County school bus driver Paul Cochran loads his bus with food boxes that he will deliver to students in Charleston, West Virginia. PHOTO BY BRIAN FERGUSON / 100 DAYS IN APPALACHIA On any day in Appalachia, you can find gifts in front of houses, left on porches for the people inside: mushrooms just foraged, cookies freshly baked. The porch is an extension of the home in Appalachia—not only a gathering spot for conversation, but a traditional sharing place. If you want to exchange tools, plants, or hand-me-downs with your neighbor: you put them on the porch. In times of struggle, porches are the vessel to deliver food: frozen meals to new parents, casseroles for griev... posted on May 16 2020 (5,159 reads)

from Resilient Threads: Weaving Joy and Meaning into Well-Being, from Chapter 3, “Connecting the Dots.” A Mother/Physician with the Multiple Hats Syndrome Despite the neighborly support, I was stretched thin with all the hats I wore, striving to perfection in every role: mother, sister, daughter, wife, physician, teacher, friend, colleague, acquaintance, and so on. For seventeen years I left home at six in the morning with both children plus three or four other neighborhood children in the carpool. I’d drop the girls off at the girls’ school, the boys at the boys’ school, then come to work. After a long day at work, I would pick them up and d... posted on May 18 2020 (5,471 reads)

centuries, individualism or the notion that every human individual has intrinsic value has underlined ideas about societal organisation, the economy and justice. Recently, however, the primacy of the individual’s inalienable rights and freedoms has come under immense pressure. Individualism in the West originated from the Enlightenment. It believes in the moral worth of the individual and that his/ her interests should take precedence over the state or the social group. This birthed laissez faire capitalism, in which the individual is a free market agent. Western style individualism has had its greatest run since World War 2. Even with large parts of Europe behind the Iron Cu... posted on May 21 2020 (8,351 reads)

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 well as transforming the corrections system as a whole in order to mitigate its extremely destructive impact on families, communities and the overall social capital of our society. The below text is available for download as a PDF on their website. Composed by the Buddhist Mast... posted on May 31 2020 (19,284 reads)

interesting thing about the book, is that — I believe, when bodies of culture come up to me and talk to me, if a black woman or Indigenous woman or somebody comes up to me and talks to me, the one thing that they all say is, “I been thinking this my whole life, and then, when I read it in your book, it made me feel like I wasn’t crazy” — because racialization makes us walk around like we’re crazy, like the things that are vibratorially happening to us, the images that are happening, the meaning, all of that different type — the fact that we walk around with this braceness, because we’re infected with this idea that the white body is the supr... posted on Jun 6 2020 (18,910 reads)

by Filipe Leme from Pexels Phyllis Cole-Dai is a writer and poet, perhaps best known for perhaps best known for 'The Emptiness of Our Hands', a spiritual memoir chronicling the 47 days that she and co-author James Murray practiced "being present" while living by choice on the streets of Columbus, Ohio. On her 58th birthday earlier this year, she wrote 58 one-line pandemic prayers and crafted them into a poem. See the text below. Perhaps it will give you a boost. You can listen to Phyllis read the poem here or download it here. ON MY 58TH BIRTHDAY: 58 PANDEMIC PRAYERS May we all survive to another birthday. May we greet the s... posted on Jul 2 2020 (44,994 reads)

powell is one of the foremost public intellectuals in the areas of civil rights, racism, ethnicity, housing and poverty. Despite a distinguished career, powell spells his name in lowercase on the simple and humble idea that we are part of the universe, not over it. He has introduced into the public lexicon the concepts of “othering and belonging.” For powell, "othering" hurts not only people of color, but whites, women, animals and the planet itself, because certain people are not seen in their full humanity. Belonging is much more profound than access; “it’s about co-creating the thing you are joining” rather than having to conform to rul... posted on Jul 18 2020 (5,765 reads)

from The Courage Way: Leading and Living with Integrity by the Center for Courage & Renewal and Shelly L. Francis (Berrett-Koehler, 2018). Fight. Flee. Freeze. Flock. But for each stress reaction, an option exists to get us out of our corners: fortify. As when we take vitamins and essential minerals, we can fortify ourselves for the hard times. When fortified, we can choose how to respond instead of simply reacting, and our choices come from a healthier, more self-aware stance. Fortitude is another word for courage. When Thomas Aquinas wrote about bravery in the thirteenth century, he used the Latin word fortitudo, and held that courage was a disposition required for ever... posted on Jul 22 2020 (6,141 reads)

Scotson is an artist-turned-neuroscientist, and founder of the Linda Scotson Technique (LST) -- an approach that has restored functionality and well-being in the lives of thousands of people navigating a wide-range of health conditions, including autism, brain injuries, anxiety, hypertension and much more. Three days after his birth, Linda Scotson's son Doran was given a terrible prognosis. His back arched, his hands were fisted, his eyes crossed, he couldn't hear. She was told that he had severe athetoid cerebral palsy and severe bilateral hearing loss.  His doctors explained that he would never be able to sit, stand, walk independent... posted on Jul 30 2020 (13,466 reads)

following piece has been adapted from Thrive Global I first met Master Mingtong Gu 8 years ago. A friend had invited me to his studio in Petaluma, CA, for a qigong workshop. Qi (“chee”) means life-force energy, gong means cultivation. Slow, easy movements. Low risk enough. And evidence-based. I was a doctor of internal medicine, trained to think critically and methodically, cautious of anything that might fall into the realm of “miracles.”  But I was also desperate. I had suffered for years with complex autoimmune illnesses, including Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and chronic fatigue syndrome—the shadow conditions of Western medicine. Despite conv... posted on Aug 3 2020 (13,797 reads)

