roots that account for your becoming a journalist? Paul Van Slambrouck: It wasn’t a direct line, by any means. I think my first attraction to the world of journalism was via the images I saw, particularly in the Christian Science Monitor (The Monitor in the day was black and white.) They were not really news photos, per se. The stuff was just so beautiful—poetic images from around the world, particularly of an artist named Gordon Converse who was, in The Monitor tradition, sort of a legendary photographer. RW: The Monitor came into your home? PVS: Right. My parents subscribed. I was in high school and that’s when I remember looking at the images and ... posted on Apr 18 2014 (9,067 reads)

TORRES: Pretty much towards the end of college and the beginning of my teaching career, I had actually never run more than a mile. I hated running. I was always really bad at it. It always made my chest hurt. I actually left soccer, which made my Mexican father really sad, because I told him it was too much running, and I didn’t like it. I was the kid that would beg my parents to give me a doctor’s note so I wouldn’t have to run the mile. Running was always sort of associated with things I wasn’t good at, with shame. I was one of maybe a handful of Mexican kids in my school, and I was chubbier than a lot of other kids. And so I was picked on &lsquo... posted on Aug 30 2016 (10,743 reads)

our voice forward, our gifts forward, in service to other people. Let's just jump right in and begin with this idea of spiritual awakening. I hosted at one point a series called Waking Up: What Does it Really Mean? And one of the things I realized is that different spiritual teachers meet a lot of different things when they use this term, "spiritual awakening." Let's start right there. What does spiritual awakening mean to you? Albert DeSilver:Yes, it's sort of like defining God, isn't it? How do you do that? I think for me, spiritual awakening has to do with transcending this sense of separation and difference. It means waking up to the vitality... posted on Sep 20 2018 (10,521 reads)

of my clients, they describe that the scariest time of the day is when they're going to bed at night, and after the devices, if they are ever OFF, when they turn off and it's just them there. That feels like a death now. It's an interesting time because you see now people are not processing their own experience inside themselves. For example, you might be, I don't know, walking on the street and a woman has a stroller, and you open the door for her, and you have that just sort of that shared sweetness of an act of kindness, and pre- our addiction to technology, we might have walked down the rest of that street and processed that with ourselves. We would have owned it&m... posted on Feb 8 2018 (18,103 reads)

exciting to be talking about an important subject in an important place in a room surrounded by books. And actually, where I’d like to start is just with you, just a little bit about your background. And I’m curious, specifically, whether you would find traces or roots of not just your interest in morality, but in a sense, your passion for morality, in the religious or spiritual background of your childhood. Mr. Haidt: Well, my religious and spiritual background is sort of stereotypical for my generation — born in 1963 to parents who were first generation. All four of my grandparents were born in Russia and Poland, came to New York, worked in the garment i... posted on Sep 21 2018 (17,356 reads)

Theory. Deb Dana: All right, let’s give this a try. And I appreciate your kind words, because it is what I love doing. I love talking about the nervous system in just everyday language. So if we talk about the three states of our nervous system, we have dorsal, sympathetic, and ventral. And so those three terms are terms that I hope everybody will begin to use. And so dorsal is the place of when it’s in its survival energy, it’s that place where we feel sort of not really here, going through the motions but we don’t have a lot of energy to really care about it. I like to think we sort of disappear in some way, sort of take a step back, I’... posted on Nov 12 2023 (5,204 reads)

religious and spiritual background of your childhood there. Mr. Martínez Celaya: Cuba was probably the least religious country in Latin America, even before the revolution. And by 1964, when I was born, there were no churches. Our churches were not really part of the community. My parents, though, held onto their Catholic God, even though it played very little role into our lives. Most of the Cubans I knew were into Santería or Espiritismo, which were other traditions. And sort of the magic of that made the challenges of communism, the migration, and all of that, more — in some ways, more manageable for people. But then after that, I went to Spain, which is a litt... posted on Nov 12 2017 (9,286 reads)

So we were very well organized, we could get the pressure on really quickly. One technique I would use when our campaign financing bill was in trouble I looked at the list of donors of some of the people that were on the fence. And I just called them. I found people like a president of a bank who is in the district of the guy that we were trying to move and I called them one-on-one and tried to convince them of our issue. Sometimes those guys would then call up. It is just a lot of… sort of like “leaving no stone unturned” is part of the process. Preeta: Wow. So as you were doing all this, you mentioned that part of your soul was not being fed - the more monastic c... posted on Dec 28 2019 (6,866 reads)

nest syndrome. It’s common to all of us. I felt it myself when my last child left and I had to say to myself, now, what would you say to someone who’s in this similar position? I would say, look, where you invested your energy is good. Notice they’re off living their journey. It would be far worse if they weren’t. But that energy now has come back to you. What are you going to do with that? That energy has come back to you in a way that brings something to you to sort of consider: where does my life need to go next after this? We can’t depend entirely upon outer structures. One of the side effects of the pandemic is so many folks were pulled out of th... posted on Oct 1 2022 (4,302 reads)

is a thrill to be here at a conference that's devoted to "Inspired by Nature" -- you can imagine. And I'm also thrilled to be in the foreplay section. Did you notice this section is foreplay? Because I get to talk about one of my favorite critters, which is the Western Grebe. You haven't lived until you've seen these guys do their courtship dance. I was on Bowman Lake in Glacier National Park, which is a long, skinny lake with sort of mountains upside down in it, and my partner and I have a rowing shell. And so we were rowing, and one of these Western Grebes came along. And what they do for their courtship dance is, they go together, the two of them, the two mate... posted on Aug 19 2015 (9,757 reads)

when you went, "Oh! This is what I need to do." How did this come about? Thomas: It came from my heart. As far back as I can remember, I've known this. And it's like, I hate to repeat myself, but it's what I thought I was put on this earth to do. I need to let everybody know what's going on, how the animals suffer, and how we need to treat the environment better. I feel like this is what I need to do. I can't really pinpoint when I exactly knew this. I just sort of knew it. Alissa: Well, I know that at age four, you became vegetarian and shortly thereafter, vegan. How did that happen? I mean, you weren't living in a vegan household. How did this h... posted on May 22 2017 (18,095 reads)

