How Music Bonds Us Together
Most everyone would agree that they enjoy listening to music, whether it be live music, the car radio, or maybe from your smartphone with the headphones on. But now researchers are discovering that...
View ArticleThe Disease of Being Busy
How did we get so busy that we no longer have time for each other? What happened to a world in which we can sit with the people we love so much and have slow conversations about the state of our heart...
View ArticleWendell Berry: What Are People For?
In these poems Wendell Berry â poet, novelist and environmental activist â writes about what it means to be human, the human experience of solitude, of community, of love and work, of desire and despair.
View ArticleThree Steps to Living a Life of Gratefulness
"In any process, we can distinguish a beginning, a middle, and an end. We may use this basic three-step grid for the practice of gratitude: What happens at the start, in the middle, and at the end,...
View ArticleA Tribute to Pakistan's Angel of Mercy
Amidst the violence and chaos of Karachi, there is a ray of hope: Pakistani philanthropist, humanitarian and a man of grit and strength, Abdul Sattar Edhi. Born in 1928 in Bantawa, Gujarat, India, he...
View ArticleFormer Dress Shop Owner Feeds Thousands Through Gardening
What started out as a simple gardening project for a grad student has now grown into a multitude of flourishing gardens, and a community coming together. This is the story of how the Randolph Street...
View ArticleLetting Love Come In: Lessons from a Nursing Home
"Two and a half years ago my grandmother was placed in a nursing home where she will live out the rest of her life. She has dementia and so her memory capacity has been marred. Somehow though she...
View ArticleWhy We Need to Cultivate Awe in the Workplace
"There's a profound feeling that shifts us outside the box of the routine and familiar and opens us to something much larger than ourselves writes Homaira Kabir. We've all felt it -- the goose bumps on...
View ArticleJames George: If Not Now, When?
"International diplomat, author and visionary environmentalist James George is now 98. I met and interviewed him as he was about to get married at the age of 86. Having just received a copy of his most...
View ArticleWhy is the World So Beautiful?
Nobel physicist Frank Wilczek considers whether the deepest realities of the world embody beautiful ideas. He notes, "[[t]here's a very rich history of art objects and music and what people have found...
View ArticlePaying Attention, Discovering Joy
When asked whether the poems she wrote helped connect her to the joy they expressed, poet Barbara Crooker had this to say, "I write from personal experience. If you look at the facts of my life, you...
View ArticleWhen Resting is Resistance
Activists are impatient for the world we want to see. But though we seek to build a world beyond capitalism, we still fall into its traps, like the need for ceaseless productivity. We transpose...
View ArticleGiving To People Who Give
YouTube prankster Big Daws has over 1.7 million subscribers to his channel, BigDawsTV, but in this video, he addresses the issue of homelessness. Watch this social experiment in which Big Daws pretends...
View ArticleStreet Poets: The Community Cure for a Violent Culture
For twenty years, Chris Henrikson has been using the power of poetry to reach and transform at-risk youths and students in classrooms and on the streets. What started as a writing workshop in a...
View ArticleA Tale of Two Americas and the Mini-Mart Where They Collided
Ten days after 9/11, a shocking attack at a Texas mini-mart shattered the lives of two men: the victim and the attacker. In this stunning talk, Anand Giridharadas, author of "The True American," tells...
View ArticleHow Smartphones Are Killing Conversation
Today's cell phones threaten to hinder humanity rather than help unless we take control of our behavior and put people first. In her new book, "Reclaiming Conversation," MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle,...
View ArticleJane Hirshfield:Living by Questions
"In times of darkness and direness, a good question can become a safety rope between you and your own sense of selfhood: A person who asks a question is not wholly undone by events. She is there to...
View ArticleTogetherness: A Wedding Blessing
Exactly a year and a day ago today, doctor-poet Sriram Shamasunder was asked to share a poem to celebrate the wedding of two friends, who in joining their lives together, were also making a commitment...
View ArticleThe Benefits of Learning to Be Kind to Yourself
"Human beings are the only creatures who can make themselves miserable. Other animals certainly suffer when they experience negative events, but only humans can induce negative emotions through...
View ArticleThe Big Idea Behind Integrative Medicine
"The emerging field of integrative care is as much an idea as a set of practices. The idea is of an ecosystem of support, an intersecting set of relationships that address the whole human package --...
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