Small is Better: Lessons from a Horsewoman, by Kelly Wendorf
my children were babies, I worried about every cough and fever. I frantically thumbed through my dog-eared copy of How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor (a powerfully helpful book written by an iconoclast pediatrician dedicated to the empowerment of parents), and spent hours on the Internet to assuage my anxiety. It was then I stumbled upon the miracle of homeopathy. Precisely how homeopathic medicines work remains a mystery, and yet, nature is replete with mysteries and with numerous striking examples of the power of extremely small things. Packed into tiny sugar balls the size of cupcake sprinkles, this natural form of nanopharmocology dilutes remedies to t... posted on Sep 25 2016 (15,422 reads)

The Navajo Notion of Justice, by Robert Yazzie
January 2000, the Navajo Nation Council decided to revamp the Navajo Nation Criminal Code. The Council eliminated jail time and fines for 79 offenses, required the use of peacemaking in criminal cases, and required that the courts see to the rights of victims. The Council also incorporated the traditional concept of nalyeeh into the criminal code. Nalyeeh refers to the process of confronting someone who hurts others with a demand that they talk out the action and the hurt it caused so that something positive will come of it. This decision represents a serious challenge to the courts of the Navajo Nation, whose jurisdiction includes tribal members in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Navaj... posted on Nov 1 2016 (17,321 reads)

Mark Nepo: Holding Nothing Back, by Tami Simon
Simon: You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today my guest is Mark Nepo. Mark is a poet and philosopher who has taught in the fields of poetry and spirituality for over 35 years. As a cancer survivor, Mark devotes his writing and teaching to the journey of inner transformation and the life of relationship. A New York Times #1 bestselling author, he has recorded eight audio projects and published thirteen books, including The Book of Awakening, which made the list of Opera’s “Ultimate Favorite Things.” With Sounds True, Mark has created an eight-session audio program called Staying Awake: The Ordinary Art, where he... posted on Dec 10 2016 (26,857 reads)

How Mindfulness Can Defeat Racial Bias, by Rhonda Magee
article is the third in a series exploring the effects that unconscious racial biases have on the criminal justice system in the United States. Officer Tina Latendresse of the Hillsboro Police Department in Oregon meditates during a mindfulness training program for police. Benjamin Brink/The Oregonian When I was promoted to tenured full professor, the dean of my law school kindly had flowers sent to me at my home in Pacific Heights, an overpriced San Francisco neighborhood almost devoid of black residents. I opened the door to find a tall, young, African-American deliveryman who announced, “Delivery for Professor Magee.” I, a petite black woman, dres... posted on Jan 5 2017 (11,884 reads)

12 Questions Around Volunteerism, by Nipun Mehta
year, about fifteen of us had a breakout call with some visionaries of World in Conversation and Laddership Circles, around working with volunteers.  Below is a glimpse of the Q&A that emerged, on the call and afterwards.] Our efforts attracts many volunteers, but we don't use them effectively. What do you suggest? The most fundamental design principle is our mindset. Typically, volunteers are used as a means to an end -- this is our mission, we need this stuff done to achieve our mission, and you can help us do these chores. ServiceSpace doesn't work that way. For us, volunteer experience is an end in itself. We believe that if a volunteer ha... posted on Jan 12 2017 (19,791 reads)

Jeannie Kahwajy: Catch Everything As Help, by Awakin Call Editors
want to catch what people are offering, catch everything as help; like Aikido. Aikido is a martial art where it doesn't matter what intention somebody is moving towards you with. I can always catch it as helpful energy -- I get to develop this redirecting skill." Jeannie Kahwajy is an executive coach and the founder of Effective Interactions.. She believes an attitude of love is the most effective way to show up for all our interactions. It's a theory she's put to the test (often with jaw-dropping results) in challenging encounters with diverse personalities, including a purse-thief on board a moving train, a seemingly biased employer, a cocky student, and a rud... posted on Apr 11 2017 (15,740 reads)

Spotlight on Kids Who Are Changing the World, by Shari Swanson
live in challenging and stressful times and may wonder how our children must be feeling when we are struggling ourselves. But, even as we try to shelter and protect them, we discover that kids are remarkably resilient and that the things that help us to cope in difficult situations are often the very things that make challenges more bearable for them as well. Moving from a sense of helplessness toward action, using our failures and struggles to reach out to others, and pushing ourselves against our limitations all make us stronger, more compassionate people. The same is true for our children-- often in remarkable ways. In this Daily Good Spotlight on Remarkable Kids, w... posted on May 26 2017 (10,006 reads)

