want to be a member of a thriving and diverse social movement, not a cult or a religion. Occupy Love, Hella Love Oakland March, February 14 2012. Credit: Flickr/Glenn Halog. CC BY-NC 2.0. As an intersectional activist who is concerned about the future of our movements, I’m really worried that social justice activism in the West is stuck in a dangerous state of disrepair. Ideological purity has become the norm. Social justice movements, which were originally about freeing marginalized people from oppressive institutions and social structures, have become imbued with their own narrow framework of morality. Our knowledge base is made up of reactionary think-pieces, self-rig... posted on Oct 24 2018 (8,172 reads)

not only changes your life, but also extends beyond your intimate sphere. It gives rise to compassion, kindness, forgiveness, and empathy, and thus informs how we treat others and how we act in the larger world. ~ Kristi Nelson The benefits of gratitude range from deeper sleep and better health to higher self-esteem and enhanced stress resilience. Gratitude has also been shown to enhance our relationships. And, if that’s not enough, gratitude makes us happier. As Brother David Steindl-Rast writes, “The root of joy is gratefulness … For it is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.” Kripalu p... posted on Oct 17 2018 (22,189 reads)

is happiness,” Willa Cather’s fictional narrator gasps as he sinks into his grandmother’s garden, “to be dissolved into something complete and great.” A generation later, in a real-life counterpart, Virginia Woolf arrived at the greatest epiphany of her life — and to this day perhaps the finest definition of what it takes to be an artist — while contemplating the completeness and greatness abloom in the garden. Nearly a century later, botanist and nature writer Robin Wall Kimmerer, who has written beautifully about the art of attentiveness to life at all scales, examines the revelations of t... posted on Nov 18 2018 (7,759 reads)

you look around you in your home or office you will probably see walls. Many walls are very smooth and painted. In fact, if your wall is painted, you are really just looking at paint — you can’t really see the wall. But what’s inside the wall? Have you ever seen or walked through a home that is under construction or being renovated? If you have, you may have seen the inside of a wall before it is closed up and painted. Important things are inside your walls. First, there are electrical wires. Wherever you see an electrical outlet, it means that there are wires that run all the way to the source of your electricity, like a system of nerves that travel through your body... posted on Dec 23 2018 (7,373 reads)

follows is the transcript of an On Being interview between Krista Tippett and Rachel Naomi Remen. KRISTA TIPPETT, HOST: Rachel Naomi Remen is one of the wise people in our world. I quote from my conversation with her all the time. She’s a physician and a lyrical writer whose long struggle with Crohn’s disease has shaped her view of life and medicine. Living well, she says, is not about eradicating our wounds and weaknesses but understanding how they complete our identity and equip us to help others. The way we deal with losses, large and small, shapes our capacity to be present to all of our experiences. There’s a difference, she says, between curing and heal... posted on Jan 15 2019 (13,890 reads)

this year, we had the privilege of hosting a beautiful Awakin Call with Maya Soetoro-Ng, where we heard about her speak about a wide range of topics: from her expansive view of the role each of us can play in building peace, to how the Presidency of her brother, Barack Obama, as well as the divisive aftermath of the past several years, both transformed and reinforced her vision of the work of building peace. By way of brief background, Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng, a peace educator consulting for the Obama Foundation, was director of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Hawaii. Her brother is former US President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama... posted on Feb 24 2019 (5,681 reads)

George Haskell is an ecologist and evolutionary biologist whose work is located at the thrumming intersection between science and poetry. He integrates rigorous research with a deeply contemplative, immersive approach. His subjects are unexpected and unexpectedly revelatory. His widely acclaimed, Pulitzer-finalist book, The Forest Unseen, chronicles the story of the universe in one square meter of forest ground in Tennessee. His follow-up book in 2017, The Songs of Trees, encompasses a study of humanity's varied roles within biological networks, as heard through the acoustics of a dozen trees around the world, which he visited regularly. David's innovative approaches to teachin... posted on Mar 22 2019 (4,922 reads)

article originally appeared in the New York Times Sunday Review, on January 12th, 2019. When I told my friends I was writing a book on older women like us, they immediately protested, “I am not old.” What they meant was that they didn’t act or feel like the cultural stereotypes of women their age. Old meant bossy, useless, unhappy and in the way. Our country’s ideas about old women are so toxic that almost no one, no matter her age, will admit she is old. In America, ageism is a bigger problem for women than aging. Our bodies and our sexuality are devalued, we are denigrated by mother-in-law jokes, and we’re rendered invisible in the media. Yet, most ... posted on Feb 27 2019 (468,648 reads)

master’s degree in theology from Harvard University and a master’s in social work from the University of Toronto, Stephen Jenkinson was the director of counselling services in the palliative care department at a major Canadian hospital  in  Toronto for several years, where he encountered the deep “death phobia” and “grief illiteracy” that most of his patients and their loved ones brought to their deathbeds. This work motivated Jenkinson to encourage people to prepare for their death well before its arrival so that they might be free to “participate emotionally in their deaths as they participate in other major life even... posted on Apr 26 2019 (20,861 reads)

