United Nations: A Meditation for Peace
October 24th is United Nations Day, which commemorates the anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Charter in 1945. For 71 years, the United Nations has been working to maintain international...
View ArticleThe Winter Pilgrim
In October 2007, Ann Sieben, a native of Denver, Colorado and a nuclear engineer by profession, was waiting for a work permit in Spain that never came through. Instead of looking for other work, she...
View ArticleThe Sneaker Saint
As a child going through tough times, Rikki Mendias had holes in his shoes. A woman he met through a shelter noticed and gave him new ones. He remembers fondly the smell of them, fresh out of the box,...
View ArticleJames Doolin: A Relationship with Reality
James Doolin's paintings of Los Angeles reveal essences of the place on another scale. As he said, "Being a painter, just watching is so important. Just watching everything!" He was a searcher. "I...
View ArticleThree Things that Matter Most in Youth and Old Age
In an effort to to try and get a glimpse on what is important in life, writer and photographer Nancy Hill approached children under the age of 7 and adults over the age of 70 and asked them to share...
View ArticleWhy Anonymity is More Artistically Rewarding than Fame
"Obscurity rids the mind of the irk of envy and spite; [it] sets running in the veins the free waters of generosity and magnanimity; and allows giving and taking without thanks offered or praise...
View ArticleWelcome to My House
Welcome to My House, a collaboration between non-profit Voices of the Children and band Luc and the Lovingtons, features American teens and Syrian refugee youth singing a cross-cultural message of joy,...
View ArticleNavajo Justice
In January 2000, the Navajo Nation Council decided to revamp the Navajo Nation Criminal Code by, among other things, requiring the use of peacemaking in criminal cases. The Council formally...
View ArticleCafe Momentum: Serving Second Chances
At a Texas restaurant staffed by ex-offenders, young men ditch criminal backgrounds to roast, toast and saute high-end cuisine. That restaurant was created by Chef Chad Houser who realized that the...
View ArticleHow to Raise an Environmentalist
"From climate change to overfishing to deforestation, it seems that we are on the brink of a natural disaster on an epic scale. If we cannot do something to reverse these trends, we will surely make...
View ArticleWhat Science Taught Me About Gratitude, Compassion & Awe
Dacher Keltner, world renowned psychologist and researcher credited with expanding the field of science to include emotions, offers thought leadership that can shift our cultural narrative towards...
View ArticleBefore the Flood: Leonardo DiCaprio's Exploration of Our Planet'
"Before the Flood," captures a three-year personal journey alongside Academy Award-winning actor and U.N. Messenger of Peace Leonardo DiCaprio as he interviews individuals from every facet of society...
View ArticleHow to Find