As I thought back to those tedious, one-sided library books that I had discarded as unimportant, I realized that they contained either full-on New Age faith, or full-on skeptical dismissal, with no middle ground whatsoever. Those tiresome books separated the world into two warring camps of  believers and skeptics, with each camp slyly or not so slyly maligning the intelligence, the character, and the worth of  the members of  the other camp. Let me state clearly that my work — and my new book, Sacred Medicine — fall into neither camp. As a voraciously curious radical empiricist who is also a mystic, I do my best (at the expense of  belonging, mind yo... posted on Jul 7 2022 (7,211 reads)

student performs at the 2013 Louder Than a Bomb slam poetry competition in Boston, Massachusetts. John Tammaro / flickr, CC BY-ND The American poet William Stafford was often asked by friends, readers, students and colleagues: When did you become a poet? The response he regularly offered was: “The question isn’t when I became a poet; the question is when other people stopped.” Stafford was articulating what many poets believe: that the roots of poetry (rhythm, form, sound) go far back – both personally and culturally – “to the crib” and “to the fire in front of the cave.” No surprise, then, that children delight in the plea... posted on Jul 12 2022 (2,860 reads)

tendency to self-enhance! Discovering your own intellectual humility Here are four different types of intellectual humility to look for in yourself—and some tips on how you might cultivate each one. Remember the paper, discussed above, that proposed two dimensions of intellectual humility: internal vs. external and self-directed vs. other-directed? Together, the authors suggest that these dimensions create four types of intellectual humility. You can use them as a framework for assessing your capacity to be intellectually humble. Internal and self-directed intellectual humility. This one requires you to inquire, honestly, about yourself. For exampl... posted on Jul 24 2022 (4,384 reads)

a car in a tight space or making a decision about a business strategy. Thinking fast means the mind will turn to prior solutions. Thinking slow allows new ideas to emerge. There is a general perception that slowing down is wasting time or indicates laziness, while science suggests it is an important way to replenish the mind and generate new ideas. It is possibly more productive than communicating at the rate of 1,000,000,000 bits a second on one’s digital device. Art, even when a work is made at great speed — as Sadequain and Picasso often did — evolves out of a painstaking process of practice and formation of ideas. Art and photography can, quite literally, stop t... posted on Aug 4 2022 (3,802 reads)

must change. Including me." Her book, The Garden Awakening: Designs to Nurture Our Lands and Ourselves, is"a step-by-step manual to creating a garden in harmony with the life force in the earth, addressing not only what the people in charge of the land want but also asking what the land wants to become." Reynolds is also the founder of the international garden rewilding movement, 'We Are the Ark,' Ark standing for Acts of Restorative Kindness. Her groundbreaking work invites people all over the world to transforming their gardens into part of living, and deeply interconnected ecosystem.She shares more in this talk from 2016. ... posted on Sep 19 2022 (6,555 reads)

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 many things, having worked as a professional dance teacher and blackjack player, a negotiation trainer, a consultant for Fortune 500 companies, and an Alexander Technique teacher. Having pioneered wisdom-based learning a... posted on Oct 19 2022 (3,759 reads)

— the first university to admit women, and the first to admit students of ethnic minorities — then devoted herself to teaching Western music to Native Americans (the academic term for whom was then “American Indians”) and learning their own traditional songs as they taught her in turn. With her simple box camera and cylinder phonograph, wearing trousers and a bow-tie, Frances Densmore spent years traveling to remote settlements where no scholar dared venture. She worked with dozens of tribes — the Sioux, the Chippewa, the Mandan, the Hidatsa, the northern Pawnee of Oklahoma, the Winnebago and Menominee of Wisconsin, the Seminoles of Florida, the Ute of U... posted on Nov 10 2022 (3,557 reads)

we are,” says Harper. “A sense of appreciation and of gratitude. Sometimes a sense of fear — a healthy recognition that we’re not the center of the universe.” Harper, an Episcopal priest, is Executive Director of GreenFaith, an international interfaith and multi-faith environmental organization that conducts education and advocacy, and provides environmental sustainability services, to faith-based groups. GreenFaith uses the power of religious networks to help people from diverse backgrounds put their belief into action for the Earth. It works with houses of worship, religious schools, and people of all faiths to help them become better e... posted on Nov 17 2022 (1,977 reads)

law in a cloak of complexity. Law is like riot gear on a police officer. It's intimidating and impenetrable, and it's hard to tell there's something human underneath.” In 2011, Vivek founded Namati to demystify the law, facilitate global grassroots-led systems change, and to grow the movement for legal empowerment around the world. Namati and its partners have built cadres of grassroots legal advocates in eight countries. The advocates have worked with more than 65,000 people to protect community lands, enforce environmental law, and secure basic rights to health care and citizenship. Globally, Namati convenes the Legal Empowerment ... posted on Jan 26 2023 (1,130 reads)

happens when a Syrian refugee, an Israeli aid worker and an American Jew walk into a room? (Laughter) No, this is not the start of a really bad joke, I promise. This actually happened to me. Starting in 2015, I found myself holding a series of secret meetings in various European capitals with a small group of Syrian and Israeli civilians. And we were there to try and figure out how we can get aid to the Syrian people who were enduring the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II. But how did we end up at this table together? After all, Syrians and Israelis are sworn enemies, and technically they've been in a s... posted on Jan 31 2023 (2,646 reads)

