communities. It’s the idea of the libation. It’s the idea that, in order to be safe, in order to be true, in order to live well and prosper, we must never forget that our stability is performed by remembering, our stability is performed by a trick, by this trick that keeps Hathor at bay. This is the myth behind the libation and the idea of pouring drink to earth that my father did. I’m not even sure he understood it this way, but it’s now part and parcel of our everyday life. How we celebrate, how we give thanks, how we invoke the new, how we invoke the yet to come. Now, modernity has a story. A myth that we are all safe, that we are all true, that there is no pro... posted on Jun 16 2022 (2,472 reads)

the world,” which is taking me years to understand and embody. The way I think of it now is in the framework of the imagination battle: there is a war going on for the future—it is cultural, ideological, economic, and spiritual. And as in any war, there is a front line, a place where the action is urgent, where the battle will be won or lost. The world, the values of the world, are shaped by the choices each of us make. Which means my thinking, my actions, my relationships, and my life create a front line for the possibilities of the entire species. Each one of us is an individual practice ground for what the whole can or cannot do, will or will not do. Grace visits me with ... posted on Jun 30 2022 (3,512 reads)

thinking about it — except chance? In other words, how can the spontaneous be anything but random; how can music made in a jolt of instinct, on a bolt out of the now, be endowed with a form that makes sense in time, as though it had been written and rewritten and practiced and memorized beforehand? And how, in making that first, most instinctive, most desperate decision, do we choose — if it really can be called “choosing,” if we really choose at all? Few things in life are more vivifying than a shimmering reminder that we can still surprise ourselves — those rare moments when the urn of the self cracks and out pours something more fully alive: truer than ... posted on Jul 10 2022 (2,567 reads)

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 time by capturing a moment. We are fascinated by slow motion images, as they allow us to see the details we would otherwise miss. Here lies the value of slowing down — to notice, observe, process and evolve our responses, whether we are paying attention to our children, our friends and life partners, or conducting market research, writing a journalistic report or planning a strategy for peace. We save time by making time. The Swiss saying goes, “No shortcuts today, I am in ... posted on Aug 4 2022 (3,805 reads)

back on his long and luminous life at age ninety-three, the great cellist Pablo Casals held up one great task before humanity: “to make this world worthy of its children” — those inheritors of the present and living emissaries of the future, whose souls, in Kahlil Gibran’s memorable words, “dwell in the house of tomorrow.” To make of that house a harmonious home — for our own children, and the children of every platypus and every redwood — is the one great calling that unites us all across the infinite divides of our fractured present. One small country, in which 0.0002% of the world’s population lives in on... posted on Aug 6 2022 (3,085 reads)

state of being. In sum, the prayer of Sufism is “teach me to love more deeply.” Gold is the deepest love. Rumi lived to the age of 66. He didn’t return to preaching, though he remained active in the community of Konya, helping to resolve conflicts between townspeople, offering guidance and solace, writing letters to royalty to help poor students and others in need. And of course, he continued to write poetry, his greatest service. He spent the last years of his life finishing the Masnavi and writing the remaining quatrains and ghazals for the Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi. Even on his deathbed, he was composing poems. The final couplet of the ghazal typically i... posted on Aug 12 2022 (4,086 reads)

Reynolds has designed award-winning gardens and landscapes across the globe. She is a nature activist and reformed landscape designer, because, in her words, "Everything 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 t... posted on Sep 19 2022 (6,562 reads)

Bureau of American Ethnography. Within a year, she had compiled her recordings in the popular LP Healing Songs of the Native Americans. To use an ahistorical term she far predates, Frances Densmore became the premiere ethnomusicologist of her time and place. She opened her 1926 book The American Indians and Their Music (public library | public domain) with an insight that reaches beyond culture, into the very heart of our species: Music is closely intertwined with the life of every race. We understand the people better if we know their music, and we appreciate the music better if we understand the people themselves. In the book, she detailed the singular role ... posted on Nov 10 2022 (3,560 reads)

where to find it. But what if you are the light? What if you are the very agent of illumination that a dark situation begs for?. That’s what this bus driver taught me, that anyone can be the light, at any moment. This guy wasn’t some big power player. He wasn’t a spiritual leader. He wasn’t some media-savvy influencer. He was a bus driver, one of society’s most invisible workers. But he possessed real power, and he used it beautifully for our benefit. When life feels especially grim, or when I feel particularly powerless in the face of the world’s troubles, I think of this man and ask myself, What can I do, right now, to be the light? Of course, I... posted on Nov 16 2022 (13,982 reads)

to “finding beauty in the small changes in nature and its seasons.” When she was 18, she began to learn ikebana as a hobby under Risen Kajikawa, a headmaster of ko-ryu shoreikai, one of the ikebana factions in Japan. After studying economics at Tokyo University and then working as a management consultant, her education took her to the United States, where she would graduate with honors at Georgetown University’s Graduate School of Foreign Service. On the outside, her life trajectory seemed clear. On the inside, however, Mayuka felt lost.  Some years later, she found herself working at Harvard Business School (HBS) at a fortuitous time. HBS was trying to tr... posted on Jan 10 2023 (2,125 reads)

the trailblazing composer Julia Perry wrote, “has a unifying effect on the peoples of the world, because they all understand and love it… And when they find themselves enjoying and loving the same music, they find themselves loving one another.” But there is something beyond humanistic ideology in this elemental truth — something woven into the very structure and sensorium of our bodies; as the great neurologist Oliver Sacks observed, “music can pierce the heart directly; it needs no mediation.” Psychologist Dacher Keltner examines what that unmediated something is and how it pierces us in a portion of his altog... posted on Jan 16 2023 (3,676 reads)