Seasons of the Soul: The Poetic Guidance and Spiritual Wisdom of Hermann Hesse, translated and with commentary by Ludwig Max Fischer, published by North Atlantic Books, English translation and commentary copyright © 2011 by Ludwig Max Fischer.  All poems by Hermann Hesse from Sämtliche Werke, Band 10: Die Gedichte, copyright © 2002 by Suhrkamp Verlag GmbH, all rights reserved and controlled through Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin. Reprinted by permission of North Atlantic Books. Nature: Source of Strength and Solace (commentary from Ludwig Max Fischer, Phd) Nature was Hesse’s first and foremost teacher: the garden, the forest, an... posted on Jun 9 2019 (8,450 reads)

an aspiring essayist, it shames me to admit that I have only recently become familiar with the narrative and critical essays of George Orwell. While I have read his manifesto on clear writing, Politics and the English Language, I remained ignorant on the bulk of his work until a chance meeting with a shelf in a very comfortable section of the library. It was a joy to discover for the first time, Orwell’s quietly devastating account of time spent at a London workhouse in The Spike, his reflections on the ugly facets of colonialism in Shooting an Elephant, and his comment on the futility of vengeance, distilled into one waxy yellow face, in Revenge is ... posted on May 29 2019 (5,204 reads)

Laloux is a business analyst and author whose book Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness is considered one of the most important management guides of the past decade. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon talks to Frederic about what it takes to become a "next-level organization" that meets the challenges and opportunities of expanding human consciousness. Frederic explains that the next stage of human development will be to move beyond ego, elaborating on how this will look in the business world. Tami and Frederic discuss the difficult balance between fulfilling financial... posted on May 13 2019 (7,414 reads)

at Occupy Portland, October 21, 2011. Flickr/K.Kendal via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 2.0. Personal transformation is usually an experience we actively seek out - not one that hunts us down. But in the twenty-first century, becoming a caregiver is a transformation that comes at us because today the ‘call to care’ is at odds with the imperative of work and the call to individual achievement. Being a caregiver is not something most people think or dream about, let alone prepare for, even though it’s a role many of us will inhabit, since there are approximately 43 million informal caregivers in the United States and 6.5 million caregivers in t... posted on Jun 6 2019 (10,160 reads)

imagine that the very last person to survive the end of the world as we now know it, will at some point turn around and say to no one there at all—“Damn!  But I guess it could be worse!”  It’s a pretty darn universal coping strategy I find. And an effective one.  It demands that we step back from our current circumstances and get a larger perspective. And it sort of insists that we muster some kind of gratitude for whatever we do have, slapping us into an “attitude of gratitude.” In my work as a cancer chaplain, at the Simms/Mann-UCLA Center for Integrative Oncology, I would say that upwards of 90% of the folks I’ve seen over the y... posted on Aug 20 2019 (9,884 reads)

a poem is made available to the public, the right of interpretation belongs to the reader,” young Sylvia Plath wrote to her mother as she reflected on her first poem. What is true of a poem is true of any work of art: Art transforms us not with what it contains but with what it creates in us — the constellation of interpretations, revelations, and emotional truths illuminated — which, of course, is why the rise of the term “content” to describe creative output online has been one of the most corrosive developments in contemporary culture. A poem — or an essay, or a painting, or a song — is not its “content”; it trans... posted on Sep 9 2019 (4,825 reads)

in our feature “Grateful Changemakers,” we celebrate programs and projects that serve as beacons of gratefulness. These efforts elevate the values of grateful living and illuminate their potential to transform both individuals and communities. Join us in appreciating the inspiring and catalyzing contribution these Changemakers offer to shaping a more grateful world. Green Renaissance Justine of Green Renaissance. The creative project of a couple from South Africa, Green Renaissance works to spread positive stories that reflect the wonder of the world. With the goal of sharing ideas and inspiring change, Green Renaissance produces gorgeous short films that are po... posted on Sep 17 2019 (11,404 reads)

of all, thank you for your attention. There's nothing quite like being in a room full of people like this, where all of you are giving your attention to me. It's a powerful feeling, to get attention. I'm an actor, so I'm a bit of an expert on, well, nothing, really.  (Laughter)  But I do know what it feels like to get attention -- I've been lucky in my life to get a lot more than my fair share of attention. And I'm grateful for that, because like I said, it's a powerful feeling. But there's another powerful feeling that I've also been lucky to experience a lot as an actor. And... posted on Feb 24 2020 (5,521 reads)

has been made in recent years of the manner in which people ask for directions—women do, men don’t; women will admit to being lost, men generally won’t. Of much greater interest to me is the way people give directions. MapQuest and GPS notwithstanding, we all need to pull over and ask someone for help sometimes. The odd and overtly contradictory instructions that are then invariably offered charm me so thoroughly that I often end up glad to have gotten lost. Providence, Rhode Island, is a city in which I am prone to wrong turns, and on my last trip there, I made the inevitable stop at a bodega to find out how I might find my way out of town and back to Route 6. The ... posted on Sep 22 2019 (3,648 reads)

will always be a need to tell powerful stories from some of humanities darkest times. This rings especially true for stories about the Nazi’s and the Holocaust because we have a resurgence of the same sentiment that led to one of the worst regimes in history. Diane Ackerman wrote a story based on real life historic heroes that remind us that we can fight against oppression in a non-violent way with her book “The Zookeeper’s Wife”. With the film out this weekend, we talk with Ackerman about her novel and how it still holds up as a reminder of human kindness in a sometimes cruel world. I never heard about the story before I read your novel.  Was it hard to... posted on Sep 29 2019 (4,341 reads)

natural world is one of the most resplendent and consistent sources of generosity in our lives — whether we experience it directly moment-to-moment or not. When we allow ourselves to tune in and pay attention, our Earth is perpetually nourishing and providing for us, sustaining life and offering its abundant gifts with a breathtaking and consistent flourish. We are fed, literally and figuratively, by the Earth’s offerings every day. All manner of things born of the Earth can awaken us to perspective. All manner of moments in Nature can offer us gratitude for life’s preciousness and remind us of our fragile and powerful bonds of connection. Amidst oceans, fields, rain, t... posted on Nov 25 2019 (6,426 reads)