Nathan exploring the headwaters of the Mississippi River at Itasca State Park, MN, this summer. Starting when you were just a toddler, you’d crawl into my lap to play a game. I’d lay hands on each part of your body, naming it aloud. We’d begin with the “grass” of hair on your head and slowly work our way down to your “piggy” toes. You soon learned even the regions of your brain, the organs in your torso, and your seven chakras. Our game wasn’t just about naming and knowledge, though. Even more, it was about attention and loving touch. You craved the physical sensations as my hands tenderly pressed and poked, tickled and caressed... posted on Aug 30 2020 (11,203 reads)

after finishing graduation joined Rajghat Besant School, in Varanasi, as a teacher. In those 4 years, he taught who he was, with no sense of hierarchy and found himself learning and evolving in the process.   Parents’ illness brought him back to Mumbai, and with his natural creative gifts in writing and storytelling, he joined the advertising industry. A few years later, he co-founded and continues to lead a brand consulting firm “chlorophyll” which has worked with hundreds of brands, including the world’s largest biometric identity brand Aadhar. chlorophyll (in lowercase), a well respected agency, is a home to questioning, ideation and creativ... posted on Sep 25 2020 (4,601 reads)

it with me: dugnad (doog-nod). It’s a Norwegian word I learned this week; an ancient word, traceable to the Viking Age, when villagers would labor together to bring ships ashore after long seafaring trips. That’s dugnad. In later centuries, Norwegian farming communities would work together to prepare for harsh winters and to survive other hardships. Dugnad. In the 1940s, Norwegians rallied to resist five brutal years of Nazi occupation. Dugnad. Traditionally, dugnad is the collective effort of individual Norwegians who sacrifice their personal desires, and allow their own sense of “normal”... posted on Oct 3 2020 (8,306 reads)

solid and permanent, then everything is changing and open. Feel this openness as a freedom, a freshness, an exhilarating vastness. Relax into this openness, and feel its beauty. This is the openness of groundlessness. Nothing is solid, nothing is fixed, but this is the good news! Openness is unconstricted, free, peaceful, and gorgeous. Learning to Find the Beauty in Groundlessness So things seem out of control, uncertain, groundless — and it brings up anxiety in you. How can we work with this? First, we can allow ourselves to feel the sensations of uncertainty in our body, as physical sensations. How does your fear, anxiety, frustration feel in your body (dropping the nar... posted on Oct 7 2020 (10,011 reads)

on public spending and on schemes for the poor. Philanthropy isn’t only fascinating in itself; it’s also a window into the structure of the contemporary world. | Picture courtesy: Charlotte Anderson Government departments are also playing an increasing role in directing the behaviour of both civil society and philanthropy by openly pushing and calling for both consultations and financial support for efforts they deem critical. So, while we continue to believe that working with government is important to achieve long-term systems change, the space in which that dialogue can be had is getting smaller. A deepening of inequalities The Credit Suisse Global Wea... posted on Oct 9 2020 (5,027 reads)

own mind, unbound. The wide open space of the spiritual heart is our own heart, free of constrictions. In some contemporary spiritual teachings, the self-arising nature of fundamental consciousness is confused with the Western religious idea of grace, in which an entirely foreign but wonderful state lands on us because we have somehow pleased God. Several people have told me, sorrowfully, that they have waited and waited for this to happen, but so far have had no luck. This is not how it works. Fundamental consciousness arises when we have become open enough for it to appear. It is not something alien to us; it is our own basic nature that is revealed when our body, heart, and mind ar... posted on Oct 16 2020 (5,991 reads)

branch of your autonomic nervous system and slows down your reactivity. 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&n... posted on Oct 21 2020 (11,602 reads)

it is written, "The kingdom of God is within man."  Not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men -- in you, the people. You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let's use that power.  Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security.  Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a... posted on Nov 3 2020 (9,856 reads)

Work is what you do for money, and that's what counts. How could it be otherwise? And the converse of that last rule, of course, is that if you're not paid to do a thing, it can't be important. If a child writes a poem and proudly reads it, adults may wink and ask, "Think there's a lot of money in that?" You may also hear this when you declare a major in English. Being a good neighbor, raising children: the road to success is not paved with the likes of these. Some workplaces actually quantify your likelihood of being distracted by family or volunteerism. It's called your coefficient of Drag. The ideal number is zero. This is the Rule of Perfect Efficiency. ... posted on Nov 4 2020 (10,335 reads)

help us and help the world—help to bring the earth back into balance. We need to remember that the power of the Divine is more than that of all the global corporations that continue to make the world a wasteland, even more than the global forces of consumerism that demand the life-blood of the planet. We pray that the Divine of which we are all a part can redeem and heal this beautiful and suffering world. Sometimes it is easier to pray when we feel the earth in our hands, when we work in the garden tending our flowers or vegetables. Or when we cook, preparing the vegetables that the earth has given us, mixing in the herbs and spices that give us pleasure. Or making love, as we... posted on Nov 20 2020 (8,222 reads)

a long life of gradual rejuvenation – unlearning everything they know – they would end as a twinkle in their parents’ eyes. That’s time as represented in a novel by science fiction writer Philip K Dick but, surprisingly, time’s direction is also an issue that cosmologists are grappling with. While we take for granted that time has a given direction, physicists don’t: most natural laws are “time reversible” which means they would work just as well if time was defined as running backwards. So why does time always move forward? And will it always do so? Does time have a beginning? Any universal concept of time must ultimat... posted on Apr 7 2021 (7,605 reads)

leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars,” the young Walt Whitman sang in one of the finest poems from his Song of Myself — the aria of a self that seemed to him then, as it always seems to the young, infinite and invincible. But when a paralytic stroke felled him decades later, unpeeling his creaturely limits and his temporality, he leaned on the selfsame reverence of nature as he considered what makes life worth living: After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on — have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear — what remains? Nature remains;... posted on Nov 30 2020 (5,732 reads)

