The Soil's Story is the Story of Us
"Thousands of years of taking have caught up with us--and our soil. Approximately 40 percent of agricultural soils worldwide are degraded or seriously degraded; we lose an estimated 36 billion tons of...
View ArticleHuman Connections in 'This Brilliant Darkness'
"This Brilliant Darkness is a book born of insomnia. It's a collection of snapshots and written profiles by author Jeff Sharlet that take us deep into other people's lives. And by doing that, Sharlet...
View ArticleThe Church Forests of Ethiopia
Over the past century, nearly all of Ethiopia's native forests have been cleared for farming and grazing. Now it is up to the Orthodox Churches--who for centuries have safeguarded pockets of primary...
View ArticleSmall Joys are Essential to Resilience
"For Persians, one of our most precious ways to summon joy is with poetry. I remember one night, in particular, in my home city of Shiraz, Iran, during the war. While sirens blared and the electricity...
View ArticleTaiji Quan: The Wisdom of Water
"All natural things curl, swirl, twist, and flow in patterns like flowing water. Thus we sense something similar in clouds, smoke, streams, the wind-blown waves of sand on the beach, the pattern of...
View ArticleA Man Impossible to Classify
The young man walked up to us still smiling and, without a word, pointed again. I stared in puzzlement. At this he nodded his head and, to clarify matters, repeated the pointing. "What do you mean?" I...
View ArticleBLM: Four Lessons in White Allyship from South Africa
"As Black Lives Matter protests, triggered by the killing of George Floyd, spread across the world in response to systemic racism and police brutality, questions are being asked about how white people...
View ArticleSquare Peg Foundation: Putting Human Dignity First
"So the question comes up why horses? Here's the thing-- a horse never sees potential in any one. A horse sees you for exactly who you are and a horse offers you the dignity of that. The dignity to be...
View ArticleThe Phone Call
In 1992 Auburn Sandstrom was 29, the mother of a three-year-old son, caught in an abusive marriage and an addict. One night she hit rock bottom. She was writhing in pain on the floor of her filthy...
View ArticleExpanding the Spirit of Democracy
"How might we unlock hope in an expansive spirit of democracy for present and future generations in this time of upheaval? As the underside of American society is being revealed and the stark...
View ArticleThe Waters of Heterodoxy
"In The Fourth Phase of Water, Gerald Pollack [an award-winning and highly acclaimed professor) offers an elegant new theory of water chemistry that has profound implications not only for chemistry and...
View ArticleTeaching to Transgress: bell hooks on Education
"My hope emerges from those places of struggle where I witness individuals positively transforming their lives and the world around them. Educating is always a vocation rooted in hopefulness. As...
View ArticleBeyond Hope: Letting Go of a World in Collapse
"The rapid acceleration of violent events around the globe: the uprising of religious fundamentalism, xenophobia, homophobia, speciesism, misogyny, societal breakdown, mass animal die-offs, the...
View ArticleThe Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World
Wade Davis, anthropologist and passionate scholar of indigenous cultures that span the globe, shares the value of learning from these dynamic, living societies, as we face the challenges threatening...
View ArticleThe Beauty in Breaking
Michele Harper is a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is predominantly male and white. In her new book, "The Beauty in Breaking," she explores the themes of race,...
View ArticleLucky Man: Life Lessons from William Segal
"How can we find balance and peace in the midst of pain and turmoil? A legendary Zen Buddhist master once sent this startling note to a friend: "Lucky man," wrote Soen Nakagawa Roshi, the abbot of...
View ArticleBeyond Words: A Conversation with Carl Safina
"Safina's journey in ecology and conservation took him through his PhD and then back to the obvious. I learned this is called anthropomorphizing and you're not supposed to do that. The orthodox view is...
View ArticleA Pandemic Letter to My 17-Year-Old Son
"Starting when you were just a toddler, you'd crawl into my lap to play a game. I'd lay hands on each part of your body, naming it aloud. Wed begin with the grass of hair on your head and slowly work...
View ArticleRevisiting Fred Rogers 2002 Commencement Address
"I'm very much interested in choices, and what it is, and who it is, that enable us human beings to make the choices we make all through our lives. What choices lead to ethnic cleansing? What choices...
View ArticleDial Up the Magic of This Moment
"Few people have stood at the gates of hope through world wars and environmental crises and personal loss with more dignity, wisdom, and optimism than Joanna Macy during her six decades as a Buddhist...
View Article