well-being these days without talking about what’s going on in the world, whether that’s the mental health fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, political polarization, or global crises like climate change. All of us are affected by these problems, and that’s reflected in Greater Good’s 2022 selection of top scientific insights. But this research doesn’t just suggest how we might cope with bad situations. These studies also show us the power of connecting, working together, and being open to other perspectives—and the hope for a less gloomy future. The top insights also give us practical ideas of ways to grow, be kind, and find meaning in our ever... posted on Feb 4 2023 (7,932 reads)

was also very controlling. After experiencing the trauma of her own mother's death when she was just 11-she felt the survival need to control everything and everybody around her. As my siblings and I were growing up, one didn't really have a conversation with my mother; she kind of gave lectures to you. We even had shorthand for them: LFTs or Lecture for Today. At the same time, she was also very creative and innovative. She wrote, she painted, having a one-woman show of her work in New York and Paris; She was very involved with trying to bring more peace to the world, so she worked with the UN, and with the Foreign Policy Association. She thought the world would be more ... posted on Jul 1 2016 (46,583 reads)

question: How might we DO this? How might we become more loving, more open, less selfish, more present, less delusional, etc., etc? Well, yes, good question. Unfortunately, I only have three minutes left. So let me just say this. There are ways. You already know that because, in your life, there have been High Kindness periods and Low Kindness periods, and you know what inclined you toward the former and away from the latter. Education is good; immersing ourselves in a work of art: good; prayer is good; meditation’s good; a frank talk with a dear friend; establishing ourselves in some kind of spiritual tradition — recognizing that there have been countle... posted on Feb 11 2023 (50,201 reads)

From a musical point of view, distinguishing between interruption and sharing could get quite blurry. What one person hears as jamming the signal could, to another, come across as just plain jamming, trying to make interesting music together. This is because music is far from a simple sign. It depends on what one believes music, in either a human or an avian context, to be all about. Perhaps artistry and form constitute not just an advertisement of territory and skill, but an attempt to work together to create something no one species could make on its own. It was with this idea in mind that I felt compelled to bring people and nightingales together to make interspecies music in t... posted on Feb 21 2023 (2,581 reads)

real, unprocessed foods Wild regeneratively-raised or grass- or pasture-raised meats and eggs and fatty fish Fiber Phytonutrients Micronutrients (e.g., vitamin D, zinc, magnesium, B vitamins, omega-3 fatty acids) Optimal hormone levels (supported by healthy lifestyle or bio identical hormone replacement) Adequate and ideal light exposure at the right times of day Optimal hydration Clean air Exercise and movement Restorative practices (yoga, meditation, breath work) Sleep and health circadian rhythms Community, love, and belonging Meaning and purpose By adding the good stuff and removing the bad, you activate your body’s natural healing... posted on Mar 2 2023 (4,375 reads)

is the sunshine of life — the quiet radiance that makes our lives not only livable but worth living. (This is why we must use the utmost care in how we wield the word friend.) In my own life, friendship has been the lifeline for my darkest hours of despair, the magnifying lens for my brightest joys, the quiet pulse-beat beneath the daily task of living. You can glean a great deal about a person from the constellation of friends around the gravitational pull of their personhood. “Whatever our degree of friends may be, we come more under their influence than we are aware,” the trailblazing astronomer Maria Mitchell observed as she contemplated how we... posted on Mar 27 2023 (5,484 reads)

having an illness. Perhaps you distracted yourself tackling 14 things on your to-do list. Or you had an irresistible urge to check your social media feeds or watch endless TikTok reels of dancing cats. Or maybe you started telling yourself threatening stories (“What if they’ve been in an accident?”; “There’s something wrong with me”; “I can’t cope”; “I shouldn’t be feeling this way”). In my experience as a psychologist working with clients for 30 years, what is going on in these moments is we are escaping from our inner lives—and this happens when we are confronted with vulnerability. We are triggered by uncom... posted on Apr 5 2023 (6,144 reads)

always been fleeting. But it seemed real, even if it wasn’t something he felt comfortable talking about, except with close, trusted friends. Even then, he sometimes felt a little silly and self-conscious, as if others would consider him odd for having such experiences. In truth he did sometimes feel odd. But also blessed. Besides that, in recent years the man had stretched his sense of ethics and “right behavior” to include his relationship with insects. That was still a work in progress, though he’d even experimented with seeing how far he could go into summer without killing a mosquito. But back to the dragonfly. The man went into the cabin and grabbed a br... posted on Apr 6 2023 (5,207 reads)

1925, Frida Kahlo was on her way home from school in Mexico City when the bus she was riding collided with a streetcar. She suffered near-fatal injuries and her disability became a major theme in her paintings. Over the course of her life, she would establish herself as the creator and muse behind extraordinary pieces of art. Iseult Gillespie dives into the life and work of Frida Kahlo in this riveting TED talk.  ... posted on May 8 2023 (2,860 reads)

itself in healthy eating, yoga, ChiRunning and spirituality. After several years, my current partner, Jeroen, came into the picture with whom I can now share all that. And we started to do a lot of trainings to together. It did not mean that from then on, the road became a fully paved highway. Together we were challenged quite a few more times in letting go and following the voice of our hearts. First, the idea of starting a retreat center that after 4 years of hard work turned out not to be our path. Meanwhile, I was a vitality coach, yoga teacher and taught yoga&run classes. And yet my heart wanted me to partially let go of all of this, no more w... posted on May 9 2023 (3,010 reads)