Story One year it seemed we were having the worst Christmas ever. That autumn my husband had been in a car accident. His broken neck was healing, but it left him with severe migraines and what doctors thought might be a seizure disorder. Because he wasn’t medically cleared to return to work, we had to pay for health insurance through COBRA (which cost more than our mortgage) while not receiving a paycheck. In addition, my mother was fighting cancer, my brother-in-law was recovering from open heart surgery, and my son was struggling with asthma so severe that his oxygen intake regularly hovered at the “go to emergency room” level. We were broke and worrie... posted on Dec 25 2020 (6,461 reads)

the door behind him in the little room he used as a study. He set up a music stand, sat down in his chair, and assembled the clarinet. It would need refurbishing, but for now, it would do. He leaned into his music. Playing again was remarkably easy, as if the instrument were a friend he’d met for coffee every day of his life. He practiced that afternoon for hours, without realizing. In his world, clocks no longer mattered. For the first time in months, he had something purposeful to work on. Elsewhere in the house, Pat marveled, having never heard him play. She relaxed, listening to his music, happy not only for him, but for herself. So long as he was playing, she knew exactly... posted on Dec 28 2020 (5,838 reads)

of civil rights in America in history books differed greatly” from his own experience. That exhilaration wound up fueling a life’s passion. Spike Lee's film, Do The Right Thing, premiered the summer before Dr. Joseph turned 17, and quickly became his own personal touchstone. “The movie's coda, which drew quotes from Malcolm X preaching black dignity and Martin Luther King Jr. promoting black citizenship, remained stamped in my soul and is reflected in my work as a scholar to this day,” Joseph says. To most Americans, Malcolm X and Dr. King represent contrasting ideals: self-defense vs. nonviolence, black power vs. civil rights, the sword... posted on Jan 12 2021 (2,774 reads)

varying levels of support and collusion from those in power) and the ways in which organizers and communities have confronted this violence over time. Teach the dark topics but shine a light on agency and resiliency in movements for justice.This knowledge can help students process and prepare for challenges they may face in movements for justice today.  4. TEACH THE MOVEMENT: OUR RIGHTS WERE WON BY ORGANIZING, EVEN IN DARK TIMES. Our rights, the rights of African Americans, workers, women, LGBTQ folks and more, were not handed to us by benevolent politicians, but were in fact won by many years of militant, sustained, grassroots organizing by oppressed people. Students mu... posted on Jan 13 2021 (6,446 reads)

a covid survivor gets wheeled out the big doors into the sunlight Like exiting a dark tunnel Into Their families arms in those sweet moments, i think This is the year of resilience the year of I won’t let you go my Navajo friend tells me with confidence The navajo people will walk in beauty once again And she repeats it again We will walk in beauty once again The first time for me The second time I think she says it to convince herself *** For more context on the work Dr. Shamasunder and the HEAL Initiative are involved with on the ground in Navajo Nation check out these links: Three minute segment on NBC evening news live On Democracy Now ... posted on Jan 17 2021 (7,685 reads)

all in this together and therefore have to help each other. “If there isn’t at the core two human beings who have agreed to be in a relationship,” he says, “where one is trying to help relieve the suffering of another, which is love, we can’t get to the right answer.” His article, "Choices for the 'New Normal'" published in the early months of the pandemic outlines "6 properties of care for durable change: tempo, standards, working conditions, proximity, preparedness, and equity." In addition to teaching, he serves as President Emeritus and Senior Fellow of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and was the for... posted on Jan 26 2021 (5,343 reads)

Yamil Rivera - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79424399 I had never been good at practicing mindfulness, or being mindful—period—until I got a dog. Observing your breath, extolled as the surefire way to become present, left me in such a deep state of hyperventilation I quickly wanted a break from taking a break. I was in constant, anxious movement, starting projects but never finishing them, leaving things halfway done, forgetting items, moving from one thing to the next, constantly apprehensive. But then I got George Lucas: a miniature schnauzer that was the doppelgänger of the Star Wars director, down to the salt-and-pep... posted on Jan 30 2021 (7,190 reads)

a part of my life in the 3,000 days since.    Thank you. I love you. Here’s to 3,000 more! She ends by quoting: "It just comes down to what little things you can do with what time you have and what skills you have, it doesn't have to be about money, it doesn't have to be about age or experience, just about making the effort to make someone's day and I think we all have the power to do that. We can’t always see each other’s hurts. But we can work on love.” ... posted on Feb 2 2021 (6,216 reads)