Emily's Affirmations: A Valentine's Day Gift to Yourself, by Emily Rose Barr
invitation from a friend was simple: take a picture each day of something that brings you joy. The intention was harder: bring a little light into a year of profound tumult and isolation. In the summer of 2020, I, like many was starting to feel the unraveling of time—my calendar no longer punctuated by social gatherings and grocery shopping, casual exchanges and well-worn routines. The unscheduled hours I’d previously longed for were being delivered in bundles and heaps and had begun to feel alarming and disorienting. Absent of the markers I habitually relied on, Wednesday could now be Monday, Thursday was Blursday, and weekends were as strangely solitary as the rest of ... posted on Feb 14 2021 (7,352 reads)

Fabiana Fondevila: The Many Flavors of Wonder, by Awakin Call Editors
Fondevila is an Argentinian writer, speaker, teacher, and all-around wonder activist. She began her career as a journalist and war correspondent, working for the main outlets in her native country. Returning to spiritual questions, she then spent years interviewing some of the world's top thinkers, mystics, scientists and philosophers in search of a map. And then, life transpired: her older sister took her own life after a lifetime of mental illness, and Fabiana's parents died shortly before and after, undone by the pain. This led Fabiana deeper into the path. But this time, no books or schools or lineages seemed potent enough to shine a light in the darkness. By chance, she ... posted on Apr 17 2021 (6,120 reads)

Joy Harjo: The Whole of Time, by On Being
follows is the transcript of an On Being interview between Krista Tippett and Joy Harjo. Syndicated with permission. You can listen to the audio of this interview here. Krista Tippett, host:Joy Harjo is a saxophone player and performer, a visual artist, a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, and 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States. She’s written, “Though we have instructions and a map buried in our hearts when we enter this world, nothing quite prepares us for the abrupt shift to the breathing realm.” I’m grateful for this hour she gave us to walk alongside her in the breathing realm, and to experience what she knows about how to see and to live. [&ldqu... posted on May 24 2021 (5,734 reads)

Building Belonging: Being an Ambassador to the Earth, 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, and 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 making 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, vet... posted on Aug 31 2021 (3,514 reads)

Valentina Suzukei and the Music of Tuva, by Steve Elkin
follows is Part 7 of an interview series with the diverse musicians whose music is heard in the feature documentary "Echoes of the Invisible," directed by Steve Elkins. This interview was conducted in Kyzyl, Tuva in March 2014.  Tuva is the epicenter of a rare form of throat singing, in which our ears seem to “magically” hear multiple pitches and melodies emerging all at once from a single note sung in a drone. Valentina Süzükei is the world’s leading expert on Tuvan music, especially the variant known as Xöömei. Unfortunately, her research and preservation of Tuvan culture has never been translated into English, despit... posted on Sep 2 2021 (3,829 reads)

Inhabiting the Ground of Being, by Awakin Call Editors
Judith Blackstone is the founder of the Realization Process, a contemporary method of spiritual awakening that includes embodied, psychological and relational healing. Over the past 40 years, she has developed and taught this process to thousands of people across the world. Among her thousands of clients and students are people from wide- ranging cultures, faiths and backgrounds. Her trainings are sought out by many who work in healing professions themselves, and she's worked extensively with survivors of trauma. Judith's explorations of Eastern traditions include studies in Tibetan Buddhism, a year in a Zen monastery and a 23-year connection to the ashram of a Hindu teacher... posted on Oct 19 2021 (3,137 reads)

The Woman Beside Wendell Berry, by Unknown Yet
in her modest kitchen, Tanya Berry explains that a bit of arthritis has made it harder for her to scramble up hills to pick flowers. But she’s expecting black-eyed Susans will soon gather on her walks along Cane Run, and “I’ll get them,” she assures me. This talk of aging knees is interrupted when she gestures to the vase on the wood stove, between the two rocking chairs that form a snug back-of-the-kitchen sitting room, as the late afternoon sun pours through the window onto the wildflowers. “Here’s my daily thing—this happens once a day. Whatever’s there gets lit,” she says, chuckling about the pleasure she gets. “For ... posted on Nov 24 2021 (6,120 reads)

