How Emotions Change the Shape of Our Hearts, by ted.com
other organ, perhaps no other object in human life, is as imbued with metaphor and meaning as the human heart. Over the course of history, the heart has been a symbol of our emotional lives. It was considered by many to be the seat of the soul, the repository of the emotions. The very word "emotion" stems in part from the French verb "émouvoir," meaning "to stir up." And perhaps it's only logical that emotions would be linked to an organ characterized by its agitated movement.  But what is this link? Is it real or purely metaphorical? As a heart specialist, I am here today... posted on Nov 11 2019 (19,213 reads)

13 Life Lessons From 13 Years of Brain Pickings, by Maria Popova
October 23, 2006, Brain Pickings was born as a plain-text email to seven friends. It was then, and continues to be, a labor of love and ledger of curiosity, although the mind and heart from which it sprang have changed — have grown, I hope — tremendously. At the end of the first decade, I told its improbable origin story and drew from its evolution the ten most important things this all-consuming daily endeavor taught me about writing and living — largely notes to myself, perhaps best thought of as resolutions in reverse, that may or may not be useful to others. Now, as Brain Pickings turns thirteen — the age at which, at least in t... posted on Oct 31 2019 (17,479 reads)

Why We Turn to Mr. Rogers, by Shea Tuttle
spent a lot of time with Mister Rogers over the last three years as I researched and wrote my book about his life and faith. Throughout, I have been fascinated by the question of why we keep summoning him forth from memory. For decades, we have recalled Fred whenever something terrible happened in our world, sharing his comforting words and image on social media. Then, in the last couple of years, we’ve dug a little deeper, with documentary and books (and merch!) galore. This week, the fascination seems to have peaked with the release of a feature film, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, starring Oscar winner Tom Hanks. Why do we ... posted on Nov 27 2019 (12,947 reads)

Earth as Goddess, by Thanissara
Mandaza Augustine Kademwa, from Zimbabwe, was born a Svikiro (in Shona, his native tongue), a carrier of many earth and water spirits, and a Mondhoro (Lion), one who is in constant prayer on behalf of others. He is guided by water and lion spirits. As a vessel of the Spirits, Mandaza receives visions and dreams, makes offerings, performs healing rituals, and serves as a messenger for the Ancient Ones. Mandaza is an African traditional healer and voice for Mother Nature, who was initiated through the tradition of the njuzi, the water spirits. Mandaza carries with him, in his heart, the Central African spiritual tradition of healing and peacemaking. —Thanissara ... posted on Dec 8 2019 (6,034 reads)

How to Overcome Our Biases? Walk Boldly Toward Them, by ted.com
follows is the transcript of Verna Myers 2014 TEDx talk I was on a long road trip this summer, and I was having a wonderful time listening to the amazing Isabel Wilkerson's "The Warmth of Other Suns." It documents six million black folks fleeing the South from 1915 to 1970 looking for a respite from all the brutality and trying to get to a better opportunity up North, and it was filled with stories of the resilience and the brilliance of African-Americans, and it was also really hard to hear all the stories of the horrors  and the humility, and all the humiliations. It was especially hard to hear about the bea... posted on Dec 13 2019 (9,595 reads)

Seeking Wholeness in a Time of Brokenness, by Awakin Call Editors
Victor Kazanjian is the executive director of the United Religions Initiative (URI), a global grassroots interfaith peacebuilding network.  URI has more than a thousand multi-faith groups working in over a hundred countries with a million volunteers to build bridges of cooperation between people of all faiths and cultures. Victor is ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church and was trained as a community organizer working to address the systemic causes of poverty and injustice through the support of community-based groups. He's also studied and deeply embodies Gandhian principles of pluralism and grassroots change. Along with Gandhi's grandson, Arun Gandhi, he fo... posted on Jan 16 2020 (4,022 reads)

