Complicating the Narratives
"Complicating the narrative means finding and including the details that don't fit the narrative -- on purpose. The idea is to revive complexity in a time of false simplicity. 'The problem with...
View ArticleLily Yeh: Fire in the Darkness of a Winter's Night
Lily Yeh was a successful painter and professor at Philadelphia's University of the Arts when she returned to Beijing in 1989 to display her artwork. While there, she witnessed the tragic events of...
View ArticleSecret to Life
This lyrical video introduces us to Antoinette, who immediately draws us into her welcoming world of nature and a life lived in sync with the rhythms of the natural world. Early in her life Antoinette...
View ArticleBetween Worlds
What is it like to be a living member of a dying community? Climate change is making this an increasingly common reality. Isle de Jean Charles, a slip of land off the coast of Louisiana is one such...
View ArticleFalling in Love With the Earth
"The natural world is one of the most resplendent and consistent sources of generosity in our lives whether we experience it directly moment-to-moment or not. When we allow ourselves to tune in and pay...
View ArticleThe Emotional Life of Animals
Any animal lover knows how intelligent our four-footed friends are, and how many emotions they share with us--especially the positive ones. And now scientific research tells us they have sensory and...
View ArticleWhy We Turn to Mr. Rogers
"Here's the thing: Mister Rogers almost never taught us that we should be kind. There wasn't much should at all in the Neighborhood. The shoulds that did subtly emerge were more like suggestions. "You...
View ArticleA Chorus of Thank Yous
"Thanksgiving is a formal holiday for giving thanks, for sharing community with family and friends, but its also the holiday that represents most vividly the paradox of feeling gratitude even as we...
View ArticleJohn Barton: A Certain Mathematics
As children, we naturally make art out of our lives. We paint with our fingers, color fantasies with crayons, build living room pillow forts, and dance and hum as we walk. Jim Barton, though, has...
View ArticleBreath of the World
Who among us does not depend on fresh air as the source of our life and well-being? As one Ecuadoran elder said, "It is from the Amazon that the breath of the world comes; without the amazon the world...
View ArticleSlow Media
Jennifer Rauch took a six-month break from the Internet, iPhone, email and ebooks. Instead of unplugging she says, "I was replugging into relationships, into nature and into my community." She argues...
View ArticleMark Tredinnick Heals with Poetry
Poet Mark Tredinnick is the recipient of multiple international poetry prizes, who experienced a period of depression or "spiritual catastrophe," when he lost his moorings. In this interview he...
View ArticleTime Out of Joint: Shakespeare in Prison
Rehabilitation through the Arts brought a screening of three films based on Shakespearean works to an upstate New York prison with powerful results. The timeless themes of Shakespeare's writings,...
View ArticleWhy We Need Darkness
Diane Knutson is a former National Park Ranger and the creator of the Lights Out Movement in Rapid City, South Dakota. Light pollution not only impacts our view of the universe, but our environment,...
View ArticleMilo Runkle: Expanding Our Sphere of Concern
After witnessing the brutal handling of a live piglet brought into school for dissection, Milo Runkle discovered that the current legal system offered no recourse for him to press charges on behalf of...
View ArticleSpirit Bathing for the Worried and Beleaguered
"As expressed in a thousand ways in the Brussats book "Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life", the Spirit resides not only in formal religious rituals and spiritual practices, but in...
View ArticleHow Place Can Connect Us to Gratitude
"Certain places can evoke a profound experience of gratitude for us. Have you ever noticed how your favorite bakery, or neighborhood park, or familiar church, or your own living room, can bring you...
View ArticleEarth as Goddess
Baba Mandaza Augustine Kademwa, from Zimbabwe, was born a Svikiro (in Shona, his native tongue), a carrier of many earth and water spirits, and a Mondhoro (Lion), one who is in constant prayer on...
View ArticleWhen I Wrote My Mom a Thank-You Letter
"In the waning days of 2015, I decided to mark a milestone birthday by simply saying "thank you." My plan was to write one letter each week of that year to someone who had helped, shaped, or inspired...
View ArticleThe Biggest Little Farm
"Many people have dreamed of leaving the city for the country, to live in a way that would reflect their concerns about the environment. John and Molly Chester, are a couple who did just that; they...
View Article