The Anatomy of Anxiety, by Kira M. Newman
is “that hypervigilant feeling that escalates swiftly to a sense of catastrophe and doom,” writes Ellen Vora, M.D., in her new book, The Anatomy of Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming the Body’s Fear Response. Anxiety is “as grounded in the body as it is in the mind.” Too often, she argues, we turn to only mental solutions for what is in part a physical problem. That resonates with me. When I feel anxious, some solutions I try—like talking to a friend or watching TV—are hit or miss. Over the years, the only foolproof remedies I’ve found have to do with the body: A good high-intensity workout is bound to make me feel better, ... posted on Apr 7 2022 (8,961 reads)

Talking with Kids About What's Going On in the World, by Shauna Tominey
I’m feeling nervous,” my 12-year-old daughter shared one night as I tucked her into bed. “Are you just having nervous feelings or are you thinking about something?” I asked. “Ukraine,” she replied. I asked if she wanted to talk about it. She didn’t. “I just want you to tell me a story—a happy story—to help me fall asleep.” In that moment, I found myself going through the eternal parenting struggle—the struggle of wanting to do or say the right thing and not knowing exactly what that was. I wanted to know if she had talked about Ukraine at school or if she had heard something in the news. I w... posted on May 25 2022 (4,411 reads)

Stretch Your Heart and Say What You Mean, 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. And I’d love to take a moment to introduce you to the Sounds True Foundation. The goal of the Sounds True Foundation is to provide access and eliminate financial barriers to transformational education and resources such as teachings and trainings on mindfulness, emotional awareness, and self-compassion. If you’d like to learn more and join with us in our efforts, please visit SoundsTrueFoundation.org. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, my guest is Oren Jay Sofer. Oren teaches mindfulness meditation and Nonviolent Commu... posted on Sep 21 2022 (3,544 reads)

Golden: The Power of Silence in a World of Noise, by Leigh Marz, Justin Talbot Zorn
following is an excerpt from Golden: The Power of Silence in a World of Noise, May 2022, Harper Wave Publishers Navigating Noise Over the past fifty years, mindfulness meditation has taken a remarkable journey from remote monasteries of Burma and Thailand to the pinnacles of mainstream power—places like Apple, Google, GE, and the Pentagon. While some of this rise is attributable to increasing openness to new mindsets and worldviews since the revolutions of the 1960's, we believe the biggest reason for its newfound popularity is straightforward: There is a deep yearning for silence in a world of more and more noise. Whether we consciously realize it or not, we sense that p... posted on Oct 4 2022 (3,316 reads)

How to unlock your creativity – even if you see yourself as a conventional thinker, by Lily Zhu
engage in creative thinking every day, whether they realize it or not. Ekaterina Chizhevskaya/iStock via Getty Images Lily Zhu, Washington State University Do you think that creativity is an innate gift? Think again. Many people believe that creative thinking is difficult – that the ability to come up with ideas in novel and interesting ways graces only some talented individuals and not most others. The media often portrays creatives as those with quirky personalities and unique talent. Researchers have also identified numerous personality traits that are associated with creativity, such as openness to new experiences, ideas and perspectives. Together, they ... posted on Feb 7 2023 (3,455 reads)

Four Ways We Avoid Our Feelings & What to Do Instead, by Sandra Carson
essay is adapted from Embracing Unrest: Harness Vulnerability to Tame Anxiety and Spark Growth (October 2022, 274 pages) published by Page Two Books. When was the last time you felt anxious, with your body braced and on edge? It could have been when your partner was late coming home and you couldn’t reach them on their cell, your computer crashed just before a deadline, your child had a full-on tantrum in the grocery store, or you were waiting on medical test results. In that moment, how did you respond? Maybe you grabbed a bag of cheese puffs, or had a sudden impulse to tidy the kitchen, or found yourself online shopping for that incredibly useful cauliflower core... posted on Apr 5 2023 (6,263 reads)

It's Not A Thing That You Do. It's A Thing That You Are, by Awakin Call Editors
Askew uses his camera to capture bare human presence, taking his film subjects beyond the mind – into their inner, wiser, more intuitive and intelligent world. Through a nearly two-decade journey in explorative film, he has discovered a profoundly simple way to be together with someone and capture them – which is not an interview, but an Inner View. “People hide behind words,” Nic says. So Nic just waits and listens, “because those [initial words] aren’t the words. Those are the things that need to come out, almost like the words need to finish before that which is meant to come out would be said.” Nic’s Inner View Method has give... posted on Apr 11 2023 (3,277 reads)

