Advocate of the Unwatched Life, by Richard Whittaker
of the Unwatched Life: A Conversation with Squeak Carnwath Squeak Carnwath is one of the Bay Area's best known artists. Her work has been widely exhibited and she has received numerous awards and grants. At the time of this interview, first published in 1993, Carnwath was a member of the art faculty at the University of California at Davis. In 1998, she moved to the art faculty at UC Berkeley. She is now retired from teaching. Her work can be seen at the Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco or the Dorothy Goldeen Gallery in Los Angeles.—Richard Whittaker, 2007 works: There are so many people who graduate with MFA’s, but after five years not many are... posted on Jul 17 2014 (15,538 reads)

Sow Much Good, by Rebecca Jeffery
Emmons, founder of Sow Much Good. photo by: Piper Warlick In 2008, after helping her troubled brother settle into a mental health facility, Robin Emmons witnessed his physical health decline due to a diet consisting mainly of canned and sugary foods because the center couldn’t afford freshly grown produce. Having just left corporate America after 20 years in the finance sector, Emmons grabbed her shovel and dug up her back yard to grow food for her brother and his fellow residents. His health rapidly improved and the mission for her next job was born: to use food as a vehicle to promote social justice on important issues such as food access in marginalized c... posted on May 25 2014 (12,884 reads)

How To Make Hard Choices, by Ruth Chang
   Think of a hard choice you'll face in the near future. It might be between two careers -- artist and accountant -- or places to live -- the city or the country -- or even between two people to marry -- you could marry Betty or you could marry Lolita. Or it might be a choice about whether to have children, to have an ailing parent move in with you, to raise your child in a religion that your partner lives by but leaves you cold. Or whether to donate your life's savings to charity. 0:41    Chances are, the hard choice you thought of was something big, something momentous, something that matters to you. Hard choices seem to be occasions for agoni... posted on Sep 6 2014 (32,305 reads)

10 Ways To Live Simply In 2015, by Duane Elgin
simplicity has a long history, we are now entering radically changing times—ecological, social, economic, and psycho-spiritual—and we should expect the worldly expressions of simplicity to evolve and grow in response. For more than thirty years I’ve explored the “simple life” and I’ve found that simplicity is not simple. I’ve encountered such a diversity of expressions of the simple life that I find the most accurate way of describing this approach to living is with the metaphor of a garden. A Garden of Simplicity To portray the richness of simplicity, here are ten different flowerings of expression that I see growing in the “gar... posted on Jan 5 2015 (72,319 reads)

Audrey Lin: Invisible Kindness, by Bela Shah
service is love made visible. Love letters on flower shaped sticky notes, vegan chocolate chip cookies that can turn anyone into a cookie monster, a sunburst smile that will light up even the wariest of hearts, and a million and one acts of invisible kindness – there is no simple way to capture the boundless spirit of Audrey Lin. Her journey is unconventional. Inspired by “Planet Walker” and the stillness in her heart, Audrey once embarked on a three-day walking pilgrimage from Berkeley to Santa Clara’s Awakin gathering. Her fearless quest for truth called her to experiment as a monastic at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. And her abundance of lov... posted on Feb 17 2015 (21,354 reads)

Five Ways Music Can Make You Healthier, by Jill Suttie
studies are suggesting that music can be more powerful than medication. When I gave birth to my first-born, I listened to CDs of classical music in the hospital. I figured that music would help calm me and distract me from the pain. You might use music to distract yourself from painful or stressful situations, too. Or perhaps you’ve listened to music while studying or working out, hoping to up your performance. Though you may sense that music helps you feel better somehow, only recently has science begun to figure out why that is. Neuroscientists have discovered that listening to music heightens positive emotion through the reward centers of our brain, stimulating hi... posted on Mar 17 2015 (31,479 reads)

Why We Love Music, by Jill Suttie
are discovering how music affects the brain, helping us to make sense of its real emotional and social power. I still remember when I first heard the song by Peter Gabriel, “Solsbury Hill.” Something about that song—the lyrics, the melody, the unusual 7/4 time signature—gave me chills. Even now, years later, it still can make me cry. Who among us doesn’t have a similar story about a song that touched us? Whether attending a concert, listening to the radio, or singing in the shower, there’s something about music that can fill us with emotion, from joy to sadness. Music impacts us in ways that other sounds don’t, and for year... posted on Mar 6 2015 (30,724 reads)

