Remarkable Beings, by Eleanor O'Hanlon
by Laura M. Brown, Desert Elephant Conservation Beneath the arid surface of northern Namibia run hidden veins of water that rise through a network of dry river beds during brief periods of rain. This austere landscape, the most ancient of all the world’s deserts, is home to a small number of elephant families, who have learned to survive on its sparse resources. They bring the underground water sources seeping to the surface by digging in the sand river beds with their tusks and trunk, and feed on the trees and bushes that grow along the banks. Despite human persecution and the increasing fragmentation of their habitat, these elephants endure through their steadfast love ... posted on Mar 25 2018 (16,754 reads)

The Unplanned Organization: Learning from Nature's Emergent Creativity, by Margaret Wheatley
UNPLANNED ORGANIZATION: LEARNING FROM NATURE'S EMERGENT CREATIVITY From Noetic Sciences Review #37, Spring 1996   In my work with large organizations, one of the questions we often ask is, "How would we work differently if we really understood that we are truly self-organizing?" The first thing we recognize is that, just like individuals, the organizations we create have a natural tendency to change, to develop. This is completely counter to the current mantra of organizational life: "People resist change. People fear change. People hate change." Instead, in a self-organizing world, we see change as a power, a pre... posted on Jun 15 2018 (9,509 reads)

The Town that Fought Big Ag and Won, by Philip Ackerman-Leist
a small town in the Italian Alps said “Yes!” to a pesticide-free future. The following excerpt is adapted from A Precautionary Tale: How One Small Town Banned Pesticides, Preserved Its Food Heritage, and Inspired a Movement (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2017) and is reprinted with permission from the publisher. For hundreds of years, the people of Mals — a tiny village in the South Tyrol province of northern Italy — had cherished their traditional foodways and kept their local agriculture organic. Yet the town is located high up in the Alps, and the conventional apple producers, heavily dependent on pesticides, were steadily overtaking the valley below. Aid... posted on Mar 2 2018 (13,749 reads)

The Benefits of Being a Misfit, by Knowledge@wharton
Isaacson is a gifted storyteller. A career journalist who has steered both Time magazine and CNN, Isaacson has written biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Henry Kissinger, Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein. His latest biography, published last year, looks at the life of Leonardo da Vinci. Isaacson, now a history professor at Tulane University, recently visited Wharton to be interviewed by his friend and management professor Adam Grant as part of the Authors@Wharton speakers series. Grant has also written several bestsellers, including Give and Take and Option B, which he co-authored with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. Grant and Isaacson shared a lively discussion on topics ranging from ... posted on Apr 6 2018 (12,675 reads)

Muhammad Yunus: A World of Three Zeroes, by Knowledge@Wharton
world without poverty, unemployment or environmental devastation seems like a utopian dream. But it doesn’t have to be. In his new book, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus shares his vision for a kinder, gentler planet. It starts with recognizing what he describes as the inherent cruelty of capitalism, the need to value the abilities of every human being and understanding that saving the environment must be a collective effort. Yunus, who won the Nobel for his work in microfinance, encourages us to see the world not through the lens of profit, but of social impact. He spoke about his book, A World of Three Zeroes: The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment... posted on May 5 2018 (9,950 reads)

When Things Fall Apart, by Maria Popova
every life, there comes a time when we are razed to the bone of our resilience by losses beyond our control — lacerations of the heart that feel barely bearable, that leave us bereft of solid ground. What then? “In art,” Kafka assured his teenage walking companion, “one must throw one’s life away in order to gain it.” As in art, so in life — so suggests the American Tibetan Buddhist nun and teacher Pema Chödrön. In When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times(public library), she draws on her own confrontation with personal crisis and on the ancient teachings of Tibetan Buddhism to offer ... posted on Mar 13 2018 (17,553 reads)

Health 3.0: Where Medicine Needs to Go, by Venu Julapalli
rip-off Have you or any of your loved ones experienced our health care system lately? If so, how was that experience for you? Were you pleased with your care? Were you able to access the system easily? Did it treat you with dignity, respect, and competence? Did you feel well after your engagement with the system? And were you satisfied afterward that you got what you paid for? Or did you feel like the system failed you? That it addressed your acute illness but not your overall health? That it moved you around like a cog in a vast machine? That it never met your unique need? And ransacked your pocketbook in the process? According to a study by Fidelity Investments, a m... posted on Aug 25 2018 (9,569 reads)

