truth, hidden truth, old truth, self-evident truth, relevant truth, rational truth, impotent truth, indifferent truth, mathematical truth, half-truth, absolute truth, and factual truth. There is no “the truth,” only truth in reference to something particular. The adjectives she attaches to truth transform the concept into something worldly. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, different forms of truth recur in reference to particular points that Arendt is arguing - that images distort the truth, for example, or that political rhetoric by necessity is an act of distortion, a re-figuring of our common understanding of truth. In politics one hears phrases like ‘th... posted on Jan 7 2021 (6,278 reads)

the wake of disturbing recent events in America's capital, community leaders, activists, authors, artists and teachers are speaking up for justice and peace. Here we share timely reflections, resources and inspiration from various voices that DailyGood has featured over the years. Parker Palmer: Author, educator, activist Wed., Jan. 6, 2021, is now engraved in American history as yet another date that reveals how fragile our democracy is—and how strong. Like a KKK rally, the insurrection brought us face-to-face with an evil that has lived among and within too many Americans from the start of this country. Many have been laid low by this latest edition of u... posted on Jan 9 2021 (8,779 reads)

Dr. Peniel Joseph was growing up in New York City during the 1980s and 1990s, a child of a Haitian immigrant single mother, he learned about how the civil rights movement had transformed America, ended legalized segregation, secured black voting rights and moved the nation closer to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of a "beloved community." Yet his own lived experience involved fielding racial slurs at his mostly white high school in Queens, and in other ways absorbing the racial divisions that persisted in the social, political and cultural landscape of New York City in that day. This included an incident that shaped his early life, in which a black man was chased to d... posted on Jan 12 2021 (2,653 reads)

Cole-Dai's ​poem entered my heart as a balm a gift that seemed specially crafted for my losses. But I know all who read these words​--​ that arrived from the dream world​--​will be moved deeply. This stunning book will serve as a life raft to carry you to the other side of your journey of grief​. --​Maryanne Murphy Zarzana, poet "For the Sake of One We Love and Are Losing" is a remarkable poem. Its origins lay in a powerful dream that writer Phyllis Cole-Dai had just before the pandemic hit the United States. Don't miss the PDF of the poem available for download and sharing at the end of this... posted on Jan 28 2021 (13,120 reads)

who speak in spiritual terms routinely refer to God as creator but seldom see "creator" as the literal term for "artist". I am suggesting you take the term "creator" quite literally. You are seeking to forge a creative alliance, artist-to-artist with the Great Creator. Accepting this concept can greatly expand your creative possibilities." --Julia Cameron, "The Artist's Way" Through a 'not-so-smart' smartphone mishap, the Universe tapped me on the shoulder recently and invited me into the Universal Flow of abundance and creativity. I'd meant to send a text message to a certain Julia I know, but my smartphone... posted on Feb 9 2021 (6,830 reads)

me set the scene: I walk up to five men skateboarding by the statue in Prospect Park, they are hanging with each other and I approach and I say, "Hey, I wrote a poem about you, for you, can I read it to you?" All five of them look up at me like, what, what the hell is happening here? And then one by one they say, "Yeah, sure, do it." My phone has 1% battery left. It might die before I even begin. I am a white queer woman in her 40s wearing layers dressed to go running and only my eyes are visible. They are five young men of color, in their 20's, all masked. This scenario is admittedly the kind of thing you'd make fun of. By all means, do. I almost walked... posted on Feb 11 2021 (9,994 reads)

Tree in Chianti, Italy, photo by Jim Glaser Poetry—my father quoted it frequently, my grandmother collected it in scrapbooks –cards from friends, I memorized snatches of it in school. Poetry really came to me as a young father when my family and I needed to move across the country away from our best friends. It was an unsettled, lonely. time and  I started taking walks in the evening to relax. It was spring.  Lemon blossoms.  Amazingly, I felt something in me wanting to flow out and dance-- and words-- short poems tumbled out of me.  I was surprised, encouraged, and felt happily hooked. Then one day I serendipitously discovered another poet, and t... posted on Feb 22 2021 (4,933 reads)

my early 20s, I apprenticed myself to the The Queen Mothers of Kroboland in Ghana with the hope of understanding more about my cultural heritage. Early one morning, I arrived at the compound of Paramount Queen Mother Manye Nartike, who was particularly animated by a rumor she had heard about our diasporic practices in relation to land. In disbelief she admonished me, “Is it true that in the United States, a farmer will put the seed into the ground and not pour any libations, offer any prayers, sing, or dance, and expect that seed to grow?” Met with my ashamed silence, she continued, “That is why you are all sick! Because you see the Earth as a thing and not a being.&rdqu... posted on Feb 23 2021 (5,128 reads)

by Ariel Burger What follows is a transcript syndicated from On Being, of an interview between Krista Tippett and Ariel Burger. You can listen to the audio of this interview here. Transcript Krista Tippett, host: I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being. Ariel Burger is a rabbi, as well as an artist and teacher. He’s the author of Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom. I love this description he gives of Wiesel’s face: “It looks like a map of the world, if the world had been wounded but still managed to laugh.” Ariel Burger’s own religious sensibility was formed in part by the contrast between the two home... posted on Feb 25 2021 (6,360 reads)

