Community, Conflict and Ways of Knowing , by Parker Palmer
years ago, my own yearning for community in education led me out of the mainstream of higher education to a small place called Pendle Hill, a 55-year-old Quaker living/learning community near Philadelphia. It is a place where everyone from teachers to cooks to administrators receives the same base salary as a witness to community. At Pendle Hill, rigorous study of philosophy, nonviolent social change, and other subjects, goes right alongside washing the dishes each day, making decisions by consensus, and taking care of each other, as well as reaching out to the world. Out of that long, intense experience, what might I share that would somehow be hopeful and encouraging? I learned, of ... posted on Nov 13 2016 (13,232 reads)

The True Birthright of the Storyteller, by Rajni Bakshi
three decades of being engrossed in the craft details of storytelling there is a substantial array of discoveries, dilemmas and unsolved questions clamouring for attention. At the centre of this apparent jumble is a core question: What is the swadharma [a Sanskrit word that loosely translates to duty or unique role accorded to one by nature] of a storyteller in the larger quest for change today? An assortment of dilemmas and sub-questions spin off from this central point. How to be a storyteller without getting embroiled in argumentation? How important is it to sift insight from ideology? What is the most empathic way to link seemingly disparate realities? An inv... posted on May 10 2017 (7,285 reads)

The Vibrations of Conflict, by Kenneth Cloke
Vibrations of Conflict [Excerpted from Kenneth Cloke, The Magic of Mediation: A Guide to Transforming and Transcending Conflict  © 2003] How strange the change From major to minor, Every time we say goodbye. Cole Porter Cole Porter clearly got it right. But what exactly is it that changes from major to minor when we say goodbye? What permits music to express and stimulate our moods so precisely? How does it ignite or dampen our spirits, make us feel romantic or cynical, lighthearted or blue? Why do simple sequences of musical notes or complex symphonic strains cause us to weep with sorrow, waltz with elegance, march in disciplined military formations, or swirl sensuous... posted on May 24 2017 (8,814 reads)

Music & the Brain: The Fascinating Ways Music Affects Your Mood and Mind, by Barry Goldstein
Ways That Music Affects the Brain The field of music and neuroscience is greatly expanding and is indicating many beneficial ways music can engage and change the brain. Let’s discuss how music affects the brain and mood by engaging emotion, memory, learning and neuroplasticity, and attention. In looking at the many ways that music engages the brain, we can begin to understand how creating a consistent musical program can target and enhance certain brain functions. 1. Emotion Research indicates that music stimulates emotions through specific brain circuits. We can easily see how music and the brain engage mood and emotion when a child smiles and begins t... posted on Jul 27 2017 (76,602 reads)

Matt Walker: Sleeping Enough to Be Truly Awake, by Awakin Call Editors
evidence is overwhelming, it is irrefutable.  Sleep is the single most effective thing you can do to reset your brain and body health each and every day,” -- Matt Walker, Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory. Calling the global sleep-loss epidemic “the greatest public health challenge we now face in the 21st century,” Walker examines the impact of sleep on human brain function in healthy and clinical populations.  Through his work at UC Berkeley, he has been at the forefront of sleep research. He has linked sleep deprivation to psychiatric ... posted on May 31 2017 (59,236 reads)

Five Limits Your Brain Puts on Generosity, by Summer Allen
suggests that our brains may be wired for altruism, but there’s a catch—well, five of them, actually. Humans can be remarkably generous. Americans gave a record $390 billion to charitable organizations in 2016 through a combination of individual giving and philanthropy from estates, corporations, and foundations. And people give in myriad other ways as well, from everyday acts of kindness toward loved ones to volunteering to large acts of altruism, like donating a kidney to a stranger. This isn’t surprising, given how wired we appear to be for giving. But there are limits to our generosity—and many people want to be more generous th... posted on Jan 18 2018 (11,316 reads)

A Conversation with Ashton Applewhite, by Awakin Call Editors
her career, New York-based author and activist, Ashton Applewhite has written about a wide variety of subjects including Antarctica, astrophysics, and a village in Laos that got access to the internet via a bicycle-powered computer. Since 2007, she has been writing about aging and ageism at ThisChairRocks.com, and has authored a book by the same name. She's also the voice of “Yo, Is This Ageist?" and has been widely recognized by the New York Times as an expert on ageism. What follows is the edited transcript of an Awakin Call with Ashton. You can listen to the full recording here. Pavi Mehta: Ashton, what brought you to where you are today, and what dre... posted on Feb 22 2018 (13,829 reads)