What do animal rights currently look like, legally? You mention a case involving whale protection in your book. Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility (Simon & Schuster, 2023, 400 pages) MN: The U.S. Navy sonar program is now ruled illegal because it disrupts the behavior of whales. Well, the question was, what’s bad? If you thought that only pain is bad, then you would think the sonar program is good because it does not inflict pain. But it does disrupt life activities. For example, interrupting reproduction, interrupting migration, creating heightened emotional stress. This law that’s been on the books for a very long time, the Marine Mamma... posted on Jan 18 2023 (2,547 reads)

has been viewed over a million times. He lives with his family in Washington, DC., and though he travels a lot, he tries to spend time in a forest or other natural place every week, wherever he is. Vivek studies capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art that mixes dance with fighting techniques as a creative form of resistance, with Dale Marcelin at Universal Capoeira Angola Center. “There’s a mischievousness and soulfulness even though you’re engaging in a life-and-death struggle,” Maru says. “I like its lesson of smiling in the face of danger.” He is also deeply influenced by his Jain spiritual background and Gandhian pri... posted on Jan 26 2023 (1,131 reads)

wasn't easy and it wasn't without hiccups. But by working with these unlikely partnerships, we were able to help more than two and a half million war victims and still counting. (Applause) Now, here's the great news. You don't have to go to a war zone to do this. I've applied my formula in a bunch of other settings. So let me share a couple of quick stories with you. Early in my career, 1971, to be exact, I was living a life of crime. Crime prevention, that is. (Laughter) I was also deeply immersed in the women's movement. So where could I make a difference? My entry point was the New York Ci... posted on Jan 31 2023 (2,648 reads)

at them, then we are all in the same state of consciousness. In dialogue the whole structure of defensiveness and opinions and division can collapse; and suddenly the feeling can change to one of fellowship and friendship, participation and sharing. We are then partaking of the common consciousness. People will, however, come to a group with different interests and assumptions. They are basic assumptions, not merely superficial assumptions—such as assumptions about the meaning of life; about your own self-interest, your country’s interest, or your religious interest; about what you really think is important. We could also call assumptions “opinions.” The w... posted on Feb 12 2023 (3,994 reads)

another species, but I don’t know if jamming is the best word. Does that suggest something frivolous to you? Musicking? Playing along with? Finding common ground? Interspecies music, of course, is music that no one species could make on its own. And the whole, if it works, should be greater than the sum of its parts, just as nature is greater than any one species in its midst. We all have our place, and no species is an island. We enhance ourselves by paying more attention to the rest of life. One song or many: what is that bird up to? Many songs in a row, up to a few hundred in a song “bout,” or one multiplicitous song out of many riffs or phrases? How much space betwe... posted on Feb 21 2023 (2,585 reads)

often fancy themselves quite extraordinary specimens in the animal kingdom. But while most recent research undermines our centuries-long claims of human exceptionalism, there are some ways in which we are quite unique – especially when it comes to childhood and childcare. Indeed, even when compared with our closest primate relatives, humans spend a truly inordinate amount of time – roughly 15 years at the beginning and the end of the lifespan – as vulnerable creatures, not reproducing, and largely dependent on others. In this Aeon Original animation, Alison Gopnik, a writer and a professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of Calif... posted on Mar 26 2023 (2,853 reads)

of the world that we experience,” shaped largely by the difference between the way the brain’s two hemispheres pay attention — “narrow-beam, highly focussed attention” in the left, “broad, sustained vigilance” in the right. Complement this tiny fragment of it with Mary Oliver on attention and love, then revisit cognitive scientist Alexandra Horowitz’s wonderful field guide to eleven ways of paying attention to the everyday wonderland of life. ... posted on May 23 2023 (3,328 reads)

details about the character, the setting, or thoughtful choice of words that reflect their observational skills or vivid imagination—rather than simply saying, “That’s great!,” which focuses more on the product than the process. Annie Murphy Paul, author of The Extended Mind and The Science of Creativity newsletter, suggests that we should avoid labeling our kids as creative or not. “As a child, you take your cues from the big people in your life, and you assume that however they label you is correct. You might not even explore and find out for yourself whether you’re creative or not. But I think it can also be a detriment to be lab... posted on May 29 2023 (3,129 reads)

ever name—it is nothing new. We have been walking on this Earth for a very long time—it is nothing new. We used to know and understand the significance of simple acts of being. Yes, one had ceremonies and harvest festivals and special prayers—and those were important, those are important. But between those days of celebration, between those special prayers, was always the constant remembrance of the sacred nature of creation. It was woven into the fabric of everyday life. It was woven into the fabric of every culture’s values. It was so basic. It did not need to be explained in the way that we have to have everything explained now. Now, we have terms lik... posted on Jun 1 2023 (3,236 reads)