The Incomparable Naomi Shihab Nye on Kindness, by Kim Rosen
poems of Naomi Shihab Nye have an uncanny way of showing up at exactly the right moment to summon you below the surface of your life. The child of a Palestinian father and an American mother, her poems speak a language deeper than culture, history or religion. Through the portal of the everyday—a grocery store, an olive press, the headlines—she draws us into the most profound questions and revelations of the soul. In addition to writing poetry, Nye writes fiction, essays and children’s books, and has edited several anthologies.  KIM ROSEN: What do you feel is the role of poetry, especially in these times? NAOMI SHIHAB NYE: Poetry helps us imagine one ano... posted on Jan 10 2013 (27,614 reads)

The Wisdom of Forgetting Everything You Know, by Gail Brenner
now, and in every now-moment, you are either closing or opening. You are either stressfully waiting for something – more money, security, affection – or you are living from your deep heart, opening as the entire moment, and giving what you most deeply desire to give, without waiting.” ~David Deida Just for a minute, can we please stop frantically trying to control, plan, and delude ourselves into thinking we know what we don’t know? Do you spend your time preparing for every possible outcome and worrying about all the negative consequences that could befall you? We are so afraid to let go, to just be, to allow the unfolding of this marvelous ... posted on Jan 29 2013 (31,113 reads)

The Art of Slowing Down, by Karen Horneffer-Ginter
much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it. — Willy Wonka One key to taking care of ourselves lies in learning how to slow down. I have a friend who’s in the middle of a well-deserved sabbatical. These months represent the first chance she’s had in two decades to unwind a bit as a working, single mom. “It’s just incredible,” she remarked, “having time to exercise and read and cook meals and walk outside—it’s really unbelievable.” “I’m curious,” I asked her. “What’s the best part: the exercising, the reading, the cooking, or the walking?” Without he... posted on Feb 11 2013 (22,531 reads)

Everything I Need To Know I Learned In The Forest, by Vandana Shiva
ecological journey started in the forests of the Himalaya. My father was a forest conservator, and my mother became a farmer after fleeing the tragic partition of India and Pakistan. It is from the Himalayan forests and ecosystems that I learned most of what I know about ecology. The songs and poems our mother composed for us were about trees, forests, and India’s forest civilizations. My involvement in the contemporary ecology movement began with “Chipko,” a nonviolent response to the large-scale deforestation that was taking place in the Himalayan region.     In the 1970s, peasant women from my region in the Garhwal... posted on Feb 13 2013 (16,958 reads)

The Science of Storytelling, by Leo Widrich
1748, the British politician and aristocrat John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, spent a lot of his free time playing cards. He greatly enjoyed eating a snack while still keeping one hand free for the cards. So he came up with the idea to eat beef between slices of toast, which would allow him to finally eat and play cards at the same time. Eating his newly invented "sandwich," the name for two slices of bread with meat in between, became one of the most popular meal inventions in the western world. What's interesting about this is that you are very likely to never forget the story of who invented the sandwich ever again. Or at least, much less likely to do so... posted on Feb 21 2013 (54,030 reads)

Who's On Your Fridge?, by Peter Bregman
was lifting weights at my gym, a community center in New York City, when he caught my attention. His name, I later found out, was Marvin Moster. He stood a few inches over five feet, mostly bald with some white hair on the sides of his head, sporting a mustache, and wearing a light blue shirt and dark blue shorts. In the obvious ways, he was unremarkable. And yet, I couldn’t help noticing him. He was older — I guessed in his seventies — and he was boxing with a trainer, punching in a rhythm they had obviously practiced before, ducking his head whenever the trainer threw a hook. Two things struck me: he was in excellent shape — evidenced by his balance, hi... posted on Mar 22 2013 (17,371 reads)

