Kristin Pedemonti: Power of Storytelling, by Audrey Lin
she’s suited up in a duck costume at a library story hour, preserving Indigenous cultures in Belize, encountering small moments of beauty through free hugs, or blowing bubbles on the NYC subway, Kristin Pedemonti has got a knack for tapping into a depth of humanity around the world. The Accidental Librarian As a child, Kristin was “always the smallest kid in class— who was not athletic at all, almost legally blind, on top of being slightly hard of hearing”. After her grandmother taught her to read when she was four, stories became a way to escape and learn about the bigger world around her. In college, she tapped into into a passion for theater a... posted on Sep 17 2017 (9,249 reads)

Healing Children One Community and One Breath at a Time, by Awakin Call Editors
is a former classroom teacher, community organizer, and mentor in Richmond, CA who is the Founder and Executive Director of the Mindful Life Project.  Since its founding in the Fall of 2012, Mindful Life Project has focused on empowering underserved students through training in mindfulness, expressive arts, yoga, and mindful hip-hop in Richmond, CA, one of the cities with historically the most generational poverty and violence in the United States.  The organization has served 15,000 students, trained hundreds of teachers, principals, Richmond Police Officers, and the local District Attorney's Office, to create a mindful and compassionate community ... posted on Sep 26 2017 (11,056 reads)

5 Ways to Take Your Love of the Outdoors to the Next Level, by Melissa Hellman
Fix the Trails Most trails are maintained by volunteers and always need extra hands to clear debris and restore the paths. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy offers volunteer opportunities, while the Pacific Crest Trail also needs volunteer crews to keep more than 2,500 miles passable throughout the year. Information about trail maintenance projects can be found at local parks or by visiting the National Park Service website. 2. Count Animals Helping scientists count animals and preserve other park resources is an easy way to merge a love for the outdoors with science. Park naturalists and conservationists depend on citizens, usually without scientific training, to hel... posted on Sep 3 2017 (6,128 reads)

To Try To Have Some Healing, A Conversation with Silas Hagerty , by Richard Whittaker
Hagerty. Photo by and courtesy of Richard Whittaker Silas Hagerty was a young filmmaker in his twenties when I met him at a Servicespace retreat. Servicespace.org is a volunteer-run organization that supports and encourages the service journeys of others. Silas fit right in. I learned that his films were done on a shoestring. He carried his gear in a bag and stayed at friends’ houses when he traveled. I remember him telling us about meeting a Native American elder, Jim Miller, who talked about a dream he’d been given. The elder finally understood that his dream had to be re-enacted—a ride on horseback of over three-hundred miles across the Dakotas in the d... posted on Sep 7 2017 (5,724 reads)

To Honor the Sacred, by David Ulrich
30, 2017 Offering Platform, Moa‘ulaiki, Kaho‘olawe, Hawai‘i Photographs by David Ulrich Photographing a sanctuary and its desecration. What is the meaning of sanctuary—and of sacred places—in the context of our lives and creative pursuits? We recognize certain locations on earth, and even within our own spheres of activity, as special and consider them sacred by virtue of a resonance that suggests a living intelligence. We often long for contact with these places that have the capacity to help us return to ourselves. We may be attracted to the locations of our childhood; or cities where there is an enormous reservoir of human nature a... posted on Oct 5 2017 (9,749 reads)

Welcome to the Human Race, by Parker J. Palmer
to the Human Race” an Interview with Parker J. Palmer on the topic of depression Excerpted from Darkness Before Dawn: Redefining the Journey through Depression, April 2015, Sounds True. This experience called “depression” is isolating to a greater extent than I imagined could be survivable, but I realize that this incredibly isolating experience ultimately reconnected me with the human community in a deeper, wider, and richer way. Tami Simon:  Parker, I want to start our conversation by talking about redefining the journey through depression and your experience of navigating through the darkness. Parker J. Palmer:  I like your emphas... posted on Oct 31 2017 (15,762 reads)

12 Reasons Why Gothenburg is an Amazing Sharing City, by Emma Ohrwall, Jonathan Mattebo Persson and Robin Olsson
this year, Gothenburg — the second biggest city in Sweden — was voted as the world's "most sociable city." This reflects the typical culture of our city. We love to hang out in parks, cafés, bars, and other spaces. But Gothenburg, with it's almost 600,000 residents, also has some serious challenges. The city is one of the most segregated in Europe and is dependent on the fossil industry. At the same time, we're seeing initiatives that promote sharing and collaboration growing stronger and stronger. We had planned to write this piece at our co-writer Robin Olsson's cafe Llama Lloyd, where he promote... posted on Sep 16 2017 (10,549 reads)

