The Do-It-Ourselves Revolution, by Mirella Ferraz
these trying times, ordinary people are taking matters in their own hands in extraordinary ways, confronting global problems collectively — and locally.  They’re saving lives by leaving uplifting notes in areas with high suicide rates, teaching people the importance of wild plants on the sidewalks, cleaning up roads while getting fit and connecting with others, and transforming abandoned spaces into bee sanctuaries. Indeed, these everyday people are creating a true do-it-ourselves revolution.  Saving lives According to the World Health Organization, “more than 700,000 people die by suicide every year, which is one person every 40 seconds... posted on Oct 28 2021 (4,159 reads)

What Almost Dying Taught Me About Living, by ted.com
was the spring of 2011, and as they like to say in commencement speeches, I was getting ready to enter the real world. I had recently graduated from college and moved to Paris to start my first job. My dream was to become a war correspondent, but the real world that I found took me into a really different kind of conflict zone.  At 22 years old, I was diagnosed with leukemia. The doctors told me and my parents, point-blank, that I had about a 35 percent chance of long-term survival. I couldn't wrap my head around what that prognosis meant. But I understood that the reality and the life I'd... posted on Nov 5 2021 (9,373 reads)

The Peacock Mosaic, by John Silliphant
easy to forget, but back in September 2020, people were stressed.  The pandemic had changed everyone’s life.  Some people were isolated; others lacked personal space.  Most people were suffering in some kind of way.  Including the kids. With low enrollment, our school, East Bay Waldorf School, in El Sobrante, CA, had closed for the year, leaving our kids school-less. We scrambled.  Teachers, now without jobs, connected together and formed backyard pods.  Our kids would meet in person, outdoors and masked – walking in the hills, and making the very best of it.  But with our 4th grade school day ending at 12:30, it didn&rsquo... posted on Nov 6 2021 (4,393 reads)

Let a Thousand Translations Bloom, by Mridula Nath Chakraborty
essay: is this the end of translation? In 399 CE, Faxian — a monk in China’s Jin Dynasty — went on a pilgrimage to the Indian subcontinent to collect Buddhist scriptures. Returning after 13 years, he spent the rest of his life translating those texts, profoundly altering Chinese worldviews and changing the face of Asian and world history. Faxian illustrated as visiting the Palace of Asoka in 407 CE, in modern-day Patna, India, in the 19th century English book series, Story of the Nations. archive.org After Faxian, hundreds of Chinese monks made similar journeys, leading not only to the spread of Buddhism along the Nirvana Route, but also opening up ... posted on Nov 23 2021 (3,514 reads)

Heart Light in Dark Times, by Ajahn Sucitto
been reflecting on the environmental crisis, and as I do, I find myself in the darkness, as I imagine we all are to some degree. And that says something, something we shouldn’t brush aside or try to make go away. This is a place for sharing truth—and the truth right now is darkness. I sometimes reflect on how I’ve been practicing meditation, morality, restraint, generosity, sharing, and simplicity for more than forty years with as much integrity as possible. I shouldn’t have to feel this bad, this hopeless, this guilty. Yet when I look at this crisis, I’m in the dark. Recently I’ve been on retreat in the woods at Cittaviveka Monastery. Back i... posted on Dec 3 2021 (4,867 reads)

Time to Shed Our Skins, by Fiona Hayhoe-Weiland
Phillip Ramakers “It’s time to shed our skins, not just confess our sins, it’s time to shed our skins, to feed the hunger within, for the paradise we have lost…” - Kira Kaipainen Nils Kercher and Kira Kaipainen are life partners and unique world musicians who take listeners on multidirectional journeys. Their music simultaneously draws listeners out into the stark realities of our greater world, while also drawing them inward into the dazzling potentials of the human spirit. Theirs is a music that believes deeply in our fundamental interconnection, and the capacity we have to heal together. They... posted on Dec 8 2021 (4,983 reads)

Love Letters to Presence: Three Poems, by Mícheál ‘Moley’ Ó Súilleabháin.
name is Mícheál ‘Moley’ Ó Súilleabháin. I am a poet from Ireland. These three poems are love letters to presence. That presence we feel when we are close to the source of this life. Gratitude, Wisdom, Determination, and Belief.  All three are excerpted from my poetry book, ‘Early Music’ (Many Rivers Press). The first poem, Turas d’Anam, means ‘journey of your soul’ in the Irish language. This piece is an invitation to grant permission to yourself. To experience a deeper sense of meaning in this life. It reimagines set backs, or conscious retreat, as a strengthening tool. This poem is an invitation to... posted on Dec 16 2021 (7,335 reads)

