The Peacock Mosaic
When their school closed during the pandemic, the teachers and families of the East Bay Waldorf School in El Sobrante, CA, all scrambled to put together backyard pods for the coming school year. They took the challenging hand they were dealt and made the very best of it, creating something beautiful, including a new re-birthed school.... posted on Nov 06 2021, 4,334 reads

What Almost Dying Taught Me About Living
"The hardest part of my cancer experience began once the cancer was gone," says author Suleika Jaouad. In this fierce, funny, wisdom-packed talk, she challenges us to think beyond the divide between 'sick' and 'well,' asking: How do you begin again and find meaning after life is interrupted?"... posted on Nov 05 2021, 9,181 reads

Solitude: The Seedbed of Self-Discovery
"In her Journal of a Solitude (public library), May Sarton records and reflects on her interior life in the course of one year, her sixtieth, with remarkable candor and courage. Out of these twelve private months arises the eternity of the human experience with its varied universal capacities for astonishment and sorrow, hollowing despair and creative vitality."... posted on Nov 04 2021, 4,949 reads

I Want to Play
"I work hard. Sometimes too hard. I even work hard at play. Perhaps you suffer the same affliction. Call it 'passion' or 'devotion' or 'loving what you do,' but it is possible to have too much of a good thing." Writer Phyllis Cole-Dai describes a writing workshop that she gave to herself as a gift. It resulted in a lovely poem, beginning with this delightful assertion: "I want to play..." Read mor... posted on Nov 03 2021, 4,266 reads

Wim Hof: The Cold as a Noble Force
"Wim Hof is an athlete and extremophile daredevil nicknamed The Iceman for his feats of withstanding extreme weather conditions. The holder of more than 20 Guinness World Records, Wim attributes his endurance to specific meditation and breathing techniques. In this intriguing episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Wim about the Wim Hof Method of exercises, mindfulness techniques, ... posted on Nov 02 2021, 3,244 reads

Ecosystems & the Practice of Love
"One of the things that I have tried to do in my work is to understand our reality as a 'commons' -- to see the whole of reality as a shared process of mutual transformation and productivity. This term '"commons" has been coined to express the idea of shared culture and resources being accessible to all members of a community. I use the term because being alive means that we are always participati... posted on Nov 01 2021, 2,397 reads

Wendell Berry on Hope & Place
"It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old,
for hope must not depend on feeling good
and there is the dream of loneliness at absolute midnight.
You also have withdrawn belief in the present reality
of the future, which surely will surprise us,
and hope is harder when it cannot come by prediction
any more than by wishing. But stop dithering.
posted on Oct 31 2021, 16,084 reads

Universal Human in Training
"We are in the midst of an unprecedented transformation in human consciousness. Unprecedented. Our perception is expanding beyond the limitations of the five senses. Together, they form a single system whose object of detection is physical reality. Now we are acquiring another sensory system: we are becoming multisensory. We are transiting from a five sensory species to a multisensory species, and... posted on Oct 30 2021, 3,222 reads

A School for Refugees -- By Refugees
Refugees who have fled their native lands in search of a place to live safely and to be treated as human beings often find themselves stuck for several years in an environment which can be unwelcoming and even hostile. A group of refugees in Indonesia established a school so that their children could learn basic education while being offered a chance at normalcy through social interaction. Childre... posted on Oct 29 2021, 1,067 reads

The Do-It-Ourselves Revolution
"In these trying times, ordinary people are taking matters in their own hands in extraordinary ways, confronting global problems collectively -- and locally. They're saving lives by leaving uplifting notes in areas with high suicide rates, teaching people the importance of wild plants on the sidewalks, cleaning up roads while getting fit and connecting with others, and transforming abandoned space... posted on Oct 28 2021, 4,123 reads