Teaching Our Children to Love Their Enemies, by Kozo Hattori
can raise a whole generation of children who have the capacity to embody what all the great sages have instructed us: Love thy enemy. At a weekly local gathering, our hostess, Harshida, told us that her house had been getting egged lately. This came as quite a shock because her family is one of the kindest and most generous families I have ever met. Harshida revealed how just last Friday her and her husband heard loud thumping noises at their windows. Although the fear of gunshots breached her thoughts, Harshida ventured to investigate. “When I managed to sneak in a look, I saw a medley of eggs, oranges, and such coming at our window.” Courageou... posted on Mar 14 2015 (18,951 reads)

Love as a Great Transition Story, by Duane Elgin
has entered a time of profound change. We are pushed by necessity and pulled by opportunity. The push is a growing systems crisis, evident in the breakdown of financial institutions, climate disruption, resource depletion, unsustainable populations, and more. The pull is the opportunity to rise to a new level of human maturity, partnership, and freedom. The combined push and pull at a global scale make this truly a time of profound turning, transition, and transformation for humanity. Collectively, we have been on a long journey of development, differentiation, and separation. We are now approaching an ‘evolutionary wall’ where we are running into ourselves and our ch... posted on Aug 7 2015 (16,906 reads)

The Slow Tech Movement, by Janell Burley Hoffman
hustle of family life -- work, school, appointments, practice, homework, dinner, bed -- is constant. We move in and out of activities and commitments with ferocity. Some days, I'm certain all I really say to my children, in one way or another, is "move." As in, let's go -- now! And I know that we move with purpose, balancing meaningful work with practical considerations, valuing studies, deliberately selecting activities that matter. In our world, food, family even and free play have a firm place, often touted as sacred and protected ground. And since our life is designed to fully embrace living it, we have to be mindful of all the pieces that might creep in and occupy ... posted on Apr 17 2015 (17,887 reads)

Staying Human in a Time of Climate Change: New Author on Science, Grief, and Hope, by Christopher Zumski Finke
geographer and author M Jackson, knowing climate science isn’t enough. We need to get our hearts involved too. The Exit Glacier, in Seward, Alaska. Photo by David Estrada. Author M Jackson’s While Glaciers Slept: Being Human in a Time of Climate Change was released last week by Green Writers Press. In the book, Jackson’s first, she examines climate change by combining personal stories with scientific exploration. As both a scientist and a writer by trade, Jackson studied climate change and how to communicate science through writing at the Environmental Science Graduate Program at the University of Montana. "Climate change, like the los... posted on Aug 2 2015 (10,875 reads)

The Whole Child and Urban Education, by Richard Whittaker
unexpected invitation to Betty Peck and her daughter Anna Rainville’s home for an intimate conference on education, specifically on Waldorf education, is what led me to Ida Oberman. There were a few of us at the gathering who were not especially knowledgeable about Waldorf education, but Betty and Anna have always liked expanding the circle. For decades, Betty Peck’s weekly salon has been a meeting place for a wide range of creative individuals from a variety of perspectives in the thick of Silicon Valley culture. This particular gathering was more focused than Betty’s regular salon meetings and no less interesting for that. It was a chance both for new conn... posted on Aug 24 2015 (7,650 reads)

Changing Ourselves by Changing the Brain, by Patty de Llosa
mind exist?” asks neuroscientist Daniel Siegel, as he opens a two-day conference on his favorite subject, interpersonal neurobiology. Siegel is on a mission to tell the world that by working to make changes in your mind you can reorganize the neural pathways in your brain. He insists that if you work at it, you can spend more time in “Beginner’s Mind” and improve your personal relationships. Unsatisfied by the old scientific definition that the mind is what the brain does, he says that “such a view essentially reduces the mind to an MRI.” As he sketches an upside-down triangle with mind and brain at the top two corners and relationships at the ... posted on Dec 10 2015 (25,759 reads)

