Beresford-Kroeger is a world-recognized botanist, medical biochemist and author (and now filmmaker). She is known for her extraordinary ability to translate scientific complexities of nature for the general public with both precision and poetry. "If you speak for the trees, you speak for all of nature", says Beresford-Kroeger, one of the world's leading expert on trees. She has studied the environmental, medicinal, and even spiritual aspects of trees, has written about them in leading books, and maintains gardens on her property that burst with flora. From a very young age, she understood she was the last voice to bring Celtic knowledge to the New World. Orphaned at age 1... posted on May 9 2020 (7,292 reads)

Tippett, host: Resmaa Menakem is a therapist and trauma specialist who activates the wisdom of elders and a very new science, about how all of us carry the history and traumas behind everything we collapse into the word “race” in our bodies. He helps explain why vulnerabilities and inequities laid bare by the pandemic have fallen hardest on Black bodies. He illuminates why all of the best laws and diversity training have not gotten us anywhere near healing. We recorded this interview just before lockdown, in Minneapolis, where we both live and work. We offer up Resmaa Menakem’s intelligence on changing ourselves at a cellular level — as, in Minneapolis and... posted on Jun 6 2020 (18,645 reads)

walk among trees is to be reminded that although relationships weave the fabric of life, one can only be in relationship — in a forest or a family or a friendship — when firmly planted in the sovereignty of one’s own being, when resolutely reaching for one’s own light. A century ago, Hermann Hesse contemplated how trees model for us this foundation of integrity in his staggeringly beautiful love letter to trees — how they stand lonesome-looking even in a forest, yet “not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche.” Celebrating them as “the most penetrat... posted on Jul 27 2020 (5,883 reads)

has carried me through a year that has been marked by the pandemics of Covid-19 and racism, political strife, and an escalating climate crisis. I’ve held close – as gently as possible — reliable truisms: Change is the only constant. Life tends toward life. I affirm: I’m not alone. In the end, death comes to us all — I have only to decide how to live life now. Showing up for myself, for others, and for what I care about — with all my human imperfectness — makes me more alive. I ask myself: What is the opportunity? What remains true? These words certainly don’t solve the ongoing and pervasive strain, grief,... posted on Nov 16 2020 (6,194 reads)

follows is the transcript of a SoundsTrue interview between Tami Simon and Elaine Aron. You can listen to the audio podcast here. Tami Simon: Welcome to Insights at the Edge, produced by Sounds True. My name’s Tami Simon, I’m the founder of Sounds True, and I’d love to take a moment to introduce you to the new Sounds True Foundation. The Sounds True Foundation is dedicated to creating a wiser and kinder world by making transformational education widely available. We want everyone to have access to transformational tools such as mindfulness, emotional awareness, and self-compassion, regardless of financial, social, or physical challenges. The Sounds True... posted on Nov 17 2020 (9,201 reads)

the Christian esoteric tradition, a path beyond the mind Put the mind in the heart…. Put the mind in the heart…. Stand before the Lord with the mind in the heart.” From page after page in the Philokalia, that hallowed collection of spiritual writings from the Christian East, this same refrain emerges. It is striking in both its insistence and its specificity. Whatever that exalted level of spiritual attainment is conceived to be—whether you call it “salvation,” “enlightenment,” “contemplation,” or “divine union”—this is the inner configuration in which it is found. This and no other. It le... posted on Apr 10 2021 (8,761 reads)

is centered inside of you, just like love. In prison, you see all different versions of unforgivingness. And being a firefighter in prison, you understand the unforgiving nature of nature. Forgiveness occurs in the earth—just the way nature balances itself, you learn how to balance yourself. Forgiveness is just a wonderful thing…it feels like a superpower. - Ra Avis Ra Avis didn't call herself a writer till she was accused of the crime that would eventually result in 437 days of incarceration. In the four years between the accusation and the handcuffs, after a friendly push from her husband—a writer himself—she started a blog and named it&n... posted on Jun 23 2021 (4,279 reads)

can we reconcile the immensely destructive force of fire with its equally limitless creative potential? Forest managers light intentional blazes to clear overgrowth and begin anew the cycle of life. A fireplace becomes a hearth, offering heat, light, and survival for the home’s residents. And fiery volcanic activity can obliterate what stands in its path all the while creating new land in a matter of hours and days that becomes highly fertile soil in thousands or millions of years. The element of fire—and its life-giving results in the form of heat and light—represent both a powerful metaphor and an undeniable fact of organic and spiritual transformation. Evelyn Underhil... posted on Aug 10 2021 (2,724 reads)

van Leeuwen is the founder of Critical Alignment Yoga and Therapy-- a precise, slow, and uniquely rigorous practice aimed to free body and mind from conditioned preferences in order to move from higher consciousness rather than willpower. "We can start to move from profound strength instead of strain," says Gert. In these excerpts from an Awakin Call interview last year he shares more about his journey and work. Early Influences & Explorations in Movement:  I grew up in a Protestant family. We were very sober. Movement was not very familiar to us. My first yoga teacher came from Surinam, from an Indian family. It was flower power time, when everyo... posted on Oct 12 2021 (3,131 reads)

follows is a transcript syndicated from On Being, of an interview between Krista Tippett and Jane Hirshfield. You can listen to the audio of this interview here. Transcription by Heather Wang  Krista Tippett:The esteemed poet Jane Hirshfield has been a Zen monk and a visiting artist among neuroscientists. She’s said this: “It’s my nature to question, to look at the opposite side. I believe that the best writing also does this … It tells us that where there is sorrow, there will be joy; where there is joy, there will be sorrow … The acknowledgement of the fully complex scope of being is why good art thrills … Acknowledging the fullne... posted on Jan 12 2022 (4,488 reads)

