They Still Draw Pictures, by Paul Morrow
in war-torn Ukraine, Laos or Spain, kids have felt compelled to pick up crayons and put their experiences to paper In 1970, a 16-year-old Laotian boy drew a picture of his school being bombed. ‘Many people’ died, he wrote, ‘But I didn’t know who because I wasn’t courageous enough to look.’ Legacies of War, CC BY-SA “They still draw pictures!” So wrote the editors of an influential collection of children’s art that was compiled in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War. Eighty years later, war continues to upend children’s lives in Ukraine, Yemen and elsewhere. In January, UNICEF projected that 177 million chi... posted on May 28 2022 (3,731 reads)

Overcoming the Stigma of Mental Health Issues, by Stephen Hinshaw, Jeremy Adam Smith
people in the United States know far more about mental illness than did previous generations. They might know what it looks like: changes in emotions, thinking, or behavior that make function in daily life difficult, if not impossible. They’re much more likely to understand that most of us will experience some form of mental illness in our lifetimes, like depression or anxiety. And they know that smaller numbers of people will experience more severe conditions like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or PTSD. Despite this progress, for decades attitudes toward people with mental disorders have hardly budged. How do we know this? One of the crucial ways we measure preju... posted on Jun 14 2022 (2,779 reads)

Murmurations: Returning to the Whole, by Adrienne Maree Brown
time is it on the clock of the world?” My mentor Grace Lee Boggs used to ask this question all the time, to anyone who came to visit and learn with her, in any meeting she attended, or speech she gave. She wanted us—her students, comrades, and community—to keep a wide, long lens about our work. To remember, all of the time, that this moment is not the only moment. Human development moves in these massive cycles and phases, and there are always agents of change who ideate and practice and push and grow those shifts. She reminded us that there are changes available to us that are distinct to this time, and she urged us to be present to the opportunitie... posted on Jun 30 2022 (3,769 reads)

Original Wisdom: Stories of An Ancient Way of Knowing, by robert wolff
or two generations ago most of us made our own choices how to relate to our immediate environment. Certainly influenced by the group we belonged to: family, village, tribe, customs. And until four or five generations ago cultures were the way a tribe had worked out, over time, how to survive in a unique environment. Cultures were a way to deal with finding food, how to hunt, what to hunt, how to find edible plants and fruit, and how to be sure that the useful plants and trees would survive so that we would survive. And all cultures are a way we manage to live together more or less harmoniously (usually ‘more’). Our modern world is surprisingly different. Somehow we have ac... posted on Aug 17 2022 (3,832 reads)

Activating Moral Discomfort & Spiritual Community for the Earth, by Awakin Call Editors
no spiritual life that does not involve, does not start, intimately and inescapably, with the Earth.” The Rev. Fletcher Harper believes that he felt God while mourning his father’s death on a solo camping trip in Montana. A violent hailstorm struck one night, and he sought shelter in the lee of a rock. “At about three in the morning, I felt this deep sense of well-being,” he recalls. “I realized that I was going to be OK. I thought, ‘I can move on with my life now.’” Later in his life and career when interviewing hundreds of people from a broad spectrum of religious and non-religious backgrounds, he discovered th... posted on Nov 17 2022 (2,061 reads)

Finding Fulfillment in a Purpose Larger than You, by Tami Simon
follows is the transcript of an interview between Tami Simon and Lynne Twist. You can listen to the audio recording here. Tami Simon: Hello friends, my name’s Tami Simon, and I’m the founder of Sounds True. I want to welcome you to the Sounds True podcast, Insights at the Edge. I also want to take a moment to introduce you to Sounds True’s new membership community and digital platform. It’s called Sounds True One. Sounds True One features original, premium, transformational docuseries, community events, classes to start your day and relax in the evening, special weekly live shows, including a video version of Insights at the Edge with an af... posted on Dec 31 2022 (4,176 reads)

A Eulogy For My Mother, by Mickey Lemle
FUERTH LEMLE April 11,1916---April 17, 2011 For the first 58 years of my life, I would have to say that my relationship to my mother was a complex and difficult one. She was a huge personality, full of great passions, creativity, rages, and generosity. I remember saying to friends that I loved my mother in small doses, but that she didn't come in small doses. She was a force of nature. She had no sense of boundaries; my memory of going to restaurants with Edna, was that as the waiter placed my plate in front of me, her fork would be in my food before I was even able to lift my own. She would often just show up at my house anywhere in the world, uninvited. She was also very contro... posted on Jul 1 2016 (46,968 reads)