Love: Life's Greatest Gift, by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
in Common Ground All of us want, or need, to be loved. The need for love is one of the most basic human impulses. We may cover this need with patterns of self-protection or images of self-reliance. Or we may openly acknowledge this need to ourself or to others. But it is always present, whether hidden or visible. Usually, we seek for love in human relationships, project our need onto parents, partners, friends, lovers. Our lack or denial of love often causes wounds that we carry with us. This unmet need haunts us, sometimes driving us into addictions or other self-destructive patterns. Conversely, if our need for love is met, we feel nourished in the depths of our being. Love... posted on Dec 30 2021 (6,253 reads)

How to Support a Loved One Struggling with Mental Health, by Sahaj Kaur Kohli
one of us has mental health in the same way that every one of us has physical health. Yet despite the prevalence of mental health struggles, there is still so much stigma around them. Worldwide the leading cause of disability is depression, according to the World Health Organization, and in the US alone, nearly 1 in 5 of adults lives with a mental illness. As a mental health therapist-in-training and the founder of Brown Girl Therapy, the largest mental health community for children of immigrants living in the West, I regularly get asked this question: “How can I support a loved one who is struggling with their mental health?” With the multiple crises... posted on Jan 5 2022 (7,410 reads)

An Abolitionist's Handbook, by Nikkita Oliver
still remember the first time I answered a call from a jail. I barely heard the name, but I recognized the voice. It sounded like my father. Confused, I couldn’t figure out how to accept the call and mistakenly selected the option to disconnect. I was so upset. I immediately called my mom and asked, “Would Daddy be calling from jail?” She hesitated to respond before she reluctantly said, “Yes.” My dad, a factory worker, struggled to pay child support. Not because he didn’t try but because he didn’t make enough money to pay the court-ordered amount and make rent, his car payment, and buy basic necessities, like food, medicine, and personal hygien... posted on Mar 6 2022 (2,381 reads)

17 Things I Would Do Differently If I Were Fully Convinced I'm Going to Die, by Eric Jones
wouldn’t do a single thing differently, but I’d be utterly transformed. Most everyone around me would notice that I had changed, but they’d find it almost impossible to say how. If pushed, they might say something like, “He hasn’t changed at all, but everything he does he does more slowly, as if he wants to remember the way it tastes.” 2. I would stop doing almost everything I’m doing now, stop working, stop spending long hours indoors typing emails, checking check boxes that mostly go unchecked until I simply cross them out, laying down tasks in the broad afternoon sunlight of each day like a man cutting down flowers so that he can come t... posted on Mar 21 2022 (20,768 reads)

The Need to Grow, by YouTube
Need to GROW' is a documentary that powerfully explores the urgent problem of living on a planet that has only an estimated 60 years left of farmable soil-- and the creative and courageous ways in which different individuals are responding to that challenge. The film highlights the stories of three main characters --  Alicia Serratos, an 8-year-old Girl Scout; Erik Cutter, a regenerative urban farmer; and Michael Smith an inventor. Serratos spearheads a petition for non-GMO Girl Scout cookies; Cutter aims to cultivate food in a resource-efficient manner; and Smith's Green Power House invention serves as 'a closed-loop energy generator that sequesters carbo... posted on Mar 22 2022 (4,164 reads)

Revolutions and the Politics of Being, by Anthony Siracusa
following excerpt is from Nonviolence Before King: The Politics of Being and the Black Freedom Struggle by Anthony Siracusa, The University of North Carolina Press  Chapel Hill (2021) Historians and sociologists, political scientists and scholars of religion and law have acknowledged for decades the centrality of nonviolent direct action to the Black freedom movement. But we know much less about the evolution of the political philosophy of religious nonviolence, a set of ethics that led to the rise and appeal of nonviolent direct action for many Black Americans. [...] Inspired by the preaching and writing of Howard Thurman, three figures—Pauli Murray, Bay... posted on Mar 23 2022 (2,726 reads)

