The Religious Value of the Unknown
In an age when the fate of the world is unknown, George Prochnik makes a case for uncertainty as a form of faith and hope. Restoring a sense of the unknown requires unlearning, calling into question...
View ArticleA Message About Messages
The complex meanings of a serious story or novel can be understood only by participation in the language of the story itself. To translate them into a message or reduce them to a sermon distorts,...
View Article9 Inspiring Stories of Solidarity with Refugees and Migrants
While governments seal borders and erect walls, ordinary people are offering support and shelter. These nine inspiring stories of solidarity will encourage, uplift and incite you to action. Migrant...
View ArticleWhere Climate, Architecture and Kindness Intersect
Many of us want to be "good ancestors"; to give our children and succeeding generations a better world, more opportunity, more abundance than what we enjoyed in our lives. But the course humanity is on...
View ArticleHow the Sound of a Space Influences Our Mood
"Step into the underground concourses of New York's Penn Station and you might just feel an uneasy sense of claustrophobia that's hard to explain. Stroll across the hardwood floors at the National...
View ArticleIan Chillag: Everything Is Alive
Ian Chillag is the host and creator of the original podcast 'Everything is Alive,' in which inanimate objects are interviewed. The inventive, funny and frequently poignant series is almost entirely...
View ArticleThe Understory: Life Beneath the Forest Floor
"The first time I heard anyone speak of the "wood wide web," more than a decade ago now, I was trying not to cry. A beloved friend was dying too young and too quickly. I had gone to see him for what I...
View ArticleIn Pursuit of Silence
In this thought-provoking piece, George Prochnick, author of "In Pursuit of Silence", calls on us to examine our relationship with the sounds, or their absence, around us. Drawing on the wisdom of...
View ArticleWhile I Yet Live
The quilters of rural Gee's Bend, Alabama, many of whom are descendants of slaves, learned to quilt from their mothers and grandmothers. They also learned, sitting under the quilting table as small...
View ArticleParenting Advice from Kahlil Gibran
Kahlil Gibran, writer, poet, and visual artist, offered parents sage advice on understanding the role of a parent who brings life into the world. In a world that too often overlooks the tenderness and...
View ArticleIn the Presence of Elephants and Whales
Katy Payne is a renowned acoustic biologist in the Bioacoustics Research Program of Cornell University's Laboratory of Ornithology. She listens to the 'songs' of two of the world's largest creatures...
View ArticleOn Being Alone
On a solo canoe trip down the Green River, paddling through the Canyonlands of southeast Utah, Craig Childs reflects on what it means to be alone in the wild. Encountering risk, isolation, and joy, and...
View ArticleSouth Korea's Solution for Food Waste
Since 1995, South Korea has managed to increase its food waste recycling levels from 2 percent to a remarkable 95 percent. Their secret? Requiring citizens to discard their food waste in biodegradable...
View ArticleOne Quantum Transformation for Mankind
Preeta Bansal offers a new "quantum" vision of scale, impact, and social change. In this engaging talk in the American heartland, she shares what might be called a homecoming speech of the truest kind...
View ArticleThe Atomic Tree
This moving video takes us on a journey into the memories of one of the world's most revered trees, a 400 year old Japanese white pine bonsai. The tree's rings hold stories from its inception as a tiny...
View ArticleOn the Language of the Deep Blue
Drop your "cognitive gatekeeper" and travel along with best selling author Charles Foster as he paints a lyrical picture of whale communication. Follow the riff around a drone, like Byzantine chanters...
View ArticleHidden Wonders of a Forest
When many of us think of India, we think of a land teeming with human life. However, the vast continent also is home to a multitude of plant and animal lives all working in harmony to sustain the...
View ArticleBeyond the Dark Night of the Soul
Paula Norris Mestayer, a practicing psychotherapist for 40 years and founder of Springfield Wellness Center, in Springfield, Louisiana, has specialized in the treatment of addiction and "other brain...
View ArticleBye Bye Plastic Bags
"Five years ago, two young women decided they were going to do something about the plastic problem on their island of Bali. And Bye Bye Plastic Bags was born. How young? So young one of them couldn't...
View Article13 Life Lessons From 13 Years of Brain Pickings
"On October 23, 2006,Brain Pickings was born as a plain-text email to seven friends. It was then, and continues to be, a labor of love and ledger of curiosity, although the mind and heart from which it...
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