The Women Who Restored Jungles, by Anuradha Sengupta
is early morning in Dhepagudi, a sleepy hamlet nestled in the green hills of Odisha, India. Admai Kumruka is sifting millet in a traditional sieve made of bamboo strips. Children mill around, playing on a mud and sand mound. A few huts down, Rello Dindika is sorting through harvested corn. A group of women are chopping fresh pumpkin leaves and flowers for a stir-fry dish. They have finished morning chores and farming work and are now preparing breakfast. Some of the corn will be ground to a powder for a wholesome porridge. The rest will be popped in clay vessels for evening snacks. “The forest department has become very aggressive.” “We have mandya or&nbs... posted on Dec 22 2016 (11,636 reads)

Why We Love Our Own Creations, by Dan Ariely
R. Trower Behavioral economist Dan Ariely points out the surprising joy and engagement we feel when we make things. We are the CEOs of our own lives. We work hard to spur ourselves to get up and go to work and do what we must do day after day. We also try to encourage people to work for and with us. We do this in our personal lives, too: from a very young age, kids try to persuade their parents to do things for them. As adults, we try to encourage our significant others to do things for us; we attempt to get our kids to clean up their rooms; and we try to induce our neighbors to trim their hedges or help out with a block party. Rather than seeing motivation as a simple, rat... posted on Dec 26 2016 (15,793 reads)

KindSpring's Top 10 Kindness Stories of 2016, by KindSpring
year KindSpring shares a selection of the most powerful stories they've received over the last twelve months. In the spirit of anonymity these real-life stories are often posted by people who choose to use a "Kindness alias". Some of the stories are about children and teenagers who have stumbled on creative ways to flex their kindness muscles, others are about adults of different ages, nationalities and backgrounds who regularly go out of their way to make our world a kinder, brighter place. Whether the stories describe a small act that made someone's day, or a gesture that forever altered the trajectory of a life, they all share one thing in common: a very big heart.... posted on Jan 4 2017 (19,456 reads)

Physicist David Bohm on Creativity, by Maria Popova
most regretful people on earth,” Mary Oliver wrote in her exquisite meditation on the central commitment of the creative life, “are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.” The past century has sprouted a great many theories of how creativity works and what it takes to master it, and yet its innermost nature remains so nebulous and elusive that the call of creative work may be as difficult to hear as it is to answer. What to listen for and how to tune the listening ear is what the trailblazing physicist David Bohm (Decem... posted on Jan 7 2017 (21,094 reads)

Interview Joshua Gorman: Generation Waking Up, by Rhonda Fabian
have been working with young people for a number of years now, Joshua. How is this generation different? Joshua Gorman: There’s a new generation of young people waking up and coming of age all across the planet, a generation rising between an old world dying and a new world being born. We are the make-it-or-break-it generation. The all-or-nothing generation. It’s the crucible through which civilization must pass or crash. That’s the significance of these times, the significance of who we are. That’s what we are being called to. Young people today are being swept up by the new story and it’s defining our lives, it’s who we... posted on Jan 18 2017 (12,366 reads)

It's About Critical Connections Not Critical Mass, by Curtis Ogden
the recent Thanksgiving break, I had the opportunity to meet with friends of extended family members, a couple who are engaged in both disaster relief and community planning work. She is from Nepal and he is from the U.S., and together they relayed a story about their time visiting Nepal during the devastating earthquake of 2015. The two of them were hiking in the mountains when the 7.8 magnitude quake struck. Shaken but not hurt, they made their way back to Katmandu as quickly as possible to check in on family members and then to offer their assistance to others. Originally assigned the task of loading water jugs on trucks, they then volunteered and were enlisted for their... posted on Feb 4 2017 (26,100 reads)

Singing to Tomatoes, by Alanda Greene
visited the tomato house this morning: a shelter constructed of arched white plumbing rods covered in plastic. It keeps them warm in a mountain area where spring can stay cool until late June and nights stay cool most of the time. Right now the tomatoes are strong and full of large green fruit between deep green abundant leaves. The fruit is just beginning to tinge towards red and I’m excited at the prospect of eating delicious vine-ripened tomatoes, grown from the tiny seeds begun indoors in March. Every morning I visit the garden and relish what is growing. Today when I step into the tomato house, I feel a sense of welc... posted on Feb 7 2017 (14,009 reads)