Accepting What Is, by Rose Zonetti
the word “acceptance” enters a room, “but” is never far behind. But what about suffering and injustice? What about the pursuit of our personal goals? What about our individual and collective potential? As soon as the idea of acceptance surfaces, we seem to, ironically, brace ourselves against it as though it will render us incapable of anything other than complacency and apathy. In a goal-focused, free-will-oriented, and stand-your-ground culture, acceptance can feel almost like a betrayal. Scared as we can be of failing ourselves, others, and the world; of lacking in mind, body, and spirit; of being used and hurt; and of losing control, we rebuff anyth... posted on Feb 25 2020 (13,420 reads)

The Nature of Gratitude, by Unknown Yet
Nature of Gratitude is an ensemble of artists who come together to explore and share their experience of nature and gratitude on stage using music, spoken word, and photography. After five years of offering this program, The Nature of Gratitude has evolved into a core ensemble of committed artists who include accomplished singer/songwriter and Oregon Book Award-winning poet Beth Wood; award-winning singer/songwriter Halie Loren; GRAMMY® award-nominated Native American multi-instrumentalist Gentle Thunder; performance poet Jorah LaFleur; and co-founders Tom Titus, performance prose and author of Palindrome: Grateful Reflections from the Home Ground,&... posted on Mar 5 2020 (6,191 reads)

Yoga and Our Relationship to Reality, by Pavithra Mehta
August 2015, my husband was unexpectedly diagnosed with a one in a million potentially fatal condition whose causes are largely unknown and that western medicine has no dependable cure for. Just days earlier he’d carried a wheelchair-bound friend up the stairs to our home. He’d tossed a Frisbee, climbed a steep hill, given a high-level presentation at work. To say we did not see this coming is an understatement. We explored alternative options, and met remarkable practitioners of Ayurveda, acupuncture, and more. We entered a period that in retrospect felt like an open-ended meditation retreat. My husband's bone marrow suppression resulted in acutely low immunity, It re... posted on Apr 8 2020 (10,870 reads)

Into the Chrysalis, by Chris Corrigan
both inspire and baffle me. The thought that a caterpillar can crawl into a sac made of its own body and dissolve its form and come out as a butterfly is a cliched image of transformation, but holy crap. Stop for a moment and really think about that. Does the caterpillar know this is going to happen? If it does that shows some tremendous trust. If it doesn't, then that shows some incredible courage. It just hangs out there, isolating itself from the rest of the world and changing in ways it can never understand. Does a caterpillar see a butterfly and go "that will be me one day?" So yes, we are all heading into our chrysalises. We have all climbed into our... posted on Apr 9 2020 (10,635 reads)

Diana Beresford-Kroeger: The Call of the Trees, by Awakin Call Editors
Beresford-Kroeger is a world-recognized botanist, medical biochemist and author (and now filmmaker). She is known for her extraordinary ability to translate scientific complexities of nature for the general public with both precision and poetry. "If you speak for the trees, you speak for all of nature", says Beresford-Kroeger, one of the world's leading expert on trees. She has studied the environmental, medicinal, and even spiritual aspects of trees, has written about them in leading books, and maintains gardens on her property that burst with flora. From a very young age, she understood she was the last voice to bring Celtic knowledge to the New World. Orphaned at age 1... posted on May 9 2020 (7,527 reads)

Warriors Wanted: Why One Woman is Training People to Defend the Human Spirit, by CBC Radio
year old writer, consultant and activist Margaret Wheatley has studied the cyclical nature of civilizations throughout history and she is quite confident that the end of our civilization is closer than we might like to think. And she is doing something about it… something radical. Wheatley is building an army of 'warriors for the human spirit' with people who want to lessen the suffering in the world - whether it be from natural disasters, political strife, war, famine, or from the tyranny of daily injustices in modern life. Her warriors are trained as leaders with compassion, kindness, servitude and generosity as prime requirements. Wheatley ... posted on Jun 17 2020 (9,438 reads)

The Courage Way: Leading and Living with Integrity , by Shelly L. Francis
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 (6,219 reads)