Bowing in Service: A Short Film with Unlikely Stars, by DailyGood Editors
follows is a brief interview with the filmmaker Divyang Thakkar Q: What was the inspiration behind making the film? Divyang: My wife Veronica and I attended a retreat called “Startup Service” by the Moved by Love in Ahmedabad, India. We came into the retreat with an idea of serving which was based on scalable impact on the stakeholders. Through the course of the retreat I realized how, all along, I was following an outside-in approach. I was thinking of the impact before actually tuning to myself and observing the seed of it all. In the retreat, we spoke about ideas about serving from what we had and exploring others forms of capital. Storytelling has always fasc... posted on Oct 19 2017 (12,858 reads)

Yoav Peck: Encountering Others in Their Full Humanity, by Awakin Call Editors
countries in an endless war with each other. Generations of enemies born into hating the opposition. And with no end in sight, Yoav Peck has found a way to harness peace and cultivate unity between two groups of unlikely allies. Co-Executive-Director of the Sulha Peace Project, Yoav says the key is in listening and in working from the heart and not the head. “Each of us has a story. It's important to the Israelis to establish a situation in which not only are they listening to the Palestinians but that the Palestinians are listening to us. And it means listening to the history of our families. Any political future must address the human needs of both sides, We at Sulha stand on... posted on Sep 18 2017 (8,399 reads)

Julian Treasure on 5 Ways to Listen Better, by Julian Treasure
are losing our listening. We spend roughly 60 percent of our communication time listening, but we're not very good at it. We retain just 25 percent of what we hear. Now -- not you, not this talk, but that is generally true. Let's define listening as making meaning from sound. It's a mental process, and it's a process of extraction. We use some pretty cool techniques to do this. One of them is pattern recognition. (Crowd noises) So in a cocktail party like this, if I say, "David, Sara, pay attention" -- some of you just sat up. We recognize patterns to distinguish noise from signal, and especial... posted on Dec 15 2017 (32,605 reads)

Mind the Stream: Where Mindfulness and Technology Meet, by Emily Rose Barr
Sunday morning, and my puppy is curled up in my lap, as she often is. The rainfall outside has subsided for now, replaced only by the occasional medley of bird calls. The hum of my computer, a familiar sound, seamlessly blends into the background. My phone sits in the other room, unattended, until it pings for my attention. My tablet rests in the closet for now, idling before I dive back into one of the three books it currently stores. Look around you. How many devices are bidding for your attention? If someone came into your dwelling space, could they tell what year it was by the technology that immediately surrounded you, or would they have to dig a little deeper? When was th... posted on Oct 11 2017 (13,734 reads)

Seven Ways to Help High Schoolers Find Purpose, by Patrick Cook-Deegan
the past decade, I have had the chance to ask thousands of teenagers what they think about school. I’ve found that the vast majority of them generally feel one of two ways: disengaged or incredibly pressured. One thing nearly all teens agree on is that most of what high school teaches them is irrelevant to their lives outside of school or their future careers. One study found that the most common feelings among high school students are fatigue and boredom. Another study concluded that 65 percent of the jobs that today’s high school graduates will have in their lifetime do not even exist yet. But we are still teaching them in the same way that we t... posted on Dec 12 2017 (47,252 reads)

How Can Our Gratitude Contribute to World Peace?, by Kerry Howells
day we witness the brutality of war and atrocity, and can feel hopeless or doubt that anything we do as an individual can have a positive impact. International Day of World Peace was celebrated recently so now might be a good time to reflect on how our own gratitude can make a difference. I love the Zen saying: If there is light in the soul, There is beauty in the person, If there is beauty in the person, There will be harmony in the house, If there is harmony in the house, There will be order in the nation, If there is order in the nation, There will be peace in the world. If we are to bring about world peace, we first need to ask ourselves if how we think and what... posted on Jan 9 2018 (14,955 reads)

