a sunny Saturday morning, and my wife and I turn into a residential neighborhood of Santa Rosa, California – the only sign of commerce is a beleaguered shopping mall a few hundred feet away. I glance down at my GPS to make sure this is where we want to be and in doing so I almost pass my destination. There it is tucked away to the left, sandwiched between two homes: Worth our Weight (W.O.W) The whimsical name brings to mind a weight-loss program or some sort of preemptive apologetic reassurance for long lines. This restaurant has neither. The front is clean, simple and inviting, with large colorful posters on the front window explaining the mission of W.O.W. ... posted on Jun 27 2012 (11,930 reads)

has become a public health issue. New research suggests moment-to-moment awareness does a better job of helping people control their weight than any diet. Deborah Hill used to think she was skinny. Her 5 foot 9 inch frame could take on a lot of weight without making her look out of shape. But last year she was shocked to discover that she weighed over 210 pounds, which classified her as medically obese. “It was just crazy,” says Hill. “I’d never had a problem with weight.” Hill is one of a growing number of Americans—over 35 percent, according to the Center for Disease Control—who are considered obese, having a body mass index ... posted on Jul 28 2012 (19,590 reads)

at my repeated requests to have him pull over so that I could take more pictures of these gorgeous works of art. To him, they were as ordinary as a palm tree to a Floridian, or an oak tree to one of us Midwesterners. When I got back home, I started to put my camera away in the drawer where it's safely kept until the next recital or birthday cake moment. But then I thought twice. It struck me that when I travel to new places, I always pull out my camera to capture novel and interesting images. I take time, even in my own amateurish way, to look at objects straight on and from the side, and I'm often surprised by the beauty and uniqueness revealed through the camera's lens. ... posted on Aug 1 2012 (14,169 reads)

Berry may not quite be a household name. But I, for one, mention his name on a regular basis in my house, while traveling around the country, and when talking with neighborhood friends about produce, local happenings, or politics.   Wendell Berry is a farmer, writer, and preservationist from Kentucky. He splits his time between three quiet activities: 1) writing fiction, poetry, and essays, putting pen to paper (quite literally) in a tiny hut on the Kentucky river; 2) working his farm; and 3) engaging in non-violent civil disobedience supporting various humanitarian or agrarian causes. He has spoken out in his 76 years against wars, corporate corruption, nuclear p... posted on Aug 15 2012 (14,522 reads)

Grass   During the second part of our South India trip where we spent three or so days with Ragu and Nisha on their farm near Coimbatore. I've been dreading writing this post because there is so much I want to capture about the experience, and I'm a bit at a loss on how to organize my thoughts and give it all the justice it deserves. The best I can muster is to break my reflections into mini-blogs (blogbites? bloggets? blots?) on particular topics. So here we go: Ragu and Nisha I am so inspired by the path they have taken in their lives. Both were high-flying professionals in Silicon Valley (Ragu a marketing whiz, Nisha a hardcore so... posted on Aug 23 2012 (25,858 reads)

— you are already perfect. Other people are also just as perfect, and don’t need improvement. You just need to appreciate them for who they are. The moment we are living in is not a stepping stone to something better — it is exactly wonderful, and we have already arrived at the perfect moment.   The Contented Life It might be useful to look at what life would be like if you learned to be content: 1.  Self image. We compare ourselves with the images in our head of perfection — movie stars, models in magazines, other people who seem to have it all together — and we can never measure up to those perfect images. But those images a... posted on Sep 8 2012 (37,197 reads)

all began with gratitude. …And maybe some sneakers and paint. He goes by the name Peace Artist, and he spent the past year running 6,000 miles from Seattle to San Diego to Savannah, Georgia. He ran until given shelter, fasted until given food. He carried no money, only art supplies, to create and gift original works of art along the way. He never asked for anything, yet he received so much in return. In the entire year of his journey, Peace never missed a single meal. Sometimes, that meal came in the form of raspberries or dandelion greens growing by the side of the road, or apples from a tree. But more often, he was approached by strangers, curious and intrigued b... posted on Oct 12 2012 (38,298 reads)

a sweet twist to this lemonade stand story that will quench your thirst to take a stand to help elevate your community and humanity. Take a sip and read on….         Sometimes the best life lessons can be learned from kids.  Kids like Miss Vivienne Harr of Fairfax, Calif. Vivie, as she likes to be called, is a personality-full-cup-runneth-over, 8-year-old philanthropy phenom who set up a lemonade stand – or what I like to call Lemonade Stand 2.0. Vivie was inspired to take a stand against slavery after seeing an installation on slavery by Lisa Kristine, a photographer who captured these authentic, haunti... posted on Oct 21 2012 (18,577 reads)

photographer Sam Beam and his buddy Josh Brinkin were out four wheeling and testing an iPhone helmet cam mount in a remote area outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico when they spotted some ravens and vultures near a known watering hole. They rode in for a closer look and were jolted by the sight of a bull calf, barely alive, still next to the body of a cow assumed to be his mother.  She had been deceased for days and he had evidently been left to wither in the ultimate act of cruelty. But it appears the universe had other plans for this little one, big plans… “This little guy had his mouth, eyes and e... posted on Nov 6 2012 (17,509 reads)

a little pencil in the hands of God who is scripting his love letter to the world.” ~Mother Theresa   Finding a letter of encouragement in the mail or tucked unexpectedly in the unlikeliest of places is sometimes all we need when in doubt or feeling down on our luck.  And imagine receiving this note anonymously, as if some magical force out there knew just what you needed to hear and wanted you to know that you haven’t been forgotten.  The First Letter.... In the fall of 2010, in the midst of her own depression and loneliness, Hannah Brencher was inspired to become this magical force.  Not inspired by something wonder... posted on Jan 11 2013 (26,395 reads)