Fritjof Capra on Life and Leadership for a Sustainable Community, by Fritjof Capra
is not an individual property, but is a property of an entire web of relationships. It is a community practice. This is the profound lesson we need to learn from nature. The way to sustain life is to build and nurture community. A sustainable human community interacts with other communities — human and nonhuman — in ways that enable them to live and develop according to their natures. Sustainability does not mean that things do not change. It is a dynamic process of coevolution rather than a static state. Because of the close connection between sustainability and community, basic principles of ecology can also be understood as principles of community. In part... posted on Feb 28 2018 (10,605 reads)

How Do We Respond? A Question to Artists, by Mirka Knaster
artist has not reflected on her/his intention in creating art? We ask ourselves what the purpose of our work is and the effect we hope to achieve. Talk to a dozen artists and you'll get a dozen different answers to this question. Some of us could be engaging in a formal exploration of themes, colors, techniques, materials, or styles. Others are recording observations of places, people, animals, and events. Perhaps we simply want to decorate space or capture beauty. Maybe we're expressing dreams, exorcising inner demons, evoking emotions, moving toward healing. We might be attempting to make visible what's spiritually invisible and to understand our place in the world. If ... posted on Mar 16 2018 (7,873 reads)

In Praise of Crooked Things, by Patty de Llosa
time to celebrate crooked things. We often seek perfection but will we ever get it all straight? I don’t think so. Maybe we once believed that “straight is the gate and narrow is the way” and went in search of it. But by now most of us are pretty sure we’re not going to find it. And even if we did manage to squeeze through that narrow aperture from time to time, didn’t our pathbecome pretty crooked from then on? How often do we stray from our intention out of curiosity or stupor or to smell the roses! Nature moves in curves and curlicues. Perhaps that’s why I love the many crooked trees even more than the few arrow-straight ones. They look li... posted on Apr 16 2018 (10,675 reads)

The Moment I Knew Gratitude is the Answer to Every Question, by Kristin Meekhof
can’t change the past losses, but we can change the way in which we relate to our losses, and for this I am infinitely grateful." It’s October 2007, and it is pitch black outside. The birds are not even awake, and I’m rumbling through my purse, going to turn on the car, to make sure the seat warmer on the passenger side is on because my husband’s frail and skinny body gets cold easily. I’m going through a mental checklist: grab snacks, bottle of water, cash. I go back into the kitchen. My husband Roy is up and ready. I see the clothes are loose fitting, kind of hanging on him, but he still looks healthy in so many ways. I gr... posted on Jun 7 2018 (22,549 reads)

The Rejuvenating Power of Rest, by Matthew Edlund, M.D.
is the original transformative technology. Through rest we rebuild, rewire and renew ourselves - literally. The process is fast. The skin on your face is replaced in two weeks. Gut lining cells take two days. And that’s complete replacement. Partial rebuilding is even faster. A recent article in the New York Times looked at autophagy, how cells internally recycle. Heart cells may last 50 years, but their subcellular innards are functionally replaced in three days. Those proteins pumping away may last thirty or 60 minutes before they’re dumped, cut up and made into something else. In the ways that matter you’re getting a new heart in three days - a proce... posted on Jun 1 2018 (12,897 reads)

Ann Medlock: Sticking Her Neck Out for Our Common Humanity, by Awakin Call Editors
Medlock is a writer and social activist who founded the Giraffe Heroes Project, a nonprofit organization that's given countless people around the globe the stories and inspiring examples of real heroes—people sticking their necks out for the common good—for more than three decades.  In 1983, concerned that too few people were actively participating in their own democracy, she launched the organization as a call for a spotlight on and inspiration for more brave, active, citizens:  Ann sought to get the stories of such people told on radio and television in order to inspire others into active participation in public life. The organization has since honor... posted on May 10 2018 (11,867 reads)