The Stubborn Gladness of Elizabeth Gilbert, by Karen Bouris
Eat, Pray, Love was a movie and a travel tour, it was a memoir by the award-winning writer Elizabeth Gilbert, whose story of losing and finding herself resonates with just about every woman who looks in the mirror. With Eat, Pray, Love and its follow-up, Committed, Gilbert’s connection to readers has been immediate and enduring. What woman hasn’t sobbed in secret on the bathroom floor, after all? Yet Gilbert is more than these two books. Her collection of short stories, Pilgrims, was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, and her debut novel, Stern Men, was a New York Times Notable Book. Her 2009 TED Talk on creative genius, where she claimed mysticis... posted on Apr 7 2013 (32,611 reads)

How Imagination Shapes Your Reality, by Gabriel Cohen
you have a lemon in your kitchen? Put this magazine down for a moment, go cut the fruit in half, and squeeze some juice into your mouth. Notice how you react. Don’t have a lemon? Try this little thought experiment: Imagine that you have one. Picture yourself slicing through the bright yellow rind, exposing the translucent fruit inside. See yourself holding it up, squeezing it, and letting a stream of tart juice splash onto your tongue. Can you feel yourself puckering and salivating—not in your mind’s eye, but in “real life”? Western thinkers have tended to draw a line between reality—that which we “actually” experience—... posted on May 6 2013 (105,656 reads)

Holding a Piece of the Pain, by Rachel Stafford
blog post, “Giving a Gift That Matters,” was recently published on DailyGood.org. The editor ofCourageous Creativity saw the article and was intrigued. She contacted me in hopes that my nine-year-old daughter would be interested in writing a piece about her uninhibited gift-giving practices. As I read the editor’s message, the nine-year-old in mebecame giddy. Although I wanted to respond with a whole-hearted yes, I knew that would not be appropriate. Just because this would have been mydream as a child, it may not be my daughter’s. I hoped she would accept this unique opportunity, but I decided I would not pressure her; it would be entir... posted on May 19 2013 (35,289 reads)

Poet Jane Hirshfield on The Mystery of Existence, by Kim Rosen
the ’90s, I had an inner opening that shifted my entire worldview. Though I’d not been drawn to poetry for years, I found myself turning to Rumi, Kabir, and Mirabai. But I hungered for poems that spoke to the stuff of the world I was living in as well as the timeless truths of the mystics. Luckily, I discovered the work of Jane Hirshfield. In addition to her seven books of poetry, Hirshfield has published several classic books of essays and played a major part in bringing the words of women mystics to modern audiences through the anthologies she edited and co-translated, which include Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women and Mir... posted on May 23 2013 (17,116 reads)

Miserable & Magical: A Graduation Speech for Paradoxical Times, by Nipun Mehta
the student body of an elite private school in Silicon Valley was given the chance to vote on who would give their graduation address this year, they chose a man named Nipun Mehta. An unexpected choice for these teenagers, who belong to what Time magazine called the "Me Me Me Generation". Nipun's journey is the antithesis of self-serving. More than a decade ago, he walked away from a lucrative career in high-tech, to explore the connection between inner change and external impact. ServiceSpace, the nonprofit he founded, has now drawn over 450,000 members across the globe. In this electrifying address that garnered a standing ovation, he calls out the paradoxical crisis of... posted on May 27 2013 (549,670 reads)

How to Change the World With Hot Cocoa & Neruda, by Hannah Brencher
up. Don’t press snooze. Sling your legs over the side of the bed. Right. Left. Turn on music. Good, good music. Like first date, new shoes, or better yet, barefoot music. You need a life soundtrack. Has anyone told you that yet? Pick out something spectacular from your closet. Feel good in your skin. Put on an item that tells some kind of story. Always have a story to tell, just a wrist or coat sleeve away. And if that yellow sweater ain’t got a story yet, vow that this will be the day it comes home with one. Wear bright cardigans on the rainy days. Rain boots on any day. And, if the sun is shining and someone asks why you are clomping around in red wel... posted on May 28 2013 (36,404 reads)

