct 11 2018 (8,483 reads)

following excerpt by Tsering Gellek is from Tarthang Tulku's new book 'Caring' (Dharma Publishing, 2018).  To care is to really understand that we are in a very concerning situation. As the individual in modern society moves through various spheres of life, from home, to school, to work, to perhaps hospitals and eventually death, she often has less and less support from the people around her. When I imagine earlier times, I think there was a deeper sense of care from family, friends and neighbors, from our religious or sacred communities, from the towns and villages we lived in. This atmosphere of care, of embeddedness, of being inter woven ... posted on Nov 1 2018 (9,448 reads)

are lots of ways to lose your voice in this world...”   These words were spoken by Kevin Hancock,  an award-winning author, public speaker, and CEO of  Hancock Lumber, one of America’s oldest and most prestigious family businesses. Kevin is the winner of many distinguished awards including the Habitat for Humanity ‘Spirit of Humanity’ award, and the Boy Scouts of America Distinguished Citizen award.   In 2010, Kevin developed a voice disorder called spasmodic dysphonia.  As his speaking voice became quiet, the voice of his soul became louder. This new voice urged him to connect with the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where h... posted on Nov 6 2018 (5,866 reads)

would say, “OK, I want to get to yes, but what about the difficult adversary, difficult neighbor, difficult spouse, difficult child?” Over the years, it dawned on me that the most difficult person we ever have to deal with, the person who really gets in the way of us getting what we want in a negotiation, is not the person on the other side of the table; it’s the person right here. If I can influence myself, then maybe I have a chance to influence the other. We have these images like those captured in that old Greek fable of the argument between the North Wind and the Sun. They’re up in the sky and having a big argument about who is more powerful. They couldn&rsq... posted on Nov 16 2018 (8,868 reads)

essay is published in The Great Work: Our Way Into the Future, by Thomas Berry I was a young person then, some twelve years old. My family was moving from a more settled part of a Southern town out to the edge of town where the new house was still being built. The house, not yet finished, was situated on a slight incline. Down below was a small creek and there across the creek was a meadow. It was an early afternoon in May when I first looked down over the scene and saw the meadow. The field was covered with lilies rising above the thick grass. A magic moment, this experience gave to my life something, I know not what, that seems to explain my life at a more profound level than ... posted on Nov 21 2018 (5,640 reads)

Simon is the founder and CEO of Sounds True, a multimedia publishing company that Tami founded in 1985 at the age of 22 with the mission of disseminating spiritual wisdom. Today, still faithful to its original mission, Sounds True has grown to have nearly 110 employees and a library of close to 2000 titles featuring some of the leading teachers and visionaries of our time.  Sounds True is a pioneer in the conscious business movement, and Tami leads in a way that values their multiple bottom lines, which include relationship and mission as well as profit.  Tami also hosts Insights at the Edge, a popular weekly podcast where she has interviewed many of today’s... posted on Nov 24 2018 (6,328 reads)

winner María Lorena. It has taken more than two weeks for the word to get out, but today the news is circulating quickly about a 22-year-old Rarámuri runner who won an ultramarathon April 29 in Puebla. María Lorena Ramírez, considered one of the fastest long-distance runners from the Rarámuri indigenous community in Chihuahua, won the females’ 50-kilometer category of the Ultra Trail Cerro Rojo, in which 500 other runners from 12 countries participated. But unlike her fellow contestants, Lorena completed the course with neither sports equipment nor professional preparation. For clothing she wore a skirt, hat and kerchief. For sho... posted on Nov 25 2018 (11,798 reads)

distinguished activist for peace for over 30 years, Dr. Scilla Elworthy has met with scientists and nuclear weapons policy makers from all five nuclear powers. She founded the Oxford Research Group, Peace Direct, and co-founded 'Rising Women, Rising World' and FemmeQ, and was nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize. She is interviewed here about her latest book, "The Business Plan for Peace: Building a World without War." In it, she points out that while 1,686 billion dollars is spent on militarization every year, it would only cost two billion dollars to put into action methodologies that are known to work to prevent war and armed conflict worldwide. What fol... posted on Feb 15 2019 (7,661 reads)

does it mean to live wisely and well and what does it take? How can we cultivate qualities such as love, wisdom, kindness, and compassion?”  Our guest today, Dr. Roger Walsh, addresses these questions. A man with an eclectic past, Roger has explored contemplative life as a professor, physician, therapist, celebrated author, spouse, spiritual practitioner, and inquisitive human being.   He is a former circus acrobat, as well as a record holder in the fields of high diving and trampolining. Roger claims to have no final answers about life and meaning; yet through a combination of spiritual wisdom and practical tools, he offers hope and healing for us all, individually... posted on Jan 17 2019 (6,286 reads)

in nature in radical, fresh, and enlivening ways. Humans, Earth and the rest of life are bound in a single story and destiny. It is no longer a question of “saving the environment” as if it was something out there apart from us. We humans are the environment, and it is us — shaping our minds, nourishing our bodies, refreshing our spirit. The task of articulating an integrated vision and identifying effective values requires new language, broader framing, inspiring images, captivating metaphors, and, most of all, new stories and dreams. As cultural historian Thomas Berry says: “If a society’s cultural world — the dreams that have guided it to a... posted on Dec 17 2018 (6,605 reads)

mother was a single mom, and I was her only child. We lived in the ’60s in the city in a tiny apartment. My Aunt Rose and cousins lived next-door. Every December my mom spread the word to anyone alone on Christmas Eve that she would be having an open house. My mom believed that no one should be alone during the holidays. If she could, she probably would have put an ad in the paper inviting the world. As it was, our tiny apartment was stuffed, every room but my bedroom filled with partying adults on Christmas Eve. Sleep was impossible, but I tried to fall asleep anyway because Santa would not leave gifts for little girls who were awake (so I was told). As I lay in bed, I wondered ... posted on Dec 25 2022 (19,104 reads)