Begin With, the Sweet Grass" Will the hungry ox stand in the field and not eat     of the sweet grass? Will the owl bite off its own wings? Will the lark forget to lift its body in the air or     forget to sing? Will the rivers run upstream? Behold, I say—behold the reliability and the finery and the teachings     of this gritty earth gift.                                              2. Eat bread an... posted on Feb 27 2021 (25,686 reads)

way what traditional cultures called soul loss. This was the most feared condition to indigenous people. It led to a flattened world, disenchanted and emptied of vitality, joy, and passion. Relations with the living, singing world were silenced in this condition, leaving one stranded in a deadened world. Soul loss is experienced as a depletion in our vital essence, leading to a decreased sense of potency and power. In mythological imagery, we have entered the wasteland. Here, images appear in dreams of ghettos and prisons, ragged orphans and barren stretches of empty buildings. Psychologically we call this depression, but to the indigenous soul, depression is the symptom, ... posted on Mar 4 2021 (10,974 reads)

to stay in her home, where she lives with her biologist husband and two now-teenage daughters. Rhodes spent those weeks following Barman everywhere. They went to the market, where the conservationist stuffed her cloth bag to the brim with vegetables, refusing to use plastic. They went to schools and villages, where people treated Barman like a celebrity. Rhodes even attended a wedding with Barman, who somehow convinced the couple to adorn their ceremony with statues of hargilas and to paint images of the birds on guests’ hands with henna. Rhodes repeatedly marveled at how much influence Barman had on just about everyone, including the police. If someone reports an injured hargil... posted on Mar 19 2021 (5,623 reads)

vision will become clear only when you look into your own heart.   --Carl Jung I have been writing poems since childhood. My notebook became a friend with whom I could have a quiet dialogue. This relationship has continued and sustained me for decades.  It is in observing the small things that make up a daily life that calls me into making a poem. It is the simple topic, a commonality that I choose to explore, so when I walk down a street, open a can of soup, view a fading poster on the wall, or imagine what I might write in wet cement, I ask myself what am I noticing and what is my response in the moment. The action of allowing a pause to set down words wit... posted on Mar 27 2021 (5,165 reads)

is it about Dutch photographers that makes them so visually eloquent at capturing the human condition? From Jeroen Toirkens comes Nomad (public library) — a fascinating and strikingly beautiful visual anthropology of the Northern Hemisphere’s last living nomadic peoples, from Greenland to Turkey. A decade in the making, this multi-continent journey unfolds in 150 black-and-white and full-color photos that reveal what feels like an alternate reality of a life often harsh, sometimes poetic, devoid of many of our modern luxuries and basic givens, from shiny digital gadgets to a permanent roof over one’s head. Since the beginning of time,... posted on Mar 28 2021 (5,414 reads)

the spring of 2017, Nandini Murali, a South Indian journalist and author, returned from an out-of-town assignment to an eerily quiet home. Typically, her husband would greet her at the front door, but that morning he hadnt answered her phone calls. It was Nandini who discovered his body, and confronted an unfathomable reality. T.R. Murali, one of the most prominent urologists in India, and her beloved husband of 33 years, had ended his own life. "Space dissolved," writes Nandini, of that moment. "Time stood still. The axis of my life heaved, cracked and split." On the first anniversary of her husband's death, Nandini launched SPEAK (Suicide Prevention Postvention E... posted on Apr 13 2021 (6,863 reads)

day that I think we should all do, if I may, because it connects us to life in a very vivid way, and it brings so many gifts. And anyway, circling back to the question, I think the best way to transmit and to radiate awe is just to live it as much as you can every day. Fabiana: Something that I've also been thinking about, from an archetypal point of view -- I don't want to make it too complicated -- but archetypes are these energies and impulses, constellations of energies and images and impulses that live in us and through us.  For example, the nurturing instinct, the mother instinct, the lover, the seeker, the sage, the hero, these are different archetypes that form ... posted on Apr 17 2021 (5,985 reads)

softened my conviction to avoid becoming a mother. Eventually I learned that the conscious part of my personality did not, in fact, have all the answers. At twenty-eight, I was studying international relations in New York. I planned to go to law school next, so that I would be equipped to continue my exciting work with international nonprofts. But some deeper part of myself had other plans. Upon arriving in New York, I began having dream after dream set in the subway. These subterranean dream images mirrored a psychic descent. In spite of my efforts to avoid doing so, I was falling into a depression. The work that had heretofore given my life a sense of purpose and meaning now seemed empty... posted on Apr 20 2021 (8,212 reads)

credit: Aura Glaser   The Alphabet Heart Sutra came to me whole, arriving with the light of morning. I followed an inner prompting and immediately wrote it down. Never having composed poetry or prayer in acrostic form before, I was quite surprised by the structure it took. Upon reflection, I wondered if perhaps impressions from childhood, reciting acrostic Hebrew prayers and passages, filtered into the Alphabet Heart Sutra that early morning.   It is said that the essence of the Heart Sutra, and the entire voluminous Perfection of Wisdom Sutras to which it belongs, is contained and expressed in one syllable: Ah.  Knowing this, I also refer to the ... posted on May 9 2021 (8,125 reads)

are some striking passages that I feel kind of invite someone inside your sense — who you are, and how you hold a sense of that that goes so much farther back than the story matrix that most of — that American culture is aware of, most of the time, or ever — this kind of cosmic sensibility you have. I don’t see you using the word “spiritual” very often. Is that too narrow a word? Harjo:I think part of that comes from not wanting to — so many images of Natives are stereotypes. They’re usually around bloodthirsty warriors, or spiritual guardians who know everything and are protective and so on. And certainly, because these lands are i... posted on May 24 2021 (5,663 reads)

the third century CE to this day, bowing to the Buddha is the most common practice for Asian Buddhists. However, among Westerners, bowing practice, as compared with meditation, is not as well-known. Last summer, I had an opportunity to speak with Reverend Heng Sure, the director of the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery, and asked for more information about Buddhist bowing and repentance. In the late 1970s, Reverend Sure and a fellow monk did a three-year bowing pilgrimage for world peace along the coast of California. Their journey began in Pasadena and ended three years and 800 miles later at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Ukiah. And most astonishingly, their knees had already endured ... posted on Jun 1 2021 (6,142 reads)