The Intelligence of Plants, by Unknown Yet
Harrod Buhner is an award-winning author of 22 books on nature, indigenous cultures, the environment, and herbal medicine. He comes from a long line of healers that include Leroy Burney, Surgeon General of the United States under Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, and Elizabeth Lusterheide, a midwife and herbalist who worked in rural Indiana in the early nineteenth century. He says that the greatest influence on his work, however, has been his great-grandfather, C.G. Harrod, who primarily used botanical medicines, also in rural Indiana, when he began his work as a physician in 1911. Buhner, who says his DNA prevents him from working for others, has been a fulltime therapist in pri... posted on Mar 9 2018 (24,920 reads)

Why the Moral Argument for Non-Violence Matters, by Kazu Haga
Oh yeah, he’s great. He was always the principles guy.” That was what an old Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, organizer told me when I mentioned that I had been trained by Bernard Lafayette, co-author of the Kingian Nonviolence curriculum and a legend of the civil rights era. “I was always a strategies guy,” this elder went on to tell me. “I believed in nonviolence as an effective strategy, but Bernard was always talking about nonviolence as a principle.” I let out a little laugh. In that moment, I was proud to have been trained by “the principles guy.” When people talk about nonviolence in the... posted on Jan 15 2018 (15,606 reads)

Water Is Life: An Interview with Cheryl Angel, by Awakin Call Editors
Angel is an indigenous leader, wise (Sioux) Lakota elder woman, mother of five children, and lifelong devoted water protector who helped initiate and maintain the Standing Rock camp since April 2016, and who was vital in the nonviolent resistance to the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines. Her voice among the water protectors is one of integrating deep prayer with nonviolent direct action, guiding two women-led actions at Standing Rock. A spiritual activist from the Sicangu (Rosebud) tribe -- one of the seven tribes that conform the Lakota/Nakota/Dakota People in the Great Plains of North America -- Cheryl moves from a deep space of love and nonviolen... posted on Jan 7 2018 (9,207 reads)

Bringing Life to Organizational Change, by Margaret Wheatley, Myron Kellner-Roger
the Journal for Strategic Performance Measurement, April/May 1998 Margaret J. Wheatley & Myron Kellner-Rogers After so many years of defending ourselves against life and searching for better controls, we sit exhausted in the unyielding structures of organization we've created, wondering what happened. What happened to effectiveness, to creativity, to meaning? What happened to us? Trying to get these structures to change becomes the challenge of our lives. We draw their futures and design them into clearly better forms. We push them, we prod them. We try fear, we try enticement,. We collect tools, we study techniques. We use ... posted on Apr 11 2018 (14,172 reads)

Spirit of the Earth: Indian Voices on Nature, by Unknown Yet
of the Earth: Indian Voices on Nature Edited by Michael Oren Fitzgerald and Joseph A. Fitzgerald, Foreword by Joseph Bruchac. World Wisdom (www.worldwisdom.com), 2017. PP. 136. $14.95. Paper Reviewed by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos “[N]ot only men, but all things and all beings pray to Him (Wakan Tanka—the Great Spirit) continually in differing ways.” –Hehaka Sapa (Black Elk) As contemporary life becomes more and more fragmented and unsustainable, many individuals are left perplexed and searching for more complete and sustainable models to understand themselves and their place in the world around them. It is the spiritual crisis brought about by a desacralize... posted on Mar 12 2018 (11,043 reads)

Can Love Be A Force for Social Justice?, by Bela Shah
I heard about Anne Firth Murray through a close friend, I was immediately intrigued. She’s a professor at Stanford University who teaches courses on international women’s health as well as a course entitled “Love as a Force for Social Justice,” the Founding President of the philanthropic organization, the Global Fund for Women, and a warm individual known for her tea gatherings and unusually exotic pets at her home in Palo Alto. I’ve been interested in women’s empowerment issues for quite some time, but to learn about someone who brings love into the field really piqued my interest.       Through this interview, I wanted to l... posted on Apr 4 2018 (13,341 reads)

Poet's and Sages Behind Closed Doors, by Laura Grace Weldon
flashes across the nursing home lobby when I enter. By degrees the brightness dims as the door swings shut. My eyes adjust to a line of wheelchairs, their occupants so still they might be in deep meditation. One woman rouses, her brown eyes searching me out. “Feet don’t work a’tall,” she says politely. “Not a lick of good.” I walk down the hall past living koans. A man is held in a chair with padded restraints resembling a life jacket. His arms extend forward as if he is about to swim, but he doesn’t move. He repeats over and over, “I, I, I, I.” An aide explains in a loud, cheerful tones to a w... posted on Feb 20 2018 (16,609 reads)