Degree in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Moved by the dire situation faced by migrant workers in her beloved city of Beijing, she recruited help from her friends and numerous volunteers to create the Dandelion School for children of migrant workers. One thing I had always wanted to do, but never had the opportunity, was to transform a whole school environment into a stimulating place for learning, filled with colors and inspiring images. The Dandelion School offered me a rare opportunity to realize my dream to create a total learning environment with the engagement of the whole school community. It is easy to measure the i... posted on Jan 20 2013 (8,814 reads)

years I worked with families who were very abusive to their children. Over time, I came to realize that all of the suffering that the children collected—whether it was domestic violence or child abuse or neglect—was a result of the absence of empathy in the parent. There wasn’t one of those parents who woke up and decided, “Today is the day I’m going to hurt my child.” These were not monsters; these were people who I loved, actually. I remember working with a group of teenage mothers who had all lived through sexual or physical abuse as children and were now struggling with addiction. They had great difficulty empathizing with their chi... posted on Jan 26 2013 (39,921 reads)

you ever sat down with your doctor and talked about your brain—heart to heart?  Neither have I.  But that’s exactly what happened in our Forest Call with Dr. James Doty. Apparently he is capable of living several lives simultaneously.  Among other things He is a neurosurgeon with top ratings from the Consumer Research Council of America.  He is the founder and Clinical Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University.  He is an inventor of surgical instruments and an entrepreneur.  He is a philanthropist whose gifts support global health and peace initiati... posted on Feb 22 2013 (21,330 reads)

June 2010, Snigdha Manickavel and her husband Bapoorau brought home a little black puppy from an animal shelter in South India. Mia had been brought in with her mother and three of her siblings, and was the only one of the pups to survive. The young couple who adopted her had no idea how deeply this bright-eyed newcomer would touch their hearts and transform their lives. In this short piece Snigdha opens a window onto their experience...which at its core is the experience of anyone who stumbles upon the gift of unconditional love. Mia will not always come if you call her. She may or may not sit: it depends on her mood. She definitel... posted on Mar 31 2013 (14,953 reads)

you ever thought to yourself how amazing it is the way you control your body?  We all know biologically how we function.  But I mean the actual processes of your mind sending neurological signals to your arms and legs.  It takes almost no time at all for you to take a step or raise your hand.  You don’t even have to think about it, you just do it.  Imagine the sparks of energy that start from your brain and then travel through your neurological pathways to all of your extremities in a matter of milliseconds, creating the result of you running or the intricacies involved in playing a sport.  It has always astonished me to imagine the complexities of... posted on Apr 15 2013 (14,623 reads)

show each other the way out at San Francisco’s Delancey Street. In early May 1995, Margie Lewis sat on a bench at the Delancey Street Foundation, a residential education center for addicts and ex-convicts in San Francisco, awaiting intake. Until that moment, her life had been defined by institutions—teenage years in the California Youth Authority and long stays in jail as an adult. Enrollment in the program was her last chance—her only alternative to the life sentence that would otherwise be mandated by the state’s new “Three Strikes and You’re Out” law. Lewis was filled with optimism. At Delancey, she saw no paid professional social wo... posted on May 24 2013 (11,501 reads)

live in a time of massive institutional failure, collectively creating results that nobody wants. Climate change. AIDS. Hunger. Poverty. Violence. Terrorism. The foundations of our social, economic, ecological, and spiritual wellbeing are in peril. Why do our attempts to deal with the challenges of our time so often fail? The cause of our collective failure is that we are blind to the deeper dimension of leadership and transformational change. This “blind spot” exists not only in our collective leadership but also in our everyday social interactions. We are blind to the source dimension from which effective leadership and social actio... posted on Jul 9 2013 (88,377 reads)

words have been exchanged; Now at last let me see some deeds! ...What does not happen today, will not be done tomorrow. - Goethe I can almost pinpoint the moment when I decided to save the world. It was sometime after my Mom died—my Mom who was the secret solar center of my life; whose letters always ended in exuberant sign-offs (lovelovelove, three exclamation points); who’d insisted, despite her terminal diagnosis, that I not cancel my book tour because the subject—compassion—was, for her, life’s indispensable thread. I’d begun writing my book The Compassionate Life to blow the dust off my bodhisattva vows, little suspectin... posted on Apr 13 2014 (13,356 reads)

Africa, the storytellers did not get paid, this is not their profession. The fact is that everybody told stories. And this really fascinated me. Storytelling, I learned very early, is a means of communicating, probably the means of communicating ideas, and communicating the organization of a society. And so it seems to me it's necessary that everybody in one way or another be a storyteller. Storytellers are constantly in the process of taking ancient images and casting them into contemporary kinds of forms. And so there's no such thing as an original story. I don't care where it is, whether it's written or oral, the fact is t... posted on Jun 25 2013 (13,694 reads)

century ago, industrialists like Andrew Carnegie believed that Darwin’s theories justified an economy of vicious competition and inequality. They left us with an ideological legacy that says the corporate economy, in which wealth concentrates in the hands of a few, produces the best for humanity. This was always a distortion of Darwin’s ideas. His 1871 book The Descent of Man argued that the human species had succeeded because of traits like sharing and compassion. “Those communities,” he wrote, “which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring.” Darwin was n... posted on Jul 15 2013 (37,684 reads)