Charles Halpern: Cultivating Wisdom for Justice, by Awakin Call Editors
Halpern is a public interest pioneer and an innovator in legal education. Author of Making Waves and Riding the Currents: Activism and the Practice of Wisdom, he has made multiple big waves in the public sector – as the "father" of the public interest law movement, as a social entrepreneur, and as a pioneer in the movement to bring mindfulness to the law and social justice efforts.  The outer waves of social transformation that Charlie has supported have been enabled by his inner waves of personal transformation.  And those inner waves are supporting him on his latest challenging quests: working for the mindful transformation of the criminal justic... posted on Jul 13 2017 (6,796 reads)

Stanford University Mindfulness Classroom, by Stephen Murphy - Shigematsu
University Mindfulness Classroom by Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu. Tokyo: Kodansha. (2016) Fresh out of college, without a job, and needing some money to pay the rent I became a substitute teacher in the Cambridge, Massachusetts public schools. Substitute teaching in inner-city public schools in the United States is a horrible job. $25 for a day in hell. Teach? Just surviving to the end of the day was the goal. The tough, city kids were too much for me, or maybe any substitute teacher—they ate me up from the ring of the opening bell and spit me out when the bell mercifully rang after last period, signaling that the punishment was over. I was desperate for anything t... posted on Aug 24 2017 (14,292 reads)

Sharing Stories in a Broken Culture , by Simon Hodges
late-April 2017 the French Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron stunned supporters of Marine Le Pen, his opponent, by directly engaging with them on a picket line. Macron handed the microphone to union members whilst arguing that closing borders would do nothing positive for the economy, and might well harm it. This was a rare act of engagement in western politics, where debates are characterised by the frothing of deeply divided sides. If Macron’s argument had been transmitted indirectly via the media it would probably have fallen on deaf ears, dismissed as more ‘fake news’ or standard ‘liberal bias.’ But he managed to create a relationship with people ... posted on Sep 1 2017 (8,862 reads)

Fleeing the mouth of a shark | Bill Dienst on the refugee crisis, by The MOON Magazine
Dienst, MD, is a rural family and emergency room physician from north central Washington who has been volunteering for humanitarian medical missions since 1982, when he was a young man in medical school. His first experience profoundly changed his life and he was “hooked,” he says, volunteering repeatedly for medical exchange programs in Veracruz, Mexico, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Most recently he served as the medical coordinator for Salaam Cultural Museum (SCM), a Seattle-based nonprofit conducting humanitarian and medical relief work with refugee populations in Jordan, Lebanon and Greece. After volunteering among Syrian refugees in Greece, Dienst and his fell... posted on Jan 6 2018 (9,448 reads)

Tending to Your Inner Weeds, by Alanda Greene
GREENE shares her experiences of weeding her garden and her inner garden of tendencies and character traits, and makes peace with herself in the process. It’s late spring – the time of year when garden growth is prolific, determined, persistent.  Sometimes overwhelming. Especially the weeds. They require attention that is also determined and persistent, but in spite of my efforts there are always weeds that escape my notice and grow too big, too much. Removing them now causes disturbance or harm to the other plants. The behavior of weeds is no different from that of humans and other creatures. The weeds want to survive and have evolved ways to ... posted on Sep 20 2017 (20,961 reads)

Training Our Trains of Thought, by Kristi Nelson
mental and emotional patterns can teach us a lot about developing positive patterns, if we approach our tendencies mindfully, compassionately, and with gratefulness. I used to be a person who, though unusually optimistic and resilient in many ways, could often be prone to a negative train of thought I now playfully refer to as “awful-izing.” I have also heard this propensity called “catastrophizing.” Regardless, once aboard this train, it can take you a long way down some dark tracks before you realize you are not at all where you hoped or intended to be. The distinguishing qualities of a negative train of thought would be somewhat as follows: Somet... posted on Nov 24 2017 (19,390 reads)

