How Cultural Differences Shape Gratitude, by Kira M. Newman
you’re trying to become happier, you’ve probably heard the advice to practice gratitude. “Gratitude is literally one of the few things that can measurably change people’s lives,” writes pioneering researcher Robert Emmons in his book Thanks! His studies suggest that gratitude can improve our health and relationships—making it one of the most well-studied and effective ways to increase our well-being in life. But prescribing gratitude to everyone is a problem: Most of what we know about it comes from studying Americans—and, specifically, the mainly white American college students from the campuses where researchers work. That crea... posted on Aug 11 2019 (10,094 reads)

What Is Your Hearth of Hearths?, by Jenna McGuiggan
A Global Conversation on Identity, Community, and Place Edited by Annick Smith and Susan O'Connor Where—or what—is your hearth of hearths? Where is the place you feel most alive or connected? What is the thing that reminds you who you are and to what (or whom) you belong? In all the world, what do you call home? These are some of the questions that Annick Smith and Susan O’Connor pondered as they edited Hearth: A Global Conversation on Identity, Community, and Place. In the preface, they describe how the “idea for a book about hearth started on the rim of the Kilauea Volcano on Hawai’i’s Big Island” when author, revered ... posted on Oct 5 2019 (4,948 reads)

Overcoming the Brain's Negativity Bias, by Jill Suttie
can’t we pull our attention away from a traffic accident or stop watching news about the latest viral outbreak? Why are we waylaid by criticism or unable to get past a minor snub from our best friend? That’s our negativity bias. We humans have a propensity to give more weight in our minds to things that go wrong than to things that go right—so much so that just one negative event can hijack our minds in ways that can be detrimental to our work, relationships, health, and happiness. Overcoming our negativity bias is not easy to do. But a new book, The Power of Bad: How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It, coauthored by social psychologist Roy... posted on Jan 17 2020 (15,777 reads)

The Dragonfly Incident, by Bill Sherwonit
suppose this could be considered a “wildlife encounter” story of sorts, though it presents some unusual twists. For one thing, the animal at the heart of this tale is a subarctic insect (and yet has nothing to do with the region’s legendary mosquitoes). For another, odd things happen that aren’t easily explained by either reason or chance. There are other curious turns, as well ... The story begins with a man sitting on the front steps of a lakeside cabin, feeling contented and thankful to be part of such a beautiful, softly shimmering summer day. He’d brought a mug of coffee out to the porch, plus binoculars and a journal in which he planned to rec... posted on Apr 6 2023 (5,393 reads)

David Whyte: On Seeking Language Large Enough, by On Being
Tippett, host:It has ever and always been true, as David Whyte reminds us, that so much of human experience is a conversation between loss and celebration. This “conversational nature of reality” — indeed, this drama of vitality  — is something we have all been shown, willing or unwilling, in these years. Many have turned to David Whyte for his gorgeous, life-giving poetry and his wisdom at the interplay of theology, psychology, and leadership, his insistence on the power of a “beautiful question” and of everyday words amidst the drama of work, as well as the drama of life. The notion of “frontier” — inner frontiers, oute... posted on Jun 18 2023 (4,269 reads)

IntraConnected: Discovering MWe (Me + We), by Tami Simon
Simon: In this episode of Insights at the Edge, my guest is Dan Siegel. Dan is a friend to me, to Sounds True, and quite honestly, he has the qualities of what I would call a universal friend. He leads with openness, curiosity, and an interest in connecting. Dan is a hugely accomplished person. He’s a graduate of Harvard Medical School and clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine. He’s the executive director of the Mindsight Institute and founding codirector of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. Dan is someone who I would describe as a visionary creative thinker. He’s able to see commonalities in the meeting ground between differ... posted on Mar 10 2023 (2,417 reads)

How to Think Like an Ecosystem, by Frances Moore Lappe
it’s dawned on me: We humans are creatures of the mind. We perceive the world according to our core, often unacknowledged, assumptions. They determine, literally, what we can see and what we cannot. Nothing so wrong with that, perhaps—except that, in this crucial do-or-die moment, we’re stuck with a mental map that is life-destroying. And the premise of this map is lack—not enough of anything, from energy to food to parking spots; not enough goods and not enough goodness. In such a world, we come to believe, it’s compete or die. The popular British writer Philip Pullman says, “we evolved to suit a way of life which is acquisitive, territor... posted on Apr 10 2012 (28,366 reads)