Gabor Mate: Healing Into Wholeness in a Toxic Culture, by Tami Simon
is the transcript of a SoundsTrue Insights at the Edge interview between Tami Simon and Gabor Mate. You can listen to the audio version here. Tami Simon: I am absolutely thrilled about having the opportunity to host this particular edition of Insights at the Edge Live with Dr. Gabor Mate. Let me tell you just a little bit about Gabor. One thing is that Hungarian born, he lives now around the corner from where I am, here in Vancouver, Canada. He is a physician who, after 20 years of family practice and palliative care experience, worked for over a decade in downtown Vancouver’s East Side with patients challenged by drug addiction and mental illness. I h... posted on Feb 26 2023 (7,446 reads)

Asymmetry, Ikebana, Writing and The Mind, by Andy Couturier
following is an excerpt from the essay, "Asymmetry, Ikebana, Writing and The Mind," by Andy Couturier As an artist or writer, how do you compose a work that is generous?       How do you place a group of rocks together in a garden, or branches, berries and blossoms together in an ikebana arrangement, — or ideas and language on a page — to invite real participation?       The artist is giving a gift, I think, if she leaves some connections unfinished. Implied. The artist is giving a gift, I think, when the composition is multifaceted, offering a multitude of elements that combine in an abundance... posted on Mar 6 2023 (2,633 reads)

Amishi Jha: Pay Attention to Your Attention, by Awakin Calls Editors
attention to your attention." Amishi P. Jha came to her pathbreaking work studying the neuroscience of mindfulness and attention when, as a young professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, she lost feeling in her teeth. She had been grinding them as a profound stress response to burnout from her responsibilities as a wife, mother, and tenure-track professor. Knowing from her academic work that the brain can change, she told herself at the start of summer, “before I quit my own career, let’s see if I can get my own brain to change.” She had just heard a talk about the power of meditation to change brain images from anothe... posted on Mar 9 2023 (5,096 reads)

The Enneagram: Nine Gateways to Presence, by Tami Simon
follows is the syndicated transcript of a Sounds True interview between Tami Simon and Russ Hudson. You can listen to the audio version of the interview here. Tami Simon: You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today, my guest is Russ Hudson. Russ Hudson has established himself as one of the top teachers and developers of the Enneagram personality typology system. He has coauthored, with Don Riso, five bestselling books on the subject and with Sounds True, he’s created a new 11-CD audio learning series, an in-depth program called The Enneagram: Nine Gateways to Presence.  When it comes to a subject like the Enneagram, you can learn about it on a l... posted on Apr 7 2023 (6,467 reads)

Deborah Cohan: The Dancing Doctor, by Awakin Call Editors
follows is the transcript of an Awakin Call with Dr. Deborah Cohan, moderated by Cynthia Li and hosted by Kristin Von Kundra Cynthia Li: It is my pleasure to introduce to you Dr. Deborah Cohan, a Harvard-trained doctor, healer, public health advocate. She's a mother, a teacher, dancer, a doula of births as well as deaths. She serves the community as an obstetrician at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, and as a medical director of Hive, a nonprofit organization of the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation that promotes reproductive and sexual wellness and pregnancy support for those living with HIV. In 2013, she underwent a double mastectomy, and a video ... posted on Apr 21 2023 (3,940 reads)

Sacred Time, by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Masque for the Four Seasons. Walter Crane, 1905-1909. Oil on canvas. Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, Germany. Wikimedia Commons. Source: Daderot Time speaks in many voices, many different images and sounds. For the Neolithic builders of Stonehenge, sacred time was marked by the Summer and Winter solstices, particularly the Winter solstice, when, at around 3:50 pm the midwinter sun would set in the southwest and its rays flood through the center of the monument, dropping down onto the altar stone. Thousands of years later, for the medieval farmer time was the changing seasons and the saint’s days, as well as the monastery bells ringing out over the fields, marking the monk&... posted on May 2 2023 (3,549 reads)

