without water. The land that holds a community well also holds remnants of ancient pottery: plain potsherds buried in sand between pinyon and juniper. Some of the broken pots once held water, the priceless treasure of the desert. This land is dry and crisp with cheatgrass. The monsoon has not arrived. A grass fire has already been sparked, and feverishly extinguished, in my neighborhood. I’ve recently arrived home after eight days on Idaho’s Salmon River, and am still in a mad love trance with water, still dripping, still sensing the body of that muscular river: clear, deep, sinuous, insisting on a mutual embrace. A wild adoration of water accompanied me home to a land of d... posted on Oct 11 2018 (8,150 reads)

to help me. Then I go back to the dragon's place and he says, “I suggest you do more research and find out what you need to say about XYZ.”  So I say, “Okay, what do you think is the essential piece that I need to say?” And the dragon knows exactly what it is that I should be saying in my talk the next day. I always find that process helps me to resolve my inner conflicts, which often take up so much psychic energy. Aryae: That's a beautiful example. I love the dragon. Scilla:  Another example is an extraordinary young woman called Gulalai Ismail living in the Swat Valley in Northwest Pakistan, which is probably one of the most dangerous pla... posted on Feb 15 2019 (7,385 reads)

morning hours of New Year’s Day. In the decade since his tragic death, Grant’s family has helped to create a police citizen review board of BART, established a foundation, and launched a campaign to not only help bridge the gap between police and the community, but also to build a nationwide network of families affected by such violence. “That’s a club that nobody wants to be a part of,” says Grant’s aunt, Beatrice X Johnson. “We can offer them love, support, and steps to getting justice, because we are the only ones that truly know what they’re going through.” The impact of Grant’s death ripped through the country. Mill... posted on Mar 16 2019 (3,410 reads)

the previous few years my father, grandfather, grandmother, father-in-law, and sister-in-law had all died, and I’d also moved across the country and was missing the friends and community I’d left behind. I’d been living with a free-floating state of unease, but I’d largely sidestepped direct encounters with my losses. In his book Weller invites us to view grief as a visitor to be welcomed, not shunned. He reminds us that, in addition to feeling pain over the loss of loved ones, we harbor sorrows stemming from the state of the world, the cultural maladies we inherit, and the misunderstood parts of ourselves. He says grief comes in many forms, and when it is not ex... posted on Feb 26 2019 (61,026 reads)

because I can talk up a storm, I love, even crave, silence. I feel safe in it. I know I won't blurt out something foolish or harmful, something I'll be sorry for. That's probably why if you ask spiritual teachers for advice on how to practice wise speech, they're likely to answer with one word: silence. Like the rain necessary for flowers to bloom, silence is essential for speaking with clarity. A Hindu adage, echoed in other cultures, reflects this relationship: If what you have to say is truthful, kind, and useful, then say it; if not, silence is best. My earliest lesson in the value of silence and the painful consequences of unkind words occurred when I was... posted on Apr 14 2019 (11,605 reads)

approve of me using the present tense in this essay, I think, or what she termed “focused narrative tense”, but I would argue that in this case, the fixed bright beam is necessary. This is about the work. I know what I’m doing, Ursula. You taught me well. To make something well is to give yourself to it, to seek wholeness, to follow spirit. To learn to make something well can take your whole life. It’s worth it.– Steering the Craft Yes. * To nature lovers, pay attention. Matthew Keely over at Tor muses that if circumstances were different, she may have been known as one of the best nature writers. All my life I knew this, sen... posted on Apr 30 2019 (6,806 reads)

living is inherently connected to equitable living and social justice. For Solar Sister, we work with women to amplify their leadership, talent, and hard work. We work on clean energy because we recognise everyone should have clean power, no matter where you live or how much money you make. So for us, we see gratitude as a way to acknowledge the privileges that so many of us are born with and that we seek for all people. How does Solar Sister inspire gratefulness and related actions (love, kindness, compassion, etc.)? At Solar Sister we choose to work at a challenging intersection of women’s empowerment and clean energy in rural Africa. We choose to uplift the hard work a... posted on May 22 2019 (6,036 reads)

to be forgiving, they wanted to be accepting, they wanted to be filled with joy and embrace impermanence, but they couldn’t. So I realized that it’s not a switch that I’m going to turn on at 65 when I retire. You have to do it now. So for me, that ‘nowness’ was very present through that whole process. Q: You said you read spiritual literature when you were younger. Who inspired you the most? NM: Lots of people! I read J. Krishnamurti in my teens, and I love everything he says. He says, “Look, truth is a pathless land.” You can only draw a path between two static points, and truth is constantly changing – it’s emergent, not st... posted on Jul 5 2019 (7,851 reads)

past check out so we can catch the bus?” She noticed that we had used the kitchen and said something strange. “You used the kitchen! That was not allowed! You cannot stay one more minute longer!” And she stood there and watched us pack our stuff. It was about noon.  So, we left and sat on a bench. We were both feeling “What happened there?”      I said to Michael, “I don’t want to leave Finisterre, this place that I really love, like a dog with his tail between his legs. We can’t leave like this.” I saw a house across the bay where we knew the owner. We went over there and the owner said, “You can move... posted on Aug 3 2019 (5,776 reads)

she has learnt to ride the motorcycle and is the proud owner of a Royal Enfield Bullet. With the help of the government, Reinhard and her team has arranged 12 used skateboards, helmets and safety pads for the children. Now, they are looking for artists from around the world to turn skateboards into 'art-boards'. "The invitation has been taken up not just by 'hotshot' artists but also by the local kids," Reinhard said. She is gratified that the children love skateboarding and find it "cool". "To skate and hang out there and participate in our activities, they would do anything -- even going to school," she said. As a result... posted on Sep 10 2019 (3,923 reads)