On Exoplanets and Love, by On Being
for On Exoplanets and Love: Natalie Batalha on Science That Connects Us to One Another February 14, 2013 Krista Tippett, Host: Natalie Batalha hunts for "exoplanets" — Earth-sized planets beyond our own solar system — that might have liquid water and harbor life. She works with the Kepler Mission at NASA, searching among millions of stars that emit "compelling signals" in the range of Kepler's space telescope. For her, it's only a matter of time — a when, not an if — that we discover planets where we know life exists. And, I've never met anyone who speaks more intriguingly than Natalie Batalha about the connection be... posted on Jan 29 2014 (26,734 reads)

Slow Medicine: An Interview With Victoria Sweet, by Mary Stein
would it look like—an intimate, intuitive, deeply skilled medicine, focused on continuing care and observation of the patient, minus computers? It’s not a question that most of us can think about in any great detail these days. In her book God’s Hotel, Dr. Victoria Sweet writes about an unusual hospital where she found amazing insights to the question. Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco was, as far as anyone knows, the last almshouse, or Hotel-Dieu, in this country—a hospital for the sick and poor. Dr. Sweet took a position there, expecting it to be temporary, then stayed for more than twenty years in a place where she and other physicians cou... posted on Oct 8 2014 (22,477 reads)

5 Ways to Kill Your Dreams, by Bel Pesce
dedicated the past two years to understanding how people achieve their dreams. When we think about the dreams we have, and the dent we want to leave in the universe, it is striking to see how big of an overlap there is between the dreams that we have and projects that never happen. (Laughter) So I'm here to talk to you today about five ways how not to follow your dreams. One: Believe in overnight success. You know the story, right? The tech guy built a mobile app and sold it very fast for a lot of money. You know, the story may seem real, but I bet it's incomplete. If you go investigate further, the guy has done 30 apps before and he has done a master's on t... posted on May 13 2015 (34,932 reads)

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Community (With a Fourteenth Thrown in For Free), by Parker J. Palmer
The title, and only the title, was inspired by the poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” by Wallace Stevens (see www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174503). The subtitle was inspired by late-night TV infomercials. I. Whether we know it or not, like it or not, honor it or not, we are embedded in community. Whether we think of ourselves as biological creatures or spiritual beings or both, the truth remains: we were created in and for a complex ecology of relatedness, and without it we wither and die. This simple fact has critical implications: community is not a goal to be achieved but a gift to be received. When we treat community as a product tha... posted on Aug 29 2016 (28,746 reads)

Too Much, Too Fast, Why It's Time for Humans to Slow Down, by Heleo Editors
Kolbert and Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard each had big books in 2015. Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History—winner of the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction—takes an unflinching look at the history of extinction and the different ways that human beings are negatively impacting life on the planet. Ricard’s Altruism: The Power of Compassion to Change Yourself and the World explores global challenges, such as climate change, and argues that compassion and altruism are the keys to creating a better future. Together these books—filled with grief and hope—feel like two sides of a coin, each necess... posted on Jun 19 2017 (16,176 reads)

On Death Row, Creating Art from Pain, by Lilly Greenblatt
introduction by Maria Jain Earlier this year, I sat in an airplane waiting to take off from New York. The sun was setting beyond the edge of the tarmac. In the distance, the Manhattan skyline stood like a row of tiny charred matchsticks against the burning horizon. For a moment, I admired this instant art. Then, I shifted my gaze to the book on my lap: “That Bird Has My Wings” written by Jarvis Jay Masters, a Buddhist practitioner on Death Row in California. As I opened the first page, graceful italics shot Masters’ resounding dedication straight into my heart: To all those who who have lost someone by an act of violence, to the memory of those who... posted on Sep 28 2017 (13,304 reads)