Trauma in the Body: An Interview with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, by Elissa Melaragno
IN THE BODY: EXPLORING NEW HOPES FOR HEALING Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. is the founder and medical director of the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts, a professor in the department of psychiatry at Boston University Medical School, and the director of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, which Congress established to raise the standard of care and improve access to services for traumatized children, their families, and communities.  Dr. van der Kolk’s newest book, The Body Keeps The Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma, offers a sweeping and revolutionary new understanding of the causes and consequences of trauma and how to heal t... posted on Apr 21 2018 (61,444 reads)

Transforming Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, by Parker J. Palmer
a respected educational writer, teacher and activist, Parker J. Palmer shares some powerful thoughts on the current landscape of higher education with regard to pedagogy and practice. Through his personal and professional experiences with teaching and learning, Palmer highlights the existing disconnect between objectivist thinking and subjective experience within our classrooms and campuses and how to address this in order to better navigate the connection between our external and internal worlds. Palmer argues that, at the present time, we no longer can ignore the “inner drivers” that connect to the very core of humanity and the central mission of higher education, and advoca... posted on May 8 2018 (12,287 reads)

Peter Levine on Freedom from Pain, by Tami Simon
Simon: You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today I speak with Peter Levine and Maggie Phillips. Maggie Phillips is a licensed psychologist and currently serves as director at the California Institute of Clinical Hypnosis. She has authored numerous papers and articles as well as the books Finding the Energy to Heal: How EMDR, Hypnosis, TFT, Imagery, and Body-Focused Therapy Can Help Restore Mindbody Health and Reversing Chronic Pain: A 10-Point All-Natural Plan for Lasting Relief. Peter Levine has spent 45 years studying and treating stress and trauma; is the developer of somatic experiencing, a naturalistic approach to healing trauma; and has... posted on May 26 2018 (22,108 reads)

Counter Mapping, by Adam Loften & Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
Enote, a traditional Zuni farmer and director of the A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center, is working with Zuni artists to create maps that bring an indigenous voice and perspective back to the land, countering Western notions of place and geography and challenging the arbitrary borders imposed on the Zuni world.                “Modern maps don’t have a memory.” —Jim Enote Long, long ago, the A:shiwi lived deep within the earth, in darkness. Prompted by a message from the Sun Father, they began to climb the branches of four great trees, passing through the four levels of the underworld, at last emerging into daylig... posted on Jul 17 2018 (11,223 reads)

Voices from White Earth: Gaa-waabaabiganikaag, by Winona LaDuke
E. F. SCHUMACHER LECTURES OCTOBER 1993, YALE UNIVERSITY, NEW HAVEN, CT EDITED BY HILDEGARDE HANNUM E. F. Schumacher wrote of a sensibility, a paradigm, a worldview, in which human beings might exist in long-lived intimacy and harmony with the natural world. But for most of us that possibility remains a longing, an instinctual hope for a condition we have never known. For Winona LaDuke it is a living heritage, the beleaguered but surviving belief system and chosen way of life of her people, the Mississippi band of Anishinaabeg of the White Earth Reservation in Northern Minnesota. Harv... posted on Jun 27 2018 (7,004 reads)

Getting Proximate to Pain and Holding the Power of Love, by On Being
following is the transcript of an On Being interview between Krista Tippett, Lucas Johnson and Rami Nashashibi. KRISTA TIPPETT, HOST: I was introduced to Lucas Johnson by the great civil rights elder, Vincent Harding. He told me that this young man embodies the genius of nonviolence for our century — nonviolence not as a withholding of violence, but as a way of being present. And it was a great pleasure to bring him together with Rami Nashashibi, a kindred force in the Muslim world. Lucas is based in Amsterdam. Rami’s center of gravity is the South Side of Chicago. They both are evolving the fascinating nexus of local and global. And they have much to teach... posted on Aug 19 2018 (5,493 reads)