Friends Meeting House, Narberth, Pennsylvania. National Park Service Ilearned the difference between thinking and knowing very young in life through the fortuitous but at the time distinctly uncomfortable circumstances of my early upbringing when I found myself being shoved down two diametrically opposing pathways of spiritual knowledge at the same time. My mother was a faithful Christian Scientist, and from the time I was a toddler until my eighteenth birthday I was a dutiful conscript at Christian Science Sunday School, where we memorized long metaphysical formulas demonstrating the triumph of “infinite mind” over “mortal error.” But my mother was... posted on Apr 3 2022 (3,392 reads)

was about to start and Anna-Zoë Herr had exhausted her last option for arranging living quarters. Where to turn? For weeks, she had searched the inventory of apartments only to find they had already been filled. Her last option was a listing in a rural area far outside the city limits (and far from the university). After an exhausting trip navigating public transportation, Zoë was dismayed to discover that the apartment was once again no longer available. When she got to the bus stop to head back home, she realized the last bus of the day had already left. “God, just tell me what to do,” she cried, breaking down in tears. “Thy will be done. I just wa... posted on May 24 2022 (2,969 reads)

we love horses or not, whether we have contact with horses or not, they can teach us a lot about wisdom, love, and beauty. How do we get close to an honest openness to the potential magic of horses? And what does it even mean? The horse as a mirror for the soul and a vehicle for the soul could show us our true nature, and carry us into sacred spaces, initiating us into transformational healing and insight. Horses could heal conquest consciousness and help us reindigenize. But, for that to happen, we would have to become initiates. How can we properly seek initiation into the great mystery of life?- Nikos Patedakis Nikos Patedakis himself has practiced m... posted on Oct 19 2022 (3,705 reads)

through the ages, a traditional form has evolved for this type of speech, which is: Some old fart, his best years behind him, who, over the course of his life, has made a series of dreadful mistakes (that would be me), gives heartfelt advice to a group of shining, energetic young people, with all of their best years ahead of them (that would be you). And I intend to respect that tradition. Now, one useful thing you can do with an old person, in addition to borrowing money from them, or asking them to do one of their old-time “dances,” so you can watch, while laughing, is ask: “Looking back, what do you regret?” And they’ll tell you. Sometimes, as you ... posted on Feb 11 2023 (49,616 reads)

ANNUAL E. F. SCHUMACHER LECTURES OCTOBER 1998 SALISBURY CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, SALISBURY, CT Edited by Hildegarde Hannum Introduction by Susan Witt EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SCHUMACHER CENTER FOR A NEW ECONOMICS In preparation for introducing Deborah Meier I called a friend of mine in New York whose family knows her personally. A radio was playing in the background when a man answered the phone. I assumed he was my friend’s husband, so I said, “Andrew, this is Susan Witt, and I’m calling to ask about Deborah Meier.” He said, “Just a minute please,” went and turned down the radio, came back, and said, “Deborah Meier the... posted on Feb 13 2023 (2,347 reads)

kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now,” Jack Kerouac wrote in a beautiful 1957 letter to his first wife turned lifelong friend. “Kindness, kindness, kindness,” Susan Sontag resolved in her diary on New Year’s Day in 1972. Half a century later, the Dalai Lama placed a single exhortation at the center of his ethical and ecological philosophy: “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” Nothing broadens the soul more than the touch of kindness, given or received, and nothing shrivels it more than a flinch of unkindness, given or received — something we ha... posted on Mar 18 2023 (4,361 reads)

name is Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, I am a poet, singer, teacher and guide from Ireland. These three poems are from my collection ‘Early Music’. Each are a reflection on change, presence and inspiration in our lives. May they help you find the still point in your life today as we search for the Daily Good. Love from Ireland. Chinook Sanctuary Having descended into silence, I face a wooden structure. The Sanctuary breathes before me, so I enter with rain on my skin. Completely empty it welcomes the emptiness in me, called to prayer the easy prayer of simple breathing. This is how a ... posted on May 11 2023 (4,493 reads)

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 Ramón Jiménez (December 23, 1881–May 29, 1958) — part love letter to his beloved donkey, part journal of ecstatic delight in nature and humanity, part fairy tale for the lonely. Healer on a Donkey by Niko Pirosmani, early 1900s. Living in his birthplace of Moguer — a small town in... posted on Jul 25 2023 (4,030 reads)

by Alletta Cooper Krista Tippett: I’m in conversation today with the rock star music producer Rick Rubin, but I’m not really going to talk to him about music. Yes, he has been a singular, transformative creative muse for artists across genres and generations — from the Beastie Boys to Johnny Cash, from Public Enemy to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, from Adele to Jay-Z — to name just a few. But Rick has been looking back these past few years at what he’s learned about the creative process itself, and he’s published his first book, The Creative Act, about that: the flow and the ingredients by which an idea becomes an offering; life prac... posted on Nov 30 -0001 (26 reads)

Good‘s latest video features our executive editor, Dacher Keltner, on the science of touch. Here, he elaborates on cutting-edge research into the ways everyday forms of touch can bring us emotional balance and better health. A pat on the back, a caress of the arm—these are everyday, incidental gestures that we usually take for granted, thanks to our amazingly dexterous hands. Brian Jackson But after years spent immersed in the science of touch, I can tell you that they are far more profound than we usually realize: They are our primary language of compassion, and a primary means for spreading compassion. In recent years, a wave of studies has documented some... posted on Feb 24 2011 (43,113 reads)