conversation is presented courtesy of TheGreenInterview.com, a website that has produced more than 100 feature-length interviews with many of the world's greatest environmental thinkers and activists. More about the site here.  Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger, botanist, medical biochemist, writer and broadcaster, combines medical training with a love of botany. She is an expert on the medicinal, environmental and nutritional properties of trees, and author most recently of The Global Forest. When her parents died, she was raised by an uncle who taught her everything from physics to Buddhism and Gaelic poetry. She was one of only ... posted on Sep 12 2019 (6,772 reads)

by talking about the background of your life, where you grew up, you grew up on a farm, it sounds like, most of those years of your childhood, is that right? Ms. Payne:Yes, I spent the first 17 years of my life on a farm on the edge of a waterfall in this are here of Ithaca, New York called the Finger Lakes region. Ms. Tippett:And you then in college studied both music and biology? Ms. Payne:Well, nobody told me I was going to have to earn my living through what I did in college. I loved music and wanted to learn a good deal more about that than I’d been able to learn back in the farming days. And then after college, I was married to a biologist, Roger Payne, who became ve... posted on Oct 22 2019 (4,912 reads)

one said a word about it. It was all about the Torana paintings. It was this kind of quirk or joke that I had gone there and made Torana paintings, which I hadn’t. They were part of the application that Margaret Olley judged me to win. From then on it was really lazy journalism, people just kept going on. Maybe it’s an interesting story, people don’t expect it, I was meant to come from a yellow corn field in France, not the north-western suburbs of Sydney. But I always knew I loved art. I never stopped. I went straight from high school to art school because when I was pushed to say what am I going to study at university I didn’t want to study anything except art or d... posted on Nov 20 2019 (4,652 reads)

October 23, 2006, Brain Pickings was born as a plain-text email to seven friends. It was then, and continues to be, a labor of love and ledger of curiosity, although the mind and heart from which it sprang have changed — have grown, I hope — tremendously. At the end of the first decade, I told its improbable origin story and drew from its evolution the ten most important things this all-consuming daily endeavor taught me about writing and living — largely notes to myself, perhaps best thought of as resolutions in reverse, that may or may not be useful to others. Now, as Brain Pickings turns thirteen — the age at which, at least in t... posted on Oct 31 2019 (16,620 reads)

not afraid we will not be kind, not really. We are afraid—desperately afraid—that we are not lovable. We are summoning Fred from our collective memory because somewhere, deep inside, we are still children. We are sitting cross-legged in front of boxy televisions in daycares and basements and dens across this country. We are not simple. Our times are not simple. Our lives are not simple. We are watching, rapt and slack-jawed, loving him, not because he is kind, but because he loves us. All these years later, we are drawn to him for the same reason. It is that simple. It is that deep. The movie—thank Fred, thank Tom—got this blessedly right. When you flock... posted on Nov 27 2019 (12,538 reads)

past July, I decided to leave the San Francisco summer fog, and head across the Golden Gate Bridge to a retreat center in warm Marin county. The Santa Sabina Retreat Center, tucked away in a corner of the Dominican College campus, feels likes a large home, with 40 single bedrooms surrounding a lovely courtyard with a center fountain.  I was first introduced to the Center over a decade ago when I was coordinating retreats for tenured public-school teachers here in San Francisco, and for half a decade, I held six week-long retreats a year there until the funding ended. Throughout those years, the Center began to feel like a second home to me and was a place that comforte... posted on Dec 7 2019 (6,314 reads)

to offer us today to think about as ways to stop Ferguson from happening again; three things that I think will help us reform our images of young black men; three things that I'm hoping will not only protect them but will open the world so that they can thrive. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine our country embracing young black men, seeing them as part of our future, giving them that kind of openness, that kind of grace we give to people we love? How much better would our lives be? How much better would our country be?  Let me just start with number one. We gotta get out of denial. Stop trying to be good people.&nb... posted on Dec 13 2019 (8,327 reads)

have been thinking about time lately, as I watch the seasons turn and wait for a seemingly endless season of the heart to set; I have been thinking about Ursula K. Le Guin’s lovely “Hymn to Time” and its kaleidoscopic view of time as stardust scattered in “the radiance of each bright galaxy” and the “eyes beholding radiance,” time as a portal that “makes room for going and coming home,” time as a womb in which “begins all ending”; I have been thinking about Seneca, who thousands of seasons ago insisted in his Stoic’s key to living with presence that “nothing is ours, except time.” And... posted on Jan 13 2020 (10,012 reads)

goal is to share the experience that a return to gratitude is a return to nature, including our own nature. Yet another goal is to illuminate how, through gratitude for even our challenges, we can turn our wounds into gifts. What do you think moves people to attend The Nature of Gratitude events? Tom: It’s always difficult to ascribe motives for others, and the reasons for attending The Nature of Gratitude are likely as diverse as the individuals who come to our programs. Some love hearing performances from the artists they know in our ensemble. Others are looking for light in dark times. Gratitude brings that light. And because our core philosophy embraces a deeper form of... posted on Mar 5 2020 (5,906 reads)

think we have to love our sense of place, and champion the heck out of it,” says Greg Tehven, who is turning the world of economic development on its head and inviting people to build the communities they want to live in. Confronted with the business failings of his beloved hometown of Fargo, North Dakota, he asked himself what the community could offer to the public, that would help get it back on its feet. An unexpected answer surfaced, based on the city's small population and open spaces: drones! Fargo now hosts an annual drone conference attracting attendees from around the world. The town has quickly become an appealing city for college graduates, business leaders, an... posted on May 11 2020 (3,275 reads)