Seven Ways Our Businesses Can Help Refugees, by Melissa Fleming
to do something to help the world’s more than 25 million refugees? Any business — no matter its size — can give them a boost, says Melissa Fleming, chief spokesperson for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. On Saturday, June 9, I had the honor of co-hosting the first-ever TEDx event held at a refugee camp — it took place at Kenya’s Kakuma Camp, home to more than 186,000 people from 19 different countries. The 15 speakers and artists were a mix of current and former refugees as well as experts who study how the public and economies respond to them, and you’ll be able to watch their talks and performances online in the months to come. Whi... posted on Jul 31 2018 (9,322 reads)

BJ Miller Understands Mortality, by Nathan Scolaro
is a comfort we seek in avoiding thinking about death—a sense of safety, to freely and peacefully go about our days. But what if that’s limiting us from living more fully? It’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about since having this epic conversation with BJ Miller: oncologist, palliative care specialist, educator, thinker and all-round amazing human. BJ heads up the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco, a not-for-profit dedicated to changing the way we think about death. At its heart is a resplendent six-bedroom Victorian guesthouse providing 24-hour care for people in their final days. Residents and their families are immersed in an environm... posted on Oct 29 2018 (12,711 reads)

They Sang with a Thousand Tongues, by Bayo Akomolafe
published in Fall | Winter 2015 Let me tell you a story about how the world began. I promise you the story is not completely untrue. Yoruba elders say that when the world began, there was only sky and water. The Supreme Being, Olórun, ruled the firmaments, while the Divine Feminine, Olokun, was master of the raging seas. One day, Obatala, a son of Olórun, grew restless and sought to create a world between primal sea and silent sky. A world of forests, of greens and mountains. He consulted his older brother, Orunmila, god of prophecy—the wisest of gods: “Make a golden chain,” Orunmila the seer said. “And with it, find a black ca... posted on Dec 27 2018 (6,510 reads)

Caregiving: A Nascent Social Revolution, by Zachary White, Donna Thomson
the word “caregiver” and what is the first thought that comes to mind? Older? Exceptional? Isolated and disconnected? Homebound and unemployed? Each of these stereotypes about care and caregivers is becoming increasingly outdated for the approximately 45 million people in the United States and 6.5 million people in the UK who’ve provided informal, unpaid care to a loved one in the last year, because family caregivers have already begun to transform how people care for one another. By 2060, Americans 65 and older are expected to increase in number from 46 to 98 million, disrupting our current systems of managing care and all those imp... posted on Apr 11 2019 (6,685 reads)

Cherishing Our Connections, by Kristi Nelson
all belong to the world in concentric circles of relationship — some more distant and others close, some with people different from us and others with people more similar. Living within this web of connectedness can bring us the greatest of joys and the deepest of challenges. The preferences, patterns, and habits we have learned can both build relational bridges and create great divides. Much of how we operate in our relationships can be unconscious and beneath our awareness, and so we go through life feeling perpetually “at the effect of” others, rather than intentional and effectual. Our lives and our relationships are well-served when we can lift our unconscious pa... posted on Aug 2 2019 (8,705 reads)

The Art of Waiting , by Maria Popova
is we who are passing when we say time passes,” the French philosopher Henri Bergson insisted a century ago, just before Einstein defeated him in the historic debate that revolutionized our understanding of time. “If our heart were large enough to love life in all its detail, we would see that every instant is at once a giver and a plunderer,” his compatriot and colleague Gaston Bachelard observed in contemplating our paradoxical relationship with time a decade later, long before the technology-accelerated baseline haste of our present era had plundered the life out of living. “Time is the substance I am made of,”&nbs... posted on Apr 7 2020 (7,335 reads)

The World is Our Field of Practice, by On Being
follows is the transcript of an On Being interview between Krista Tippett and angel Kyodo Williams. Krista Tippett, host: angel Kyodo williams is one of our wisest voices on social evolution and the spiritual aspect of social healing. And for those of us who are not monastics, she says, the world is our field of practice. She’s an esteemed Zen priest and the second Black woman recognized as a teacher in the Japanese Zen lineage. To sink into conversation with her is to imagine and experience a transformative potential of this moment towards human wholeness. [music: “Seven League Boots” by Zoë Keating] Rev. angel Kyodo williams:There is something... posted on Sep 28 2020 (4,794 reads)