From the Ground Up: The Art of Place
"I survey this parcel of land that I have the honor of tending. It is the first place in my adult life where I feel rooted and held by the land, much like my childhood in the woods. This is the place where I learned about honorable stewardship. It is an awareness that now extends beyond my yard. This is the place where I learned to garden. I learned ways to heal the land and cultivate sustainable ... posted on Aug 19 2023, 1,562 reads

Cloudy is the Stuff of Stones
"Whenever I'm outside for more than ten minutes I start picking up rocks. In Patagonia, in Phoenix, in a Home Depot parking lot -- my gaze is invariably sucked downward into the gravel. I weigh the merits of pebbles by some fickle and mutable aesthetic and either pitch them back or pocket them and stack them among hundreds of their brethren on the counter behind our kitchen sink like fortification... posted on Aug 18 2023, 1,545 reads

Fumi Imamura's Floral Works
" What interests me about the plant world is that plants have no cranial nerves and relate to the world as open internal organs. I came to know this as the idea of the anatomist Shigeo Miki. The novelist Kyusaku Yumeno said that 'the brain is not a place to think', while Shigeo Miki said that 'the brain is merely a mirror reflecting the internal organs'. We tend to think that the brain is the esse... posted on Aug 17 2023, 1,389 reads

Hope and Feathers
"Africa is a place we all have in common. It is the widely acknowledged cradle of humankind, as most anthropologists agree that our hominid ancestors likely evolved there. So an Evolutionary Eve, mother to all of us regardless of race, ethnicity, or nationality, likely padded across the African plains. Given this multimillion-year perspective, I or anyone else should've been awestruck at the prosp... posted on Aug 16 2023, 1,333 reads

Eating the Wild
"In recent decades, and especially since the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a growing interest in foraging and cooking with food gathered from the countryside around us. In this article, Charlotte Maberly talks to the distinguished Scottish food writer Fi Martynoga about the benefits of eating wild food, and also looks at the history of the movement and its wider implications in terms of health... posted on Aug 15 2023, 1,168 reads

The Many Lives of Water
"The water present with us on Earth has been here since the beginning of time. People have long journeyed to distant hot springs, mineral pools, misty waterfalls, and formidable geysers for the promise of waters endowed healing properties. In almost every religion, water has the ability to absorb prayers and bestow blessings. "Water holds memories since time began and has a living spirit just like... posted on Aug 14 2023, 2,373 reads

The Radical Act of Letting Things Hurt
"When psychotherapist Megan Devine -- creator of the excellent resource Refuge in Grief and author of its portable counterpart, It's OK That You're Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand (public library) -- watched her young, healthy partner drown, the sudden and senseless loss suspended her world. As it slowly regained the motive force of life, she set out to redirect... posted on Aug 13 2023, 6,434 reads

A Case for the Porch
"Lately I've been trying to think like a porch. Trying to think between the natural and the human. Thinking how best to build during a climate crisis. I came across John Cage saying that progress in art may be listening to nature. He thought this activity could best play out on a porch, where we can hear natures symphony and then breathe our own masterpieces. Can we play our porches like instrumen... posted on Aug 12 2023, 1,878 reads

Cup of Karma
In the fall of 1987, Polly Simpkins met a man on the midnight train from Copenhagen to Amsterdam who shared with her his philosophy of life which focused on appreciating the people we love in this world. Cup of Karma was born to spread this message by bringing together Polly's love of people and her love of tea. Tea brings people together and Cup of Karma hosts events at which storytellers share t... posted on Aug 11 2023, 1,791 reads

Maggie Smith: Writing in a Way that is Brave, Real, and True
"Bestselling poet Maggie Smith has a gift for embracing the complexity of our human experienceand for writing about it with piercing intensity, clarity, and beauty. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with Maggie about her approach to her craft and to life, and how writing can serve as a pathway to self-discovery and release. Featuring a reading of the beloved poem "Good Bones," this insightful epi... posted on Aug 10 2023, 2,876 reads