At a Tipping Point -- Towards Healing the Climate, by Breanna Draxler
change is the undercurrent that drives and shapes our lives in countless ways. Journalist Judith D. Schwartz sees the term as shorthand. “It’s almost as if people think climate is this phenomenon, determined solely by CO2, as if we could turn a dial up or down,” she tells me over the phone. “We are missing so much.” In her quest for climate solutions, Schwartz leans into the complexity of natural systems. As she and I talk, I come to imagine our climate as a beautiful series of overlapping Rube Goldberg-style cycles of carbon, water, nutrients, and energy. Those systems have been knocked out of alignment, sure, but as Schwartz sees it, repair is not imp... posted on Sep 5 2020 (4,994 reads)

The Gift of Ecological Humility, by Leah Penniman
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 (5,226 reads)

The World Needs Your Cargo: Kozo Hattori & Sue Cochrane, by Kozo Hattori, Sue Cochrane
Hattori on the meaning of Aloha... Probably the most important concept or word in Hawaii is Aloha. Aloha has been commercialized so much that the original meanings were lost. So what I've been feeling into is the deepest aspects of Aloha. And what it comes down to for me is what they call Kapu Aloha. Kapu means 'sacred'. It's actually the same word that the word taboo came from. Taboo is actually Polynesian word. The Hawaiian K was originally a T. Kapu Aloha is sacred Aloha, which is “I’m going to love no matter what.” If you come and steal my land, I’m going to love you. You come and beat me, I’m going to love you. You come and stri... posted on Mar 2 2021 (8,652 reads)

It Couldn't Be Clearer, by Betsey Crawford
become an instant cliche as the pandemic reveals the threadbare fabric of our culture: the truly essential people that make day-to-day life possible are often the ones in the most precarious and poorly paid jobs. As grateful as I am to have professional people in my life, I am utterly dependent on the people who grow, harvest, and distribute food. The people who stack grocery shelves and check us out. The people willing to shop for the elderly and immunocompromised. The people picking up our garbage, manning the water and sewer systems. And, of course, the health care workers. It doesn’t take a pandemic to tell us that our culture has its values and rewards upside down. B... posted on Apr 3 2021 (5,335 reads)

Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul, by John Philip Newell
the Introduction to John Philip Newell’s Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul:(Celtic Wisdom for Reawakening to the What Our Souls Know and Healing the World) Published by Harper One & Harper Collins UK (July 2021) We know things in the core of our being that we have not necessarily been taught. And some of this deep knowing may actually be at odds with what our culture or religion or nation has tried to teach us. This book is about reawakening to what we know in the depths of our being, that the earth is sacred, and that this sacredness is at the heart of every human being and life-form. To awaken again to this deep knowing is to be transformed in the ways we choose to live and ... posted on Jul 14 2021 (5,164 reads)

The Descent to Soul: An Overview of the Terrain, by Bill Plotkin
a wise person or else keep silent for those who do not understand will mock it right away. I praise what is truly alive what longs to be burned to death…. …And so long as you have not experienced this: to die and so to grow you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth. — johann wolfgang von goethe This is a field guide to an ecstatic and hazardous odyssey that most of the world has forgotten — or not yet discovered — an essential spiritual adventure for which you won’t find clear or complete maps anywhere else in the contemporary Western world. This journey, which begins with a dying, enables you to grow whole and wild in ... posted on Jul 26 2021 (7,961 reads)

How the stunning abstract art of Hilma af Klint opens our eyes to new ways of seeing, by Joanna Mendelssohn
Hilma af Klint, The Secret Paintings. Art Gallery of New South Wales. In 1986, those art historians who see art as some form of linear progression “improving” with time received a rude shock. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s exhibition The Spiritual in Art — Abstract Paintings 1890 – 1985 introduced a hitherto unknown woman artist. The issue was not just that this art was so exquisitely beautiful — but that the paintings had been painted in the early 20th century. Hilma af Klint was once known as a minor academic Swedish artist. Born in 1862, she had been one of the first women to graduate from the Royal Academy of Fine Art... posted on Aug 17 2021 (6,674 reads)