When Rivers Hold Legal Rights, by Shannon Biggs
17, 2017 Winding its way through dense forest laced with hidden waterfalls, the Whanganui River is the largest navigable river in Aotearoa, the Maori word for New Zealand. With the passage of the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Bill in March, the river became the first water system in the world to be recognized as a rights-bearing entity, holding legal “personhood” status. One implication of the agreement is that the Whanganui River is no longer property of New Zealand’s Crown government — the river now owns itself. Photo by Kathrin & Stefan MarksIn March, the Whanganui River in New Zealand became the first water bo... posted on Jun 2 2018 (6,895 reads)

The Wisdom of South Korea's Garden Hacking Grandparents, by Patrick M. Lydon
the Garden-Hacking Grandmas and Grandpas of South Korea Know. Gardening here is not a hobby. It comes from the realization within people that there is inherent value in tending a garden and taking time to be a part of nature. More than a century ago, urbanist Ebenezer Howard invented the concept of a “garden city”—a city with a bustling urban core, fanning out in to green neighborhoods, and then farther out into farmland, all of it theoretically connected in a semi-closed sustainable cycle. As a kid growing up in San Jose, California, I wondered why I’d never seen one of these cities, especially because the idea was so old. With its low-density swath... posted on Jun 28 2018 (6,322 reads)

I Will Teach You: by Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim, by Tae Yun Kim
a miracle would free her to live her own life As the following passage opens, the young Tae Yun Kim, a South Korean girl who has been separated from her relatives by the horrors of the Korean war, has returned to her family. –The Editors Eventually, I was reunited with my family, and when the war was over, I went to live with my grandparents. One blue-gray morning in Kimcheon, South Korea, I was awakened by a shout. Although the war had ended, sudden sounds still had an unsettling effect on me. Cautiously I slid open the rice paper window in the room. My uneasiness disappeared as I saw something that instantly captivated me. There, in the early morning fog, my uncles w... posted on Jun 12 2018 (8,276 reads)

Circles of Time, by J. Stephen Lansing
has been suggested that the linear theory of time is related to the experience of time in the Northern (and Southern) hemispheres, where it is marked by seasonal changes: life begins in the spring, matures in the summer, and dies in the fall, to begin a new cycle the following spring. Bali, however, lies in the region of tropical rain forests near the Equator where there are no reasons to synchronize the growth schedules of all livings things. Instead, the processes of growth and decay proceed at different rates all over the forest, all the time. A flower is on a short, rapid growth cycle; a tree, a much longer one; a rock, longer still. The cycles mesh in this world, the Middle World, to... posted on Jul 3 2018 (6,987 reads)

Kelly Orians: Getting Out and Staying Out, by Leslee Goodman
Orians is a staff attorney at The First 72 Plus, a New Orleans nonprofit founded by six formerly incarcerated people to help other formerly incarcerated men and women navigate the first 72 hours of their release. She is also the co-founder of Rising Foundations, a partner nonprofit that provides pathways to self-sufficiency for formerly incarcerated people, with an aim to stop the cycle of incarceration in low-income communities through small business development and home ownership.   Even as a high school student growing up in Castle Rock, Colorado, and then as an undergraduate at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Orians was attuned to the failure... posted on Jul 16 2018 (7,647 reads)

Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, by Ben Goldfarb
excerpt is from Ben Goldfarb’s new book Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2018) and is reprinted with permission from the publisher www.chelseagreen.com Close your eyes. Picture, if you will, a healthy stream. What comes to mind? Perhaps you’ve conjured a crystalline, fast-moving creek, bounding merrily over rocks, its course narrow and shallow enough that you could leap or wade across the channel. If, like me, you are a fly fisherman, you might add a cheerful, knee-deep angler, casting for trout in a limpid riffle. It’s a lovely picture, fit for an Orvis catalog. It’s also wrong. Let’s... posted on Aug 15 2018 (8,099 reads)

Opening Your Heart to Bhutan, by ted.com
are cowering on the floor. Above you is an unknown man. He is pointing a gun at your head. He has your life in his hands. What matters to you now? What do you know which is of any use? This is the situation I found myself in in September 1997, in a hotel room in Jakarta, Indonesia. I believe it was the start of my awakening.  At the time of this incident, I was working in the financial markets in Hong Kong, making significant size investments for a global bank. I had made the decision to move into a financial career after the death of my father. He had always felt that I would suit such a career, and so I finished my studies in Fine Art and decided to grow up and get ... posted on Sep 7 2018 (6,796 reads)