The Most Tender Gaze I Have Ever Beheld
"As I was facing into the slope and digging, I became aware of a presence behind me. I quickly looked over my left shoulder and saw a deer quietly standing about 4 feet behind me. Knowing it was hunting season, I ignored the deer not wanting to familiarize it to people and make it easier to hunt and kill. I continued working for another ten minutes but kept feeling the presence of the deer. I fi... posted on May 22 2023, 6,581 reads

Make Good Art
"I escaped from school as soon as I could, when the prospect of four more years of enforced learning before I'd become the writer I wanted to be was stifling. I got out into the world, I wrote, and I became a better writer the more I wrote, and I wrote some more, and nobody ever seemed to mind that I was making it up as I went along, they just read what I wrote and they paid for it, or they didn't... posted on May 21 2023, 4,343 reads

The Secret of Blooming
"The sun's setting fast. You hurry, wanting to get home before dark. But as you stroll past a humble house fringed by lush flowerbeds, you glimpse a line of people in the backyard, facing a privacy fence. With their backs to you, they're ranked like a row of tin soldiers, socially distanced; seven or eight of them, standing at attention. What are they up to? you wonder, slowing your steps. A maske... posted on May 20 2023, 4,361 reads

Diana Carr: Shepherds of the Dawn
Diana Carr's song, Shepherds of the Dawn, sung by Bird Tribe, is an uplifting and motivational call to each and every one of us to let the light inside of us reach out to our families and beyond. We are called to join in unison to be peaceful warriors that break barriers and the more the merrier, because each person's voice is needed and valued. Reminiscent of the words from a June Jordan poem, "W... posted on May 19 2023, 1,760 reads

The Alphabet Rockers
"Based in Oakland, California, Alphabet Rockers is unlike other bands that make music primarily for children, and over the last several years, Grammy voters have noticed. The hip-hop collective--which weaves the stories, spirit, and voices of a widely diverse group of young people into their work has earned a total of four nominations for Best Children's Album. This year, they took home their firs... posted on May 18 2023, 1,102 reads

Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic
Dr Paul Conti is the author of 'Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic: How Trauma Works and How We Can Heal From It' In the following interview he speaks with Tami Simon "about healing the unresolved trauma we hold inside both individually and collectively. They also discuss how trauma operates differently in different people, overcoming "reflexive shame," self-inquiry and the embrace of a "true life nar... posted on May 17 2023, 8,537 reads

Among the Trees
"Ive had a love of trees all my life. Throughout high school, I lived in a house in the woods in Massachusetts, and even on the darker mornings of winter what kept me from being frightened was the trees themselvesmostly scrub pines, as we called them there, with struggling oaks scattered among them. Unlike the kids at school, the trees remained silent as I passed, and I took this as a sign of acce... posted on May 16 2023, 1,713 reads

Transforming Food
"Weaving webs around the highways of northeast England, the REfUSE van was collectively funded by 315 people. They gave amounts ranging from fifty-pence pieces to four-digit sums until the great day when we could finally drive it off the lot and park it next to its newly installed electric charger. Each month it intercepts around thirteen tons of in-date food, otherwise destined for the dumpster, ... posted on May 15 2023, 1,250 reads

Mother
"One day her teacher lost her voice and asked mother to help teach the class. Standing in front of the class, she knew what she wanted to do when she grew up to be a teacher. Later when her father asked her, his eldest daughter, to quit school to carry some family responsibilities at age 11, she begged, but he wouldn't change his mind. Her pillow was wet with her tears. She never returned to schoo... posted on May 14 2023, 2,132 reads

Leah Penniman: Farming While Black
"Through Soul Fire, Leah Penniman has become a leader in the movement to reverse the effects of historical, systematic exclusion of black and brown communities from the means of production and consumption of wholesome food, and to reconnect those communities with a long, oft-forgotten history of land stewardship. Her book, Farming While Black, available now from Chelsea Green Publishing, is a how-... posted on May 13 2023, 1,671 reads