the next 3 weeks, I will post a chapter from my new book release, Beyond Hope: Letting Go of a World in Collapse to give you a taste of what lives inside. This week, I offer you the powerful Introduction. If you dare, read on. *********** This book began as something very different than what you now hold in your hands. Originally conceived as a testament to the “beautiful new world” my heart still believed was possible, the working title for this masterpiece was, Revolution 3.0. Revolution 3.0 would be the ultimate transformation in consciousness that inspired the reclamation of wholeness leading us back to the very essence of who we are: the int... posted on Aug 25 2020 (8,288 reads)

earlier version of this essay was published in T’ai Chi: The International Magazine of T’ai Chi Ch’uan, September 1997 All natural things curl, swirl, twist, and flow in patterns like flowing water. Thus we sense something similar in clouds, smoke, streams, the wind-blown waves of sand on the beach, the pattern of branches against the sky, the shape of summer grasses, the markings on rocks, the movement of animals. Even solid bones have lines of flow on their exterior and in their spongy interior. Spiders build their webs, caterpillars their cocoons in water-like spirals. The rings in an exposed log look like a whirlpool. And looking up in the night sky we ca... posted on Aug 17 2020 (9,381 reads)

touch the earth is to move into harmony with nature.” --Oglala Sioux Shamans, Native Americans, and wisdom teachers all over the world see the earth as a giant, conscious, living being. They say pollution sickens her in the same way cancer spreads slowly through a human body. Debilitated though she may be, our Mother Earth still retains tremendous power to heal. When we physically ground ourselves on her surface we are gifted with her vital energies. The science behind it is simple: The water in your body acts as an electrical conduit to earth’s negative ionic charge so you feel better when any part of you touches it. Charged particles that come orig... posted on Sep 9 2020 (14,600 reads)

from Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, The New Press, 2016            I have lived most of my life in the progressive camp but in recent years I began to want to better understand those on the right. How did they come to hold their views? Could we make common cause on some issues? These questions led me to drive, one day, from plant to plant in the bleak industrial outskirts of Lake Charles, Louisiana, with Sharon Galicia, a warm, petite, white single mother, a blond beauty, on her rounds selling medical insurance. Unfazed by a deafening buzz saw cutting vast sheets of steel, she bantered... posted on Sep 23 2020 (5,247 reads)

do business and spirituality meet? How does one use creativity to unite? How might we walk our unique path in solving problems outside and dissolving the ego inside?    A weekday brand-consultant, a weekend rock-climber, author during nights and a lifetime seeker of Truth -- Kiran Khalap’s journey is a striking example of a life of emergence which defies linear planning.  At the early age of 17, when most are concerned about grades and friends, Kiran’s strongest yearning was “to know the Truth”. He read most contemporary philosophers and ancient scriptures, but finally it was J Krishnamurti’s words which c... posted on Sep 25 2020 (4,380 reads)

Breathing slowly, deeply, can de-escalate a full-blown panic attack in a matter of minutes. Remembering to breathe throughout the day de-stresses you, and helps you install calm as your real baseline, not stress as the new normal. Hand on the heart. Neural cells around the heart activate during stress. Your warm hand on your heart calms those neurons down again, often in less than a minute. Hand on the heart works especially well when you breathe positive thoughts, feelings, images of safety and trust, ease, and goodness into your heart at the same time. Meditation. Sylvia Boorstein’s book Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There, speaks to our instinct... posted on Oct 21 2020 (11,352 reads)

week I told you about my red winter coat—how it helps to keep me warm not only by what it’s made of but also by what’s on it: signatures of people who believe in the power of community; who understand that their lives are bound up with the lives of others; who know that they belong—or who want to belong and are struggling to find a way. Entering pandemic winter in South Dakota, isolated and socially distanced, I realized that my coat would have no signers this year, unless I had some extraordinary help. So I invited you to sign by proxy. “Drop me an email,” I said, “and tell me how to inscribe your name. I’ll be happy to carry you ... posted on Nov 7 2020 (4,939 reads)

water from there and the rose oil from the village have been added to our blessing water today. The rose and its Eastern equivalent, the lotus, are the pattern for the sacred mandala, or cosmic wheel. A mandala is a circle that speaks of wholeness. In Sanskrit it means “to be in possession of one’s essence”. The round moon is a mandala, and so is an egg, and a nest, a fully open rose, the cycle of the seasons, and a rose window. Carl Jung suggested we meditate on these images to center ourselves as a path to peace. On the floor of Chartres Cathedral in France is a mandala in the form of a labyrinth.  It is a metaphor for our journey through life. Walking it ... posted on Nov 15 2020 (7,791 reads)

the very earliest time When both people and animals lived on earth A person could become an animal if he wanted to and an animal could become a human being. Sometimes they were people and sometimes animals and there was no difference. All spoke the same language That was the time when words were like magic. The human mind had mysterious powers. A word spoken by chance might have strange consequences. It would suddenly come alive and what people wanted to happen could happen— all you had to do was say it. Nobody could explain this: That’s the way it was. -- Nalungiaq, Inuit woman interviewed by ethnologist Knud Rasmussen in the early twentieth century. The ... posted on Dec 5 2020 (7,352 reads)

be a spiritual warrior, one must have a broken heart; without a broken heart and the sense of tenderness and vulnerability, your warriorship is untrustworthy.” ~Chögyam Trungpa Destructive wildfires rage in California where I live and throughout the Western region states, darkening the sky with smokey orange light. Fires also blaze through the Amazon forests. Ice is permanently melting in the artic poles, threatening to alter ocean and weather patterns upon which the stability of our civilization is built. In the U.S. and around the world there now seems to be a growing poverty and decline in health and wellbeing on myriad levels. More visible now are the links betwee... posted on Dec 10 2020 (6,107 reads)