The Donkey & the Meaning of Eternity: A Love Letter to Life
"Beneath our anxious quickenings, beneath our fanged fears, beneath the rusted armors of conviction, tenderness is what we long for -- tenderness to salve our bruising contact with reality, to warm us awake from the frozen stupor of near-living. Tenderness is what permeates Platero and I (public library) by the Nobel-winning Spanish poet Juan Ramon Jimenez (December 23, 1881-May 29, 1958) -- part ... posted on Jul 25 2023, 4,105 reads

A Broad Margin
"To meander is a natural form of movement, uncontrived, unhurried. Rivers and roving butterflies are adept at meandering. And we were too, once upon a time before we developed a preference for traveling in straight lines, perhaps because of Euclid, who told us a straight line is the shortest distance between two points (for the record he was not entirely right about this.) Regardless of length, a ... posted on Jul 24 2023, 4,240 reads

Jenny Odell: Another Kind of Time
"What songs are audible when the wind stops? What has been kept alive in the time snatched from work and sheltered from ongoing destructionwhat moments of recognition, what ways of relating, what other imagined worlds, what other selves? What other kinds of time?" In this conversation, artist and writer Jenny Odell points beyond the domination of clock time toward ways of being that are more in tu... posted on Jul 23 2023, 2,838 reads

Slowing Down in Urgent Times
"To slow down in times of crisis--times that in so many ways require action on all fronts--can seem counterintuitive. We are constantly met with pressures to achieve more, act faster and be better. Dr. Bayo Akomolafe disagrees. Urgent times, he urges, call for quiet; for rest and respite. Instead of ramping up, we must surrender, and wait to witness the transformative potential of stillness. Dr. A... posted on Jul 22 2023, 2,748 reads

Beannacht (Blessing) for Our Death
Tracey Schmidt's poetic reading of a Blessing for Our Death reminds us of the complexities of life - how we can be gatekeepers and entrance points, light filled and vulnerable, lonely and loved, all at the same time. She praises life and exhorts us to do the same, to "sing as if tomorrow will not come because one day it will not." This singing of life's praises enables us to live fully, "as if hom... posted on Jul 21 2023, 4,139 reads

Michael Nye: Images & Voices on the Edge of Revelation
Wherever he travels, Michael Nye carries an antique 8x10 camera and a voice recorder. He has been aptly described by National Public Radio as "part reporter and part anthropologist". His projects have taken him to Iraq during the first Gulf War, refugee camps in Palestine, as well as Siberia, China, Morocco, and Mexico. His documentaries, photography and audio exhibitions, "Children of Children --... posted on Jul 20 2023, 2,565 reads

Ode to an Ugly Cat
"Idly is not a beautiful cat. There is something about the way he looks at you that will set you on edge and it will take you a long time to get over this feeling. The edges of his ears are jagged, a little bit frayed. Old cat ears. He has scratches on his nose. He always has something sticking to his whiskers and there is nothing you can do about that. He would rather have cat litter stuck to his... posted on Jul 19 2023, 5,220 reads

The Medicine of Memory
"Every life is like a day. We begin the night before and, in the darkness, we are formed as a word that strikes a spark. This spark lands like a seed coming to the ground in the soul of the womb. Then miraculous growth pulses like wildfirean unstoppable explosion of unimaginable geniusthe exponential roar of universal proportion. Every life well-lived holds in its hearts core the knowing that all ... posted on Jul 18 2023, 4,829 reads

Honey Church
"Our first summer in Baltimore. The first year of our marriage--your only marriage, my second one--when my kid became our kid. This house, our home. We watched the parade of ants--polite little soldiers marching single file along the kitchen baseboards in a thin and steady stream. You took a white sheet of paper from the printer, slipped it under their quick feet, then whoosh, like a magician and ... posted on Jul 17 2023, 2,080 reads

Mark Nepo: The Half Life of Angels
"How do we know our own authenticity? How can we return to our hearts when we find we've left them? As we evolve and change along our journey, how do we relate to the 'former selves' in our past? Tami Simon and poet-philosopher Mark Nepo address these questions and more, as they discuss his creative process; his new book, The Half-Life of Angels; and how we can each touch the ever-present and whol... posted on Jul 16 2023, 3,732 reads