“trauma” and “traumatic stress” has made its way into culture, movie, TV scripts, the news, public policy discussions. I’ve read a few different accounts of how you stumbled into this field. How do you trace the beginnings of your research into traumatic stress? DR. VAN DER KOLK: Well, it starts in a very pedestrian way. I mean, as characters from a generation that it was generally recommended that people have their own heads examined, which, I think, is sort of a good idea if you try to help other people. So psychoanalysis was the way to do that back then. And the only program that paid for that was the VA. So I went to work for the VA for the same r... posted on Oct 20 2017 (66,725 reads)

“trauma” and “traumatic stress” has made its way into culture, movie, TV scripts, the news, public policy discussions. I’ve read a few different accounts of how you stumbled into this field. How do you trace the beginnings of your research into traumatic stress? DR. VAN DER KOLK: Well, it starts in a very pedestrian way. I mean, as characters from a generation that it was generally recommended that people have their own heads examined, which, I think, is sort of a good idea if you try to help other people. So psychoanalysis was the way to do that back then. And the only program that paid for that was the VA. So I went to work for the VA for the same r... posted on Oct 20 2017 (1,376 reads)

with a priest who is a friend of mine and was a teacher, when I was at university. And I was talking to him, at one point, about the purpose of suffering. And he said to me, “It’s a very narrow-minded idea that comes out of religion, that all suffering has a purpose. Suffering is just suffering. And after you’ve been through the suffering, perhaps your relationship to the world is changed, and perhaps it isn’t; but suffering shouldn’t be glorified.” And I sort of quite strongly hold to that idea — I think there is something that’s come out of the Judeo-Christian tradition that says there is a nobility in suffering in silence. MS. TIPPETT... posted on Jun 19 2018 (14,545 reads)

— still is; it’s a different wall, but still the living room — there was a photo of my grandfather, my father’s late father, who was a rabbi and who perished in the Holocaust. And his very distinct features and looking straight into the camera was really the icon in my childhood home, both because of the martyrdom and because of the rabbinic legacy and because of the huge light that his story and tragic end cast over us. And I think I can almost place the moment when I sort of realized that this is the dynasty. And it coincided with my uncle who, when I was in my early teens, was elected as Israel’s chief rabbi and whom I knew very well, and I grew up with him... posted on Feb 23 2020 (4,320 reads)

soul have more patience, maybe more sense of a spiritual side, maybe more experience in some way with the trials and difficulties, and rewards of life. I mean, you do get a sense often when you meet people that there are old souls and there are very young souls. And what if those of us that have been drawn to being here now especially, what if a number of us do have a sense not only of having a soul, which I’ve never questioned actually, so I can’t say anything about it. It’s sort of like the capacity to love, for example, the capacity to feel a sense of awe and sacredness under the stars and among the trees. How does one get that? It’s sort of built into us. I ha... posted on May 9 2022 (3,965 reads)

you would describe that now? Limón:Yeah, there wasn’t a religious practice. In fact, my mother is and was an atheist. And it’s funny to tell people that you’re raised an atheist because they’re like, “Really?” But I was. And they’re like, “Oh, I didn’t know that was a thing.” [laughs] [audience laughs] Tippett:Cradle atheist. Limón:Yeah. No, really I was. And enough so that actually, as I would always sort of interrogate her about her beliefs and, “Do you think this, do you think that? What happens after we die?” And she says, “Well, you die, and you get to be part of the Earth, a... posted on Apr 22 2023 (3,206 reads)

I’m still curious about the singing. Were there any memorable moments in the singing? GN: Yes, I would say—moments of something coming in. Let me tell about a later experience with a Gregorian chant workshop a few years ago. It was not fancy music at all. It’s just a few notes, the way you chant the psalms. And most of the chanting in monasteries is of psalms rather than what we would think of as the more melodic music of some of the offices. [demonstrates by singing] That sort of thing, just two or three notes and you chant the text. We were doing it in English so we would understand the words and the emphasis on the words. When you have a group of people together, ... posted on Jan 18 2015 (28,380 reads)

time, and normally speaking, a picture like this, for me, should be straightforward. I'm in southern Ethiopia. I'm with the Daasanach. There's a big family, there's a very beautiful tree, and I make these pictures with this very large, extremely cumbersome, very awkward technical plate film camera. Does anybody know 4x5 and 10x8 sheets of film, and you're setting it up, putting it on the tripod. I've got the family, spent the better part of a day talking with them. They sort of understand what I'm on about. They think I'm a bit crazy, but that's another story. And what's most important for me is the beauty and the aesthetic, and that's based on th... posted on Jun 28 2015 (23,763 reads)

Aristotle talked about an ethics of desire that is resonant with who we are today because people want to have meaning in their lives, which Aristotle identified, and they want to be thrilled by it. And you said, "An ethics of desire is good news for us at a time when we have become allergic to an ethics of law." MR. VANIER: Yeah. Yes, you see, the heart of everything with Aristotle, desire and pleasure. And for Aristotle, pleasure is not, you know, something which is just sort of fooling around. Pleasure is when you have an activity, which you have performed well, be it philosophizing or struggling for justice. Whatever you do and you do well, it's filled with plea... posted on Feb 23 2018 (12,403 reads)