How to Stay Open and Curious in Hard Conversations, by Mónica Guzmán
you willing to believe that you are wrong about something? I was attending a lecture called “Civil Conversation in an Angry Age” by philosopher David Smith, and he offered a prescription for bridging divides that began with this question. “Is it safe to assume all 63 of us are wrong about something right now?” Smith asked the virtual, pandemic-era class. In Zoom squares on my screen, heads considered, then nodded. “I think so, because we’ve been wrong about so many things before,” he continued. But there’s a problem: We don’t know what we’re wrong about. “That simple observation, ‘I’m wrong, I ju... posted on Apr 30 2022 (8,919 reads)

Becoming Who You Are Meant to Be, by Tami Simon
Simon: Welcome to Insights at the Edge produced by Sounds True. My name’s Tami Simon. I’m the founder of Sounds True. I’d love to take a moment to introduce you to the new Sounds True Foundation. The Sounds True Foundation is dedicated to creating a wiser and kinder world by transformational education widely available. We want everyone to have access to transformational tools, such as mindfulness, emotional awareness and self-compassion, regardless of financial, social, or physical challenges. The Sounds True Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to providing these transformational tools to communities in need, including at-risk youth, prisoners, veterans ... posted on May 9 2022 (4,049 reads)

Resisting Revenge to Embrace Humanity , by Robi Damelin
Chain of Change I came to Israel from South Africa in 1967; I came as a volunteer after the Six Day War, thinking I’d be here for about six months. I really wanted to leave South Africa because I’d been active in the anti–apartheid movement and it was getting very pressured and ugly. I actually wanted to live in the States, then I came here and I’ve had this sort of love–hate relationship with this country ever since. I went to a Hebrew language program, got married and had two kids, worked for the Jerusalem Post, and then with immigrants to help them find employment. After I got divorced I came to live in Tel Aviv. I brought up my children in a very tol... posted on May 11 2022 (2,462 reads)

Monkey Stories, the Best Kind of Stories, by Snigdha Manickavel
credit: Snigdha Manickavel I don't remember when the monkeys first started coming to our house. Possibly, it was while I was away at college. In those days something about the long, hot bus-rides home made me sleepy in a way that I could never shake off completely. At home, I listened to my parents talk about the things that the monkeys had done and though I love my parents dearly, I often felt that they were exaggerating, in their sweet, old people way, making up unbelievable stories about monkeys to hold my attention. Over time, I too would become enchanted, could not stop talking about the monkeys, telling city friends stories that they did not know what to do with... posted on Jun 29 2022 (3,661 reads)

The Paradoxes of Healing, by Lissa Rankin
from Let’s Not Polarize Into The Science Camp and the Anti-Science Camp, by Lissa Rankin, MD. Sometimes we get sick, and conventional medicine can cure us lickety-split. And thank God for those cures and for the doctors who deliver them. I was once one of  those doctors, and it felt so satisfying when one of  those medical cures could ease the suffering of  someone in distress. But if  you practice medicine long enough, you wind up treating lots of  patients with illnesses conventional medicine simply doesn’t know how to adequately treat. Sure, we can keep some diseases at bay with daily medication or intervene surgically to improve symptoms t... posted on Jul 7 2022 (7,327 reads)

Answering the Heart's Call, by Anoo Kulkarni
many years, I wondered what it really meant to ‘follow one’s heart’. I was very curious to know what it felt like. I was certain it would be extraordinary, with an air of mystery. Something lofty and noble, a higher purpose. It would be a dramatic turning point after which all the pieces of the puzzle would fall neatly in place. I would no longer feel torn, there would be no guilt or self-doubt, no more bad decisions, and no future-anxiety. I was convinced it would bring clarity and peace, joy, fulfillment and perhaps, success. All the good stuff. I finally found my calling around my forty-second birthday, but it wasn’t quite what I had imagined. Just when... posted on Jul 13 2022 (3,986 reads)

Bringing Back the Delight of Poetry, by Laura Apol
student performs at the 2013 Louder Than a Bomb slam poetry competition in Boston, Massachusetts. John Tammaro / flickr, CC BY-ND The American poet William Stafford was often asked by friends, readers, students and colleagues: When did you become a poet? The response he regularly offered was: “The question isn’t when I became a poet; the question is when other people stopped.” Stafford was articulating what many poets believe: that the roots of poetry (rhythm, form, sound) go far back – both personally and culturally – “to the crib” and “to the fire in front of the cave.” No surprise, then, that children delight in the plea... posted on Jul 12 2022 (2,929 reads)