Frank Ostaseski: Lessons to the Living from the Dying, by Awakin Call Editors
is much more than a medical event. It is a time for important psychological, emotional and spiritual work – a time for transition. To a large extent, the way we meet death is shaped by our habitual response to suffering, and our relationship to ourselves, to those we love, and to whatever image of ultimate kindness we hold.” - Frank Ostaseski Frank Ostaseski is a Buddhist teacher, international lecturer and a leading voice in contemplative end-of-life care.  He is the Guiding Teacher and visionary Founding Director of Zen Hospice Project, the first Buddhist hospice in America, in San Francisco, and also author of  The Five In... posted on Jan 26 2018 (31,899 reads)

What Future Does Man Have?, by David Bohm and J. Krishnamurti
Krishnamurti: J. Krishnamurti in dialogue First Conversation With David Bohm at Brockwood Park, 11 June 1983 J.Krishnamurti: I thought we were going to talk about the future of man. Dr .David Bohm: Yes. JK: I mean, really, when we talk about man, we're talking about humanity. DB: The whole of mankind. JK: Whole of mankind, not the British or the French or the Russian or the American, but the whole of human beings. DB: The future is all inter linked anyway. JK: As things are, apart from what one observes the world has become tremendously dangerous. DB: Yes. JK: Te... posted on Dec 29 2017 (15,577 reads)

Awakening Through Writing, by Tami Simon
listening to Insights at the Edge. Today my guest is Albert Flynn DeSilver. Albert is an internationally published poet, memoirist, novelist, speaker, and workshop leader. He served as Marin County's first Poet Laureate from 2008 to 2010. His work has appeared in more than a hundred literary journals worldwide. He's the author of the books Beamish Boy: A Memoir, Letters to Early Street, and Walking Tooth and Cloud. With Sounds True, Albert Flynn DeSilver has written a new book called Writing as a Path to Awakening: A Year to Becoming an Excellent Writer and Living an Awakened Life, where he invites the reader on a year-long journey of growth and... posted on Sep 20 2018 (10,942 reads)

Who Do You Choose to Be? An Invitation to the Nobility of Leadership, by Margaret Wheatley
Do You Choose to Be? An Invitation to the Nobility of Leadership Margaret Wheatley  in Leader to Leader Magazine © June 2017 Several years ago, in the face of irreversible global problems and the devolution of leadership, I began to challenge every leader I met with these questions: Who do you choose to be for this time? Are you willing to use whatever power and influence you have to create islands of sanity that evoke and rely on our best human qualities to create, relate, and persevere? Will you consciously and bravely choose to reclaim leadership as a noble profession, one that creates possibility and humaneness in the midst of increasing fear and turmoil? We live i... posted on Dec 8 2017 (23,998 reads)

In the Beginning Was Love, by Richard Whittaker
Robert Lax—A Conversation with Steve Georgiou May 11, 2017   My introduction to S. T. Georgiou came via his most recent book: In the Beginning Was Love—Contemplative Words of Robert Lax. The name rang a bell. It was buried in memory, but wrapped in an aura and connected with Thomas Merton. I'd never followed up on Lax and had forgotten about him long ago. So it was surprising to find myself suddenly alert in front of that name.      The book had arrived with Georgiou's handwritten note. Perhaps I'd take an interest. It happened that I was headed for a getaway. Perfect. In addition to the beauty of the northern Oregon coast, ... posted on Nov 17 2017 (14,447 reads)

Five Habits of the Heart, by Parker Palmer
of the heart” (a phrase coined by Alexis de Tocqueville) are deeply ingrained ways of seeing, being, and responding to life that involve our minds, our emotions, our self-images, our concepts of meaning and purpose. I believe that these five interlocked habits are critical to sustaining a society. 1. An understanding that we are all in this together. Biologists, ecologists, economists, ethicists and leaders of the great wisdom traditions have all given voice to this theme. Despite our illusions of individualism and national superiority, we humans are a profoundly interconnected species—entwined with one another and with all forms of life, as the global econo... posted on Jan 2 2018 (23,225 reads)

Godfrey Reggio: A Call for Another Way of Living, by Richard Whittaker
Friday morning I happened to tune in to KQED’s morning program Forum where an interview with Phillip Glass and Godfrey Reggio was underway. They were in town for a weekend showing at Davies Symphony Hall of Reggio’s Qatsi Trilogy: Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi. Phillip Glass, along with his ensemble, would be performing the music he had composed for the films.  Koyaanisqatsi left a deep impression on me when I’d first seen it in 1983, as did Powaqqatsi, which came out five years later. This full-length, commercial film consists entirely of a stream of images accompanied by music and was revolutionary at the... posted on Oct 25 2017 (11,566 reads)