Living In The Age of Distraction, by Margaret Wheatley
years I assumed that the Titanic tragedy was a result of human arrogance, the belief in the indestructibility of the newest, largest, fastest, fanciest ship of all time. But actually the Titanic went down because of distraction. Other ships had been warning about the iceberg-filled waters for days, but the Titanic’s captain changed course only slightly and did nothing to slow the ship’s speed. When the radio operator received a call from a ship that was surrounded by ice—this was less than an hour before the collision—he responded, “Shut up, shut up, I’m busy.” By the time lookouts spotted the iceberg ahead, it was too late to... posted on Jun 7 2013 (68,526 reads)

10 Principles of Work On Purpose, by Echoing Green
Alexia Vernon's Moxie Camp 2012 by Carrie Leonard Echoing Green has performed hundreds of in-depth interviews with its social entrepreneurship Fellows over 25 years, uncovering the common experiences that led them to their world-changing careers. From their stories, they pulled forth these ten principles for identifying your purpose and putting it into action. RIGHT FOR YOU Heart + Head = Hustle Find ways to work from both your heart and your head, collapsing the divisions between these two aspects of yourself in your work as often as possible. It is the only way to achieve what we call hustle. Know What You've Got - Know What You Need Uncover your un... posted on Jun 11 2013 (67,314 reads)

Sprouting Seeds of Compassion , by Marc Ian Barasch
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 (13,394 reads)

A Romanian Truck Driver's Love of Underdogs, by Laura Simpson
driver Tamara Raab is bringing Christmas in July to thousands of animals in Romania. In a 2,000 mile round trip journey, Tamara will drive a massive load of donated dog and cat food, veterinary supplies and pet beds to animal shelters in Romania. She’s undertaken this mission a couple times before, but this time is different. This time she didn’t have the 3,500 Euros required to pay the fuel. And that’s when fate stepped in. On the recommendation of fellow animal advocate Peter Collins, Tamara sent an email to the Harmony Fund, a nonprofit that sponsors major animal protection efforts around the world, to ask for help. She was not optimistic. It simply felt li... posted on Jun 20 2013 (29,601 reads)

Coleman Barks: Rumi, Grace and Human Friendship, by Tami Simon
Simon:  Today my guest is Coleman Barks. Coleman Barks is a leading scholar and translator of the 13th century Persian mystic, Jalal Rumi. He taught poetry and creative writing at the University of Georgia for 30 years and is the author of numerous Rumi translations and has been a student of Sufism since 1977.  In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Coleman Barks and I spoke about the relationship between Rumi and his teacher, whom he called The Friend, Shams Tabriz, and how Coleman received insight into this friendship based on his own relationship with a Sufi teacher named Guru Bawa, Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. We also spoke about how Coleman first began translati... posted on Dec 29 2013 (35,914 reads)

Love Your Books? 4 Ways to Share Them With Others, by Fabien Tepper, Signe Predmore
Send your books on a journey Books introduce us to fascinating strangers; they take us to places we would never visit alone. So why not send them out into the world, to share stories with new readers? Better yet, why not follow their adventures? That’s the idea behind BookCrossing. Put a tracking label on your book, leave it in a public place, and wait to see where it turns up next. The labels encourage new readers to release the books they find, and to enter where they found them on the website: train stations, park benches, and cafes across the globe. Part social networking, part world library, bookcrossing.com connects book lovers, anonymously, to the pleasure of sha... posted on Jul 6 2013 (27,108 reads)

Survival of the ... Nicest? , by Eric Michael Johnson
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 (37,742 reads)

Find Your Moment of Obligation, by Lara Galinsky
who successfully tackle big social, environmental, and economic problems are driven by what I call a moment of obligation — a specific time in their life when they felt compelled to act. These moments become their North Star; they keep them going in a positive direction when everything seems dark. The obligation is not only to the world but also to themselves. Activists or social entrepreneurs aren't the only ones who are moved this way. We all have experiences that deeply inform who we are and what we are supposed to do. But only if we allow them to. Take Socheata Poeuv. She borrowed a bulky video camera from her office job at a television studio and ca... posted on Jul 23 2013 (23,882 reads)