To Be Made Whole, by On Being
electric conversation with Ada Limón‘s wisdom and her poetry — a refreshing, full-body experience of how this way with words and sound and silence teaches us about being human at all times, but especially now. With an unexpected and exuberant mix of gravity and laughter — laughter of delight, and of blessed relief — this conversation holds not only what we have traversed these last years, but how we live forward.  It unfolded at the Ted Mann Concert Hall in Minneapolis, in collaboration with Northrop at the University of Minnesota and Ada Limón’s publisher, Milkweed Editions.​​​​​​ The following is the syndicated... posted on Apr 22 2023 (3,434 reads)

Reemergence of Animate World Experiences, by Geneen Marie Haugen
on a short “workshop” given for Harvard Divinity School’s “Ecological Spiritualities” Conference, 2022) To shift my own awareness toward a more-than-human perspective, I sometimes take a wooden flute outside and begin to play, offering simple music to pine and stone, offering gratitude to billions of ancestors – from elements born in supernovas, to bacteria and trees, insects and trilobytes, to lineages of human ancestors both known and unknown. Offering wild prayers for all the beings who come after us, as well as gratitude to all of the teachers, both human and wilder Ones, is a practice to help destabilize my everyday mind and perceptions... posted on Jul 1 2023 (2,515 reads)

The 8 Kinds of Humility to Help You Stay Grounded, by Ravi Chandra
has been lauded as a virtue in most world cultures and wisdom traditions. More recently, scientists have started to study humility, and they’re discovering its many benefits. “Psychologists have recently linked intellectual humility to a host of benefits: showing more persistence in the face of failure, holding less polarized beliefs and attitudes, and being received as warm and friendly by others,” writes Tyrone Sgambati in Greater Good. As a psychiatrist, I think humility springs from deep awareness that the world can only come through our own eyes, experiences, and insights. No matter how knowledgeable or skillful I might be, there... posted on Sep 13 2023 (5,600 reads)

Jennifer Bichanich: Rising from the Ashes, by Jennifer Bichanich, Pat Benincasa
this deeply moving episode, Fill to Capacity podcast host Pat Benincasa speaks with writer and life coach Jennifer Bichanich. Jennifer opens a window on her experiences with profound loss, including losing her beloved husband when the church they were remodeling went up in flames. Despite immense grief and despair, Jennifer found ways to rebuild her life and discover her own creative resilience. Working with a shamanic energy healer, delving into art therapy, and joining the Modern Widows Club, she found community, healing and the possibility of creating something beautiful from the ashes of her life. This podcast explores themes of grief, healing, and the power of creativity in navigatin... posted on Nov 20 2023 (2,849 reads)

Nick Cave: Loss, Yearning, Transcendence, by On Being
follows is the transcript of an On Being interview between Krista Tippett and Nick Cave. You can listen to the audio version of the interview here.  Transcription by Alletta Cooper [music: “Into My Arms” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds] Krista Tippett:Here are some experiences to which Nick Cave gives voice and song as exquisitely as anyone with whom I’ve ever spoken: the universal human conditions of yearning, and of loss; a spirituality of rigor; and the transcendent and moral dimensions of what music is trying to say. This Australian musician, writer, and actor first made a name in the wild world of ‘80s post-punk and later with Nick Cave ... posted on Dec 6 2023 (3,694 reads)

With a Soft Breath: How My Daughter Rides Horses, by Greta Matos
begun to teach my 3.5 year old daughter to ride horses on her own. Doing so has made me realize that for countless children who are taught the "traditional" way to ride horses, this rite of passage is (painfully) one of the most normalized places where people teach children power-over rather than power-with. It's where adults normalize using force to get what you desire; where adults normalize using violence to get "respect"; where adults model overt violation of personal space and complete ignorance or disdain for highly sensitive responsiveness.  I grew up with horses, and learned to ride alone at a similar age, and when I was a teenager I began ... posted on Feb 24 2024 (8,154 reads)