How Do We Wake Up?: A Conversation with Mark Dubois, by Richard Whittaker
I first began hearing about Mark Dubois, his name was mentioned with a note of awe. “You’ve got to meet him, Richard!” People like giving me suggestions and I’m grateful for them; this one, however, had a different energy about it. But then nothing further happened. It wasn’t until two years later that I met Dubois at a ServiceSpace gathering. One doesn’t forget meeting Mark. First, he’s taller than almost anyone you’ve ever met. And second, you receive the longest hug from a stranger you’ll ever run into. It makes an impression. The man is a force, an embodiment of a special dimension of love that manifests in an irrepressibly physi... posted on Feb 13 2017 (10,904 reads)

In the Midst of Winter, an Invincible Summer, by Tracy Cochran
by Benjamin Baláz My daughter Alex once put her bike out on our Brooklyn street for any stranger to take. She made a sign saying “Free bike! Please enjoy!” in purple crayon, adding a bold smiley face. I helped her carry the bike down the steep steps of our brownstone and place it under the streetlight, the sign taped to the seat. Lying in bed that night, her face shone with happy anticipation. Things appeared and disappeared on the street all the time, but it was different being part of it. In a way, this was what I wanted her to understand: meaning is an action; we make meaning through our actions. You exist in a web of life: this was the message. Yo... posted on Feb 18 2017 (20,759 reads)

How to Combat the Creativity Crisis, by Michael Ruiz
United States prides itself on being a beacon of innovation. But there has been a substantial dive in the nation’s creativity in the last few decades, according to research by educational psychologist KH Kim, author of the new book The Creativity Challenge. Kim has tested more than 270,000 people, from kindergartners to adults, looking at (among other things) their ability to come up with original ideas, think in a detailed and elaborative way, synthesize information, and be open-minded and curious—what she considers creativity. Her research has found that Americans’ creativity rose from 1966 to 1990, but began significantly declining after then. An... posted on Feb 21 2017 (13,756 reads)

How to Listen with Compassion in the Classroom, by Martha Caldwell
students are driven by a need to belong. In classroom environments where the need to belong is thwarted, however, young people may grasp for power and prestige rather than learn how to form authentic connections. We all know students who try to fit in in negative ways: bullying, striving to be “cool,” buying in to peer pressure, or conforming to negative stereotypes. They typically lack the necessary social-emotional skills to form healthy, supportive relationships and do not understand that these behaviors obstruct rather than satisfy the need to belong. This can produce a fear-based classroom atmosphere that impedes learning. We can intentionally design classroom comm... posted on Feb 26 2017 (21,404 reads)

, by Brother David Steindl-Rast
I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison. – Nelson Mandela To love our enemies does not mean that we suddenly become their friends. If it is our enemies we are to love, they must remain enemies. Unless you have enemies, you cannot love them. And if you have no enemies, I wonder if you have any friends. The moment you choose your friends, their enemies become your own enemies. By having convictions, we make ourselves the enemies of those who oppose these convictions. But let’s be sure we agree on what we mean by terms like Friend, E... posted on Apr 17 2017 (15,985 reads)

Liz Mitten Ryan: One With The Herd, by Awakin Call Editors
1999 Liz Mitten Ryan, award-winning artist, mother of six and founder of a successful fine art publishing company in Vancouver, traded in the secure terrain of her known life to move with her architect husband, and a herd of eleven horses, to Gateway 2 Ranch -- a 320-acre slice of paradise nestled in the grasslands of British Columbia. For several months their home was a simple tent in the midst of an enchanted landscape studded with lakes, wild flowers, emerald hills and whispering woods. In this vast solitude it became customary for Liz to spend her days following the herd. Communing with them she began to recognize their deep gift for  connection to all of life, and how bei... posted on Mar 9 2017 (16,749 reads)

