Writing a Better Story
There comes a time when we choose what stories we tell ourselves personally or as a community. "So let us all honor the stories that gave us courage and personal grounding, the stories that brought us...
View ArticleFighting Fire with Fire
"Victor Steffensen talks to Rosemary Rule about his pioneering work reintroducing indigenous cultural burning practices in Australia. 'Climate change means the land is telling us something. It is not...
View ArticleThe Missing Piece
"Unlike most beginning meditation practices, which provide a simple object of focus for the attention (like following the breath or reciting a mantra), Centering Prayer provides no such focal point; it...
View ArticleStolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention
"I think there's a more interesting definition of attention that's been developed really in the last five years in this new attentional environment that comes from a man named James Williams Dr. James...
View ArticleThe Two-Spirit Diplomat Who Mediated Two Worlds
"In Washington, D.C., a visiting celebrity of 1885 was from the Zuni tribe of the southwestern United States. Described as a priestess and a princess, the young woman named WeWha was 6 feet tall, with...
View ArticleExperiments with Wild Grace
"I had been in a place of acute hopelessness and inner anguish in which I felt so profoundly alone in the world and disconnected from even the possibility of authentic connection. Somehow amidst all...
View ArticleThe Anatomy of Anxiety
"Anxiety is "that hypervigilant feeling that escalates swiftly to a sense of catastrophe and doom," writes Ellen Vora, M.D., in her new book, The Anatomy of Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming the...
View ArticleGiving Your Heart Over to Real Change
"In this podcast, Sharon Salzberg joins Sounds Trues founder, Tami Simon, to discuss her recent book, Real Change: Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World--and how you can begin to bring the core...
View ArticleBeing Simply Beautiful
We are surrounded by the stuff that we think is so valuable and important, but take it all away and what is left? The real you is left. Or at least the journey to the real you without all the stuff...
View ArticleCentering: In Pottery, Poetry, and the Person
"Governed by her conviction that "poets are not the only poets" and that artists don't leave their art at the studio, M.C. Richards explores the poetry of personhood through the metaphor of centering,...
View ArticleUkrainian Teens' Voices from the Middle of War
"A colleague from Kyiv, Ukraine, whom Ill call N.M., sent me brief essays her students wrote on what they would do when the war ends. As both a scholar and a novelist, I knew that these voices, which...
View ArticleTo Spring from the Hand
At age 4 Paulus Berensohn asked his parents for dance lessons. "Boys in our family don't dance," was their response. That didn't deter him. When his mother complained to a friend about his persistence,...
View ArticleWhen Love Breaks Your Heart
When science journalist Florence William's husband of 25 years unexpectedly asked for a divorce, William found herself feeling dazed and ill. ""Physically, I felt like my body had been plugged into a...
View ArticleFour Poems Born from Stillness
"When I was a child and my mother needed me to entertain myself, she would give me a poem to memorize. So began a lifelong love affair with poetry. There are so many poets I love; and new ones I...
View ArticleWhat Can We Do When a Loved One is Suffering?
"What can we do when a loved one is suffering? This question has come up a lot so I wanted to share some thoughts in case it may be helpful to you or a loved one. First, I acknowledge how challenging...
View ArticleSharing the Joy of Simple Living
Ever dream of living a simpler, more community-rooted lifestyle? Ever wondered if you & your friends really could grow your own food? Or build your own house? What would it look like to dedicate...
View ArticleThin Places
"Kerri ni Dochartaigh's memoir 'Thin Places: A Natural History of Healing and Home,' chronicles a childhood of trauma in Northern Ireland with aching honesty and lyrical prose. As we watch violence...
View ArticleHow Newness Enters the World
"When time becomes history, different dynamics come into focus than the ones that are at any moment screaming for attention. The title of Gal Beckerman's book intrigues and compels: The Quiet Before....
View ArticleShokunin and Devotion
"The Japanese word shokunin is often translated as 'artisan' in English. Although it isn't incorrect by definition, the translation seems to lose the spirit of what a shokunin does," says Sachiko...
View ArticleI No Longer Sing With Only My Voice
"After I listened to a recording of Chelan Harkin's poem, called "I no longer pray," the words "I no longer sing with only my voice..." flashed into my head like a stroke of lightning. The qualities in...
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