Tiny Living: Making it Work
When it comes to owning a home, the phrase "bigger is better" has become the norm. But a new breed of home owners have decided to go with the "less is more" approach and scale down to -- gulp! -- well below 500 sq. feet. The reasons are clear right away: less expensive, less cleaning, less maintenance -- and also more energy efficient, cozy and elegantly streamlined. As Jay Shafer wrote in his boo... posted on Feb 12 2015, 25,590 reads

Are You An Adrenaline Addict?
"The other day I was driving home and a text chimed in on my phone. It was one of those really important texts that makes you do stupid things like respond while you are driving. Which I nearly did. Instead, I pulled over, and started letting my fingers fly on the tiny keyboard...Before I could finish the text, I realized something interesting. I was actually addicted to that brief moment of relie... posted on Feb 11 2015, 22,528 reads

Walking Our Way To Health & Happiness
"Walking is going places. Over recent decades, walking has come to be widely viewed as a slow, tiresome, old-fashioned way to get around. But that's changing now as Americans recognize that traveling by foot can be a health breakthrough, an economic catalyst, and the route to happiness...The evidence that millions of people are finally walking again is as solid as the ground beneath our feet." Rea... posted on Feb 10 2015, 25,783 reads

The Dinner Party: Breaking Bread, Healing Hearts
When Lennon Flowers' mom passed away from lung cancer during her senior year in college, Lennon kept herself busy to avoid dealing with the pain which eventually hit her a year later, making her feel shameful and alone. A turning point came when Lennon met Carla Fernandez who had just lost her father. The friends decided to organize a dinner party for five women who had lost a parent at a young ... posted on Feb 09 2015, 11,617 reads

Awakening The Wisdom Of The Heart
What does it mean to live from the heart? According to Dena Merriam, founding member of the Contemplative Alliance, it means living with a fuller appreciation of what it means to be a human being on this earth. The wisdom of the heart shows us our connection to the whole. If we move from a consciousness of just thinking about ourselves first, to one of the well-being of the whole, things will evol... posted on Feb 08 2015, 5,459 reads

The New Farmers
With an environment in crisis, a new generation of young farmers is taking their action from the streets back to the soil. In this article from Orion Magazine, writer Lauren Markham explores the motivations that have driven this newest generation of farmers to relinquish the comforts of urban life, and to take the reins of a new farming movement.... posted on Feb 07 2015, 8,233 reads

The Gifts of Hibernation
"So hibernation is a threefold time. It is a time for retreat and replenishment... a time for our wordless philosophy to finally be born...a time for our hidden destiny to whisper in our heart, You're not forgotten. I'm still here. We're in this together." For all of us who feel swept up in the buzz of achieving rather than being, Andreana A. Lefton's sincere reflection on rest and integration is ... posted on Feb 06 2015, 26,151 reads

Why Happiness Is The Wrong Pursuit
"On some abstract level, we know that money and other outward signs of success won't ultimately make us happy -- perhaps because we know wealthy or famous or powerful people who are deeply unhappy -- but on another level, we don't really believe it ... or at least we don't believe it applies to us. Why do we experience such a disconnect between what we know to be true in the abstract and what we b... posted on Feb 05 2015, 36,334 reads

Using Brain Science To Transform Schools
After Sept 11th 2001, child trauma psychiatrist Pamela Cantor was hired to assess the emotional impact of the attacks on New York school children. What she discovered surprised her. "From lower Manhattan to the Bronx, most of the children I met were traumatized less by what they had witnessed that terrifying morning than by the experience of growing up in poverty," says Pamela. She found that "one... posted on Feb 04 2015, 38,186 reads

Lee Hoinacki: Conscience & Courage
Lee Hoinacki, author of four books, ex-Dominican priest, scholar and deeply connected with Ivan Illich, was a remarkable man. One example: having left academia to become a subsistence farmer he found he needed money to help his daughter. He began looking for a job, "Then it hit me, why am I trying to get one of these respectable jobs? That's the worst thing I could do! That's what I left years ago... posted on Feb 03 2015, 16,938 reads