Shai Reshef: The Man Educating the World, by Alicia Buller
his late 40s, Shai Reshef was lucky enough to enter into semi-retirement. After all, he was a man who thought he had achieved much of what he wanted to achieve. But having been an educational entrepreneur all his life, there were nagging questions: “What if everyone could go to university? What if education was a human right?” Many people might have kicked their feet up and left it at that. Not Reshef. The fearless entrepreneur set about bringing together volunteer tutors, low-tech open-source software and the internet to create the world’s first tuition-free online, accredited university. But even he didn’t realise just how much the whole world was behind hi... posted on Mar 11 2017 (19,643 reads)

Do Not Lose Heart, We Were Made for These Times, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
estimados queridos, My Esteemed Ones: Do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now. It is true, one has to have strong cojones and ovarios to withstand much of what passes for “good” in our culture today. Abject disregard of what the soul finds most precious and irreplaceable and the corruption of principled ideals have become, in some large societal arenas, “the new normal,” the grotesquerie of the week. It is hard to say which one of the current egregious matters has rocked people’s... posted on Mar 13 2020 (218,094 reads)

When Kids Say Thanks, by Giacomo Bono
I was nine years old, I came down with a serious case of encephalitis. I spent a couple of weeks drifting in and out of sleep, hooked up to tubes and IVs, unable to talk—and then I slipped into a coma. A doctor warned my mom and dad that I might not come out “normal” or be able to walk again. When I came through a week later, I was happy to see my parents and my aunt standing in front of me, masks covering their mouths, their eyes open with relief and trembling with concern. I figured something was wrong, but didn’t understand what. “I want pizza,” I uttered. I had to wait a week before I could eat regular food. But my parents and relatives ... posted on Mar 14 2017 (9,145 reads)

A Reading List for the Spirit, by Spirituality & Health
Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi Random House Written with eloquence, insight, and a healthy measure of humor, When Breath Becomes Air captures the thoughts and memories of neurosurgeon Kalanithi just before his death from lung cancer in March 2015. Having devoted his previous 10 years to the preservation of life, Kalanithi was in a unique position to reflect on mortality as he faced it himself at age 37.  —Damon Orion     Grace without God The Search for Meaning, Purpose, and Belonging in a Secular Age by Katherine Ozment Harper Wave Ozment went on a quest to find grace without God, and during her exploration, met... posted on Apr 4 2017 (37,853 reads)

How a Determined Vet in Kaziranga Is Saving India's Orphan Animals, by Sanchari Pal
2009, a pair of tiny spotted cubs were dropped onto the doorstep of the International Fund For Animal Welfare – Wildlife Rescue Center (IFAW-WRC) in Kaziranga in Assam. A closer look at the days-old felines revealed that they were clouded leopards – the smallest of the big cats, the clouded leopard is an extremely shy, nocturnal and tree-dwelling animal, it is found in the forested foothills of northeast India.  Only about 10,000 clouded leopards remain in the wild – they face the double-jeopardy of poaching and dwindling forests due to human expansion – and the species is classified as ‘vulnerable’ in the IUCN Red List of threatened... posted on Mar 25 2017 (14,795 reads)

Why Is It So Hard to Take Your Own Advice?, by Melissa Dahl
article was originally published in October 2015 Photo: Justin Pumfrey/Getty Images This week, the Cut is talking advice — the good, the bad, the weird, and the pieces of it you really wish you would have taken. If there is one piece of advice I give regularly to my friends, it is this: “Just talk to him!” Or her, or them, or whomever. I’m constantly advising my friends that their problems would be more quickly and efficiently solved were they to just say something to the person currently stressing them out. And, probably, this works. I wouldn’t know, as it’s something I rarely do myself. It’s one thing to give advice t... posted on May 30 2017 (7,844 reads)

Are Two Lives Saved Twice as Good as One?, by Somik Raha
two lives saved twice as good as one life saved?” I asked my friend. He thought about it and said, “Yes, from a 30,000 feet view, that seems reasonable, but something about it doesn’t sit right.” What is it about reducing a life to a number that feels uncomfortable? Time Jump: 1922, Munich German Middle School The teacher walked into the class and nodded. The class stood up and took the oath they recited daily before beginning lessons, “I was born to die for Germany.” As they took their seats, the teacher noticed  one boy still standing. They locked eyes, and the boy found his voice, “I think I was born to live for Germany,&r... posted on Mar 27 2017 (11,236 reads)