Life is the Network Not the Self
What if the fundamental unit of biology is not the self, but the network? What if plants, and really, all species, are made of interacting relationships and networked connections that are intertwined?...
View ArticleThe Axis & the Sycamore
Sitting in his newly built tree-house, Paul Kingsnorth muses about the situation the world is in. German philosopher Karl Jaspers coined a term, the Axial Age, referring to an historical period when...
View ArticleThe Promise & Paradox of Community
We human beings have a great need for one another, "an instinct of community." However, today this instinct to be together seems to be fragmenting as we experience increasing ethnic wars, militia...
View ArticleThe CEO Who Gave 90% of His Salary to His Staff
In April 2015, Dan Price, CEO of a Seattle-based tech company Gravity Payments, did something with barely any precedents in the modern business world. He gave away 90 per cent of his own pay to raise...
View ArticleOur Greatest Obstacle to Happiness and How to Transcend It
Maria Popova of Brain Pickings points out that "perhaps the greatest paradox of human life is that although happiness is the most universal of our longings, it is unobtainable by striving. The more...
View ArticleShe Gave Street Children Her Cell Phone Number and That Changed
Jeroo Billimoria isn't one to see a person in need and hope that someone else will take action. She is a social entrepreneur who responds by getting involved in big and small ways. She became a social...
View ArticleWhy Defending Human Rights Is Womenâs Work
Whether it is Black Lives Matter activists working to encourage and support school-age black girls so that they can thrive, formerly incarcerated black trans women fighting police brutality, Muslim...
View ArticleMy Year Reading a Book from Every Country in the World
Several years ago, Ann Morgan, a writer from London, looked at her bookshelf and realized it held almost no books from other countries -- an oversight she called a "massive cultural blindspot." In a...
View ArticleDay Jobs for Panhandlers
With just under 400,000 residents, Tulsa, Oklahoma, has a significant homeless population. In 2016, between 6,000 and 7,000 residents lived on the streets. That number, while small in comparison to...
View ArticleBringing Fresh Produce to the Underserved
Building Roots is a Canadian charity that "believes all neighbourhoods need places to grow, cook, share and buy healthy food." In the summer of 2016, Lisa Kates and Darcy Higgins of Building Roots...
View ArticleGive That Which is Organic To You: A Recipe to Avoid Burnout
"When I give something I do not possess, I give a false and dangerous gift, a gift that looks like love but is, in reality, loveless - a gift given more from my need to prove myself than from the...
View ArticleA Feast of Flowers
What do you feel when you gaze at a flower? Or better yet - a field of wondrous, lush, vibrant flowers? Our senses become engulfed in beauty, and as writer Lucia Ferrara Bettler explains in her article...
View ArticleAn Act of Dog
Artist Mark Barone believes he is a better man for having painted 5,500 portraits of healthy dogs that have been killed in shelters every year. Through photos shelter volunteers sent him, he produced...
View ArticleDavid Whyte on Courage
We all have an idea of what courage looks like from the outside, but what about the inside? Is it angry? Energetic? Excited? Or something else? In this essay, poet David Whyte looks deep within to find...
View ArticleThe Privilege of Sharing Abundance
In these trying times, it can be hard to think we have an abundance of anything. But there is at least one thing that is always in good supply and will never run out -- and that is kindness. Add to...
View ArticleResilience After Unimaginable Loss
Sheryl Sandberg is synonymous with Facebook and Silicon Valley success, and she's the voice of Lean In. She joins On Being, host Krista Tippet, frank and vulnerable, together with the psychologist Adam...
View ArticleHack the Hood Connects Bay Area Youth With Tech Opportunities
Growing up in East Oakland, California, Zakiya Harris straddled two different worlds: one predominantly black and the other affluent. Now, she's connecting those worlds through Hack the Hood, a...
View ArticleToo Much. Too Fast. Time To Slow Down.
"Journalist Elizabeth Kolbert and Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard each had big books in 2015. Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History winner of the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction takes an...
View ArticleHow to Age Gracefully
What would you say to your seven-year-old self? Play more? Don't yell so loud? How about 'stay weird'... as one nine year old puts it. As we move through our lives, our many experiences, mistakes and...
View ArticleA Sacred Steward of Honey Bees
Debra Roberts is a sacred steward of honey bees. She is one of an increasing number of women who care for bees without chemicals or toxic substances and with thankfulness, nurturing, and respect....
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