5 Ways to Show Kindness This Season, by Lexi Dwyer
the holiday season upon us, it's easy to feel pressure that you aren't spending enough, doing enough or otherwise keeping up with everyone else around you. If that's the case, log out of Pinterest, take some deep breaths and remind yourself that true holiday spirit can't be bought — no matter how good the bargains get. For a refreshing antidote to the consumer hoopla, check out the ad-free, volunteer-run website Kindspring.org, which is "dedicated to fostering and celebrating small acts of kindness around the world." The site, part of the nonprofit Service Space, lists hundreds of ways to show compassion for others, which are organized by theme... posted on Dec 24 2015 (13,953 reads)

The Radical Work of Healing: Fania and Angela Davis on a New Kind of Civil Rights Activism, by Sarah van Gelder
Davis and her sister Fania Davis were working for social justice before many of today’s activists were born. From their childhood in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, where their friends were victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, to their association with the Black Panther Party and the Communist Party, to their work countering the prison-industrial complex, their lives have centered on lifting up the rights of African Americans. In 1969, Angela Davis was fired from her teaching position at UCLA because of her membership in the Communist Party. She was later accused of playing a supporting role in a courtroom kidnapping that resulted in four deaths. The internation... posted on Feb 29 2016 (10,552 reads)

Ten Counterproductive Behaviors of Well-Intentioned People, by Cody Charles
article originally appeared on The Body Is Not An Apology and is reprinted by permission. More of Cody Charles’ writing can be found here. This is a follow-up to my previous piece entitled Ten Counterproductive Behaviors of Social Justice Educators. The latter was written for folks who consider equity work as their core life purpose. I wrote Ten Counterproductive Behaviors of Well-Intentioned People for the folks who consider themselves good people invested in social justice and conversations around equity, but who may show up in the ally role most often. Well-intentioned people make mistakes, lots of them. Mistakes must be expected and being held accountable has to be expected... posted on Mar 18 2016 (40,039 reads)

4 Reasons to Cultivate Patience, by Kira M. Newman
virtues go, patience is a quiet one. It’s often exhibited behind closed doors, not on a public stage: A father telling a third bedtime story to his son, a dancer waiting for her injury to heal. In public, it’s the impatient ones who grab all our attention: drivers honking in traffic, grumbling customers in slow-moving lines. We have epic movies exalting the virtues of courage and compassion, but a movie about patience might be a bit of a snoozer. Yet patience is essential to daily life—and might be key to a happy one. Having patience means being able to wait calmly in the face of frustration or adversity, so anywhere there is frustration or adversity—i.e., ne... posted on Jun 28 2023 (24,004 reads)

Rue Harrison: Beyond the Known Territory, by Richard Whittaker
following conversation took place before an audience at The Berkeley Art Center. The topic was “Art and the Unconscious.” Rue Harrison, an artist as well as a practicing psychotherapist, reflects about the subject from both sides of her own work. From the perspective of art, she talks about her relationship with the mysterious animal figure who first appeared in her paintings fifteen years ago, eventually evolving into an ongoing graphic narrative that readers of this magazine will recognize as Indigo Animal…  Richard Whittaker:  How shall we begin with this big subject? Rue Harrison:  My intention is to explore some questions I have which rel... posted on Jun 15 2016 (7,921 reads)

Living By Questions, by Jane Hirshfield
a story: A man has a burning question. He decides to seek out a famous Hasidic teacher, a man everyone says is the wisest person of his era. For a long time he walks by foot, carrying his question. He gets rained on; he gets hungry. He keeps walking. Finally, he arrives in the village where the teacher lives. The students, though, won't let him into the study house. How can this man's question be serious, when he has just arrived? They've been working for years to be found worthy of the teacher's attention. Finally, the man's question is stronger than his politeness. He breaks in, corners the teacher and asks, "What is the essence of truth?" The teach... posted on Aug 1 2016 (19,590 reads)

Six Ways Nature in Our Lives Can Reduce Violence in Our World, by Richard Louv
the wake of the Sandy Hook school shootings, we’ve talked about gun laws and mental-health treatment, amid a host of other responses. But one potential tool has not been mentioned. Now, let me say right off that I don’t pretend that nature is a paragon of peace. Writer Herman Melville once challenged the idea of nature as “the grand cure,” as he put it, and asked “who froze to death my teamster on the prairie?” The violence of nature is a fact, but this is also true: by assaulting nature, we raise the odds that we will assault each other. By bringing nature into our lives, we invite humility. “In our studies, people with less access to natur... posted on Nov 14 2016 (18,834 reads)