Letting Flowers Lead: The Way of Ikebana, by Awakin Call Editors
is the transcript of an Awakin Call with Mayuka Yamazaki, moderated by Pavi Mehta and hosted by Cynthia Li. Pavi Mehta: It is my pleasure now to introduce our guest. In many ways Mayuka Yamazaki's life is a study in contrast: Her credentials in the business world are impressive: She sits on the board of three public companies, has worked as a management consultant with McKinsey and Company, and is backed by a decade of experience working as an executive with Harvard Business School at their Japan Research Center. During her time with them, she co-authored 30 Harvard Business School case studies about Japanese companies, business leaders, and societal issues. Mayuka is also... posted on May 3 2023 (2,491 reads)

The Thread of My Life: Following the Heart's Wisdom, by Sandra Lensink
go and learning to follow my inner wisdom instead of an agenda. This is the common thread of my life. Until the age of 33, it was a bumpy road, full of painful  and deep potholes. I did not understand the meaning of all that was happening to me and felt lost. I fought tooth and nail for my right to exist in many ways. And ended up in burnout. There I lay at the bottom. In retrospect, the greatest gift of all in shuddering packaging. The chance for a new beginning. I had no choice but to move through the darkness. And asked myself for the first time in my life the questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Beyond al... posted on May 9 2023 (3,087 reads)

Staying Loyal to Who You Are and Your Dreams, by Tami Simon
follows is the syndicated transcript of a SoundsTrue Insights at the Edge interview between Tami Simon and Dr. Tererai Trent. You can listen to the audio of the full episode here. Tami Simon: You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today my guest is Dr. Tererai Trent. Dr. Tererai Trent grew up in a cattle herding family in rural Zimbabwe, and is now one of today’s most internationally recognized and respected voices for education and women’s empowerment. She was named Oprah Winfrey’s all-time favorite guest, and received a $1.5 million donation to rebuild her childhood elementary school. Tererai Trent is the author of the book, The Awakened Woman: ... posted on May 24 2023 (3,041 reads)

Six Ways to Help Kids Grow Their Creativity, by Elisse Gabriel
Brown, bestselling author, researcher, and University of Houston professor, was surrounded by creativity as a child. “I grew up in a pink stucco house in New Orleans where my mom was always a maker. All the curtains in our house were homemade, all the art in our house was from us kids. I had dresses that matched my mom’s that matched my dolls’.”  “I never thought about creativity as an act separate from self,” says Brown, who has spent the last two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. “To be human is to be creative.” Brown’s environment changed abruptly, however, when her family move... posted on May 29 2023 (3,223 reads)

Christopher Titmuss: Adventures of the Spirit, by Awakin Call Editors
must remember we are exhaustible. We need renewal. Silence, quietude, time alone, naturally gives that. Then we can come back in to serve others in small ways. That we do. Then we take time for renewal. Jesus, the Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi and all the great sages recognize the importance of connection with others to serve, then step back from that into quietness, then renewal, and then serve. This is the great rhythm of life." Christopher Titmuss, a former hippie turned Theravada Buddhist monk turned social critic, is Britain's senior Dharma teacher. Having once lived on 39 British pounds per year for ten years, he has sat beneath The Tree of Enlightenment in Bodhgaya, Indi... posted on Jun 6 2023 (2,443 reads)

Curiosity: A Sponge for Terror, by Darlene Cohen
an athletic, strong woman, my fearlessness was physically based. My body was utterly reliable, and I felt a young person’s invincibility. Back then I had no hesitation in tight situations: planting my 5’2″ frame firmly between a man on the street and the woman he had just slapped. No fear. When two teenaged girls came together to block my progress up the street as a racial challenge—whose neighborhood is this anyway?—I had decided to cross the street as the better part of valor, but my brash little body surprised me. “This is MY neighborhood, too!” I crashed through their locked-arm barricade, then ran like hell, momentary triumph over fear poundi... posted on Jun 15 2023 (3,605 reads)

Murmurations: Breaking is Part of Healing, by ADRIENNE MAREE BROWN
BY MICHAEL LUONG/YES! MEDIA I was in a conversation recently with a friend who had just returned from a meditation retreat. She said one of the ideas shared with her group was that “the teacup is already broken,” a meditation on how the death or ending or brokenness we fear is inevitable. We will die, everyone we love will die, the organization will end, the nation will come apart, the system will collapse. The teacup will break. The end has already happened in our minds, our imaginations, our predictions; it is implied by the very pattern of our existence, which we understand to be impermanent. I find that this idea brings me as much peace as does the idea of&... posted on Jul 12 2023 (5,226 reads)