Kentucky. He splits his time between three quiet activities: 1) writing fiction, poetry, and essays, putting pen to paper (quite literally) in a tiny hut on the Kentucky river; 2) working his farm; and 3) engaging in non-violent civil disobedience supporting various humanitarian or agrarian causes. He has spoken out in his 76 years against wars, corporate corruption, nuclear power plants, the death penalty and abortion, coal mining practices, mountain top removal, and other issues of land and life. Although he doesn’t fit squarely into any one political category, just last month, President Obama awarded him the National Humanities medal. Berry is a truth-teller of the storytelling va... posted on Aug 15 2012 (14,468 reads)

go that finally allows us to be at peace. It is an acceptance of what happened along with a choice to stop dragging the unhappy past into the present. It is the experience of moving through blockages that keep us from being alive right now. It is for you way more than anyone else. Byron Katie says, “Things don’t happen to you; they happen for you.” When limiting stories are put to rest, we are able to see the lesson, the offering from them, that deeply enriches our life experience. Let’s clear up two misconceptions about forgiveness. + When you release your attention from your grievance story, you are not condoning the other’s behavior. ... posted on Jun 7 2021 (60,761 reads)

poems of Naomi Shihab Nye have an uncanny way of showing up at exactly the right moment to summon you below the surface of your life. The child of a Palestinian father and an American mother, her poems speak a language deeper than culture, history or religion. Through the portal of the everyday—a grocery store, an olive press, the headlines—she draws us into the most profound questions and revelations of the soul. In addition to writing poetry, Nye writes fiction, essays and children’s books, and has edited several anthologies.  KIM ROSEN: What do you feel is the role of poetry, especially in these times? NAOMI SHIHAB NYE: Poetry helps us imagine one ano... posted on Jan 10 2013 (27,127 reads)

your deep heart, opening as the entire moment, and giving what you most deeply desire to give, without waiting.” ~David Deida Just for a minute, can we please stop frantically trying to control, plan, and delude ourselves into thinking we know what we don’t know? Do you spend your time preparing for every possible outcome and worrying about all the negative consequences that could befall you? We are so afraid to let go, to just be, to allow the unfolding of this marvelous life without getting in the way. This fear keeps us paralyzed and stuck. And longing for the peace that is possible – if only we would put down all the efforts we make to know. There is no g... posted on Jan 29 2013 (30,684 reads)

some reason, the control freak in me kept her mouth shut. Miraculously I had enough sense to stand aside and let my child give as her heart felt lead.   Last Christmas, my daughter spent hours wrapping barely-used bottles of lotion, tiny hotel shampoos, and gently-used books. She then declared she wanted to distribute the colorful packages to homeless people in the downtown area on Christmas Eve. Her very first recipient was a frail, elderly woman with sad eyes who clutched her life possessions in a ripped trash bag. It wasn’t until I watched this woman’s face completely transform by the mere sight my pint-sized-gift-bearer that I got over myself.   ... posted on Feb 9 2013 (25,272 reads)

faith. But it is also a relatively recent idea in the West which dates from the 17th and 18th centuries, a time that ushered in a dramatic shift in what human beings could legitimately hope to expect in and from their lives. People prior to the late 17th century thought happiness was a matter of luck or virtue or divine favor. Today we think of happiness as a right and a skill that can be developed. This has been liberating, in some respects, because it asks us to strive to improve our lots in life, individually and collectively. But there have been downsides as well. It seems that when we want to be happy all of the time, we can forget that the pursuit of happiness can entail struggle, sac... posted on Mar 7 2013 (13,380 reads)

They would last for an hour sometimes, and sometimes for days or even weeks then he would sink back down into that horrible place. When he was sick, I protected him fiercely. I didn’t want anyone to see him like thatI had faith that someday he would recover but man oh man it was lonely I wished every single day that I could just walk around with a sign like this... because on the outside I looked like I had EVERYTHING GOING FOR ME I looked like I might just have a perfect life but I was hiding a very painful secret… Well, a lot of other things happened too. You can imagine what might happen over the years while we have a 7 acre farm, a pretty big internation... posted on Mar 19 2013 (74,308 reads)

the past ten years there has been an escalating interest in happiness. Hundreds of books and studies have emerged to guide us toward finding the good life, but achieving personal happiness is only a part of the equation. When happiness is partnered with well-being and sustainability it takes on a whole new dimension: sustainable happiness. Sustainable happiness takes into account that happiness is interconnected with other people, other species, and the natural environment by a remarkable web of interdependence.  This means that our daily actions and decisions contribute to—or detract from—our own well-being, and that of others. Sometimes things that make us h... posted on Mar 29 2013 (41,306 reads)

for many years. How have your own spiritual path and your evolution as a poet been interwoven? Does your Zen practice teach you about writing poetry? Does your writing teach you about Zen? They are left foot and right foot. Zen is the taste of your own tongue in your own mouth. It’s a way to find something very simple that’s already present within you—a subtler, sharper, nondistanced, and nondistancing awareness. Everything else emerges from this intimacy with your own life, this opening into attention. We become the instruments of our lives and become part of the orchestra of the larger existences that our lives in turn are part of. The same basic attention and ... posted on May 23 2013 (16,868 reads)

at exfoliating the imagery of that, that idea of surrender. I don't help him, I don't make up the images with him, I may be guilty of that sometimes, but I can't think of one right now. TS: You mentioned that you didn't even hear Rumi's name until you were in your late 30s. I'm curious, when you heard his name or you read your first Rumi poem, did you immediately go up into flames or something like that? CB: [Laughs] TS: I mean, the karma of your life was about to be forever changed. CB: That's certainly true, but not exactly the first one. That was a Robert Bly conference, where he thought it would be a great afternoon writing exe... posted on Dec 29 2013 (35,429 reads)

neuroscientists have identified a 10-section “empathy circuit” in our brains which, if damaged, can curtail our ability to understand what other people are feeling. Evolutionary biologists like Frans de Waal have shown that we are social animals who have naturally evolved to care for each other, just like our primate cousins. And psychologists have revealed that we are primed for empathy by strong attachment relationships in the first two years of life.  But empathy doesn’t stop developing in childhood. We can nurture its growth throughout our lives—and we can use it as a radical force for social transformation. Research in ... posted on Aug 25 2013 (229,330 reads)