Michael Singer: Living from a Place of Surrender, by Tami Simon
Singer is a spiritual teacher, entrepreneur, and the bestselling author of the spiritual classic The Untethered Soul. He has collaborated with Sounds True to release the online course Living from a Place of Surrender: The Untethered Soul in Action. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Michael about the core idea of his teachings: that it is only through complete surrender to the essence of the moment that we experience life's full potential. They talk about what this sense of surrender actually means when it comes to decision-making and day-to-day activities, as well as how to recognize when we are still clinging to resistance. Micha... posted on Dec 22 2017 (47,723 reads)

13 Ways of Looking at Community (With a Fourteenth Thrown in For Free), by Parker J. Palmer
The title, and only the title, was inspired by the poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” by Wallace Stevens (see www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174503). The subtitle was inspired by late-night TV infomercials. I. Whether we know it or not, like it or not, honor it or not, we are embedded in community. Whether we think of ourselves as biological creatures or spiritual beings or both, the truth remains: we were created in and for a complex ecology of relatedness, and without it we wither and die. This simple fact has critical implications: community is not a goal to be achieved but a gift to be received. When we treat community as a product that we... posted on Feb 21 2019 (17,822 reads)

The Naked Voice: Transforming Life through the Power of Sound, by Chloe Goodchild
Naked Voice by Chloe Goodchild, published by North Atlantic Books, copyright © 2015 by Chloe Goodchild. Reprinted by permission of publisher. Since childhood and throughout my life, my voice has been my conscience and guide, providing me with an in-built “sonic laboratory” for self-inquiry. In 1990, following a transformative experience in India, I discovered my voice as my very own self. My singing voice became the messenger of this awakening. I called it my naked voice, for it arose from an unconditional source far deeper than my personality or ego could fathom. It touched a place of wisdom and oneness (nonduality) within me that opened vast new fields of... posted on Mar 18 2019 (8,090 reads)

8 Brilliant Student Essays on Immigration and Unjust Assumptions, by Lornet Turnbull
the winter 2019 student writing competition, “Border (In)Security,” we invited students to read the YES! Magazine article “Two-Thirds of Americans Live in the “Constitution-Free Zone” by Lornet Turnbull and respond with an up-to-700-word essay.  Students had a choice between two writing prompts for this contest on immigration policies at the border and in the “Constitution-free zone,” a 100-mile perimeter from land and sea borders where U.S. Border Patrol can search any vehicle, bus, or vessel without a warrant. They could state their positions on the impact of immigration policies on our country’s security and how we dete... posted on Jul 22 2021 (28,482 reads)

Wild Mind: Reclaiming Our Original Wholeness, by Bill Plotkin
from the book Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche by Bill Plotkin. Published by New World Library, 2013 www.newworldlibrary.com. It’s time to take another look at ourselves — to re-enliven our sense of what it is to be human, to breathe new life into ancient intuitions of who we are, and to learn again to celebrate, as we once did, our instinctive affinity with the Earth community in which we’re rooted. We’re called now to rediscover what it means to be human beings in a wildly diverse world of feathered, furred, and scaled fellow creatures; flowers and forests; mountains, rivers, and oceans; wind, rain, and snow; Sun and Moon. Our I... posted on Sep 25 2019 (8,390 reads)

The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
cool breath of evening slips off the wooded hills, displacing the heat of the day, and with it come the birds, as eager for the cool as I am. They arrive in a flock of calls that sound like laughter, and I have to laugh back with the same delight. They are all around me, Cedar Waxwings and Catbirds and a flash of Bluebird iridescence. I have never felt such a kinship to my namesake, Robin, as in this moment when we are both stuffing our mouths with berries and chortling with happiness. The bushes are laden with fat clusters of red, blue, and wine purple, in every stage of ripeness, so many you can pick them by the handful. I’m glad I have a pail and wonder if the birds will be ab... posted on Jan 19 2021 (11,176 reads)

The Art of Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes, by Maria Popova
we spend our days,” Annie Dillard wrote in her timelessly beautiful meditation on presence over productivity, “is, of course, how we spend our lives.” And nowhere do we fail at the art of presence most miserably and most tragically than in urban life — in the city, high on the cult of productivity, where we float past each other, past the buildings and trees and the little boy in the purple pants, past life itself, cut off from the breathing of the world by iPhone earbuds and solipsism. And yet: “The art of seeing has to be learned,” Marguerite Duras reverberates — and it can be learned, as cogn... posted on Aug 11 2021 (6,149 reads)