She cut her first tooth on a rubber giraffe. Our world is different, zoologically speaking — less straightforward and more grisly. We are living in the eye of a great storm of extinction, on a planet hemorrhaging living things so fast that half of its nine million species could be gone by the end of the century. At my place, the teddy bears and giggling penguins kept coming. But I didn’t realize the lengths to which humankind now has to go to keep some semblance of actual wildlife in the world. As our own species has taken over, we’ve tried to retain space for at least some of the others being pushed aside, shoring up their chances of survival. But the threats agains... posted on Sep 5 2013 (14,414 reads)

Dan Paich is an original. In a sense, we’re all originals, but now and then one runs across someone for whom this word is a particularly apt fit. Born in Yugoslavia and, through improbable events, becoming a child radio and film star, Slobodan has had an unusual life. His vision as an artist is remarkably deep and generous. He is, in fact, a real visionary. This interview is the second of two. In the first one, we learn about his life in Yugoslavia and his flight out of his native country to London. This one picks with his innovative summer school project in Italy. We met at the artist’s very small apartment in San Francisco. RW:  Now the last time we talked... posted on Nov 23 2013 (15,424 reads)

health, better jobs, and a better chance to survive on the planet? In an ad for a major phone company blanketing TV this year, a circle of doe-eyed children is asked: "Who thinks more is better than less?" You know the one—an eager kindergartener answers, "We want more, we want more," before the commercial voice intones, "It's not complicated..." To economists, there's no distinction between money spent on stuff that makes life better and money spent on stuff that makes life worse. When it comes to our economy, most Americans also believe that more is always better. More, in this case, is what economists call growth,... posted on Nov 21 2013 (27,210 reads)

practicing bio-regionally self-sufficient economies, the knowledge that the total community must be engaged in order to attain sustainability is the result of a natural process of survival. The practical aspects of willing teamwork within a whole-community system clearly emerged from experience delineated by necessity. However, the word cooperation is insufficient to describe the organic nature by which members continue to cultivate the principles basic to care-taking one another and other life forms, well beyond necessity.  Having been born into such a living community, albeit one becoming more fragmented, I have come to the conclusion that its philosophy is supported by an inf... posted on Dec 15 2013 (31,331 reads)

is rough, no matter how you slice it. But it's also an inescapable fact of life, and our ability to deal with failure and rejection has a hand in determining how successful and happy we are. Happiness isn't the opposite of depression -- resilience is, according to psychologist Peter Kramer. Think of the people you most admire -- many of them didn’t get where they are just by sailing through life without any negative experiences or failures. Most of them distinguished themselves by their ability to get right back up every time they fall, a truism reflected in countless inspirational quotations on the power of perseverance (In the words of Winston Churchill, ... posted on Jan 2 2014 (163,079 reads)

longtime fans of photojournalist Peter Menzel, whose visual anthropology captures the striking span of humanity’s socioeconomic and cultural spectrum. His Hungry Planet and What I Eat portrayed the world’s sustenance with remarkable graphic eloquence, and today we’re turning to some of his earliest work, doing the same for the world’s shelter: Material World: A Global Family Portrait — an engrossing visual time-capsule of life in 30 countries, captured by 16 of the world’s leading photographers. In each of the 30 countries, Menzel found a statistically average family and photographed them outside their home, w... posted on Dec 16 2013 (42,419 reads)

makes some people more successful in work and life than others? IQ and work ethic are important, but they don't tell the whole story. Our emotional intelligence -- the way we manage emotions, both our own and those of others -- can play a critical role in determining our happiness and success. Plato said that all learning has some emotional basis, and he may be right. The way we interact with and regulate our emotions has repercussions in nearly every aspect of our lives. To put it in colloquial terms, emotional intelligence (EQ) is like "street smarts," as opposed to "book smarts," and it's what accounts for a great deal of one's ability to navigate l... posted on May 1 2014 (114,496 reads)

shows us this popular belief just isn’t true at all: how “long” it takes to form a habit depends on the individual, the habit being formed, environmental factors, etc. Just like most research, it’s far more messy, and doesn’t make for great book titles like 21 Days to Blah Blah Blah… Furthermore, this outlook on habits (“I just have to get to X days…”) diminishes the real benefit of forming a habit in the first place: to change your lifestyle which ultimately leads to a better life. Do you honestly think you can create sticky habits just by trying to reach some imaginary number of days where the habit will supposedly stay for ... posted on May 14 2014 (29,424 reads)

the midst of iPads and pop up ads, TV screens and Twitter memes? How do we help bring meaning and balance in the midst of a hyper-demanding (and often overwhelming) world? As a preschool teacher, I believe that introducing our children to poetry at a young age holds at least part of the answer. While technology has brought so much to our lives, and completely changed how we learn and interact, I am hard-pressed to believe that a computer will ever teach a child how to live a purposeful life of love and connection. To pass on these life lessons, I think we have to turn back to the stories and songs of our past, and continue to inspire a sense of wonder in children through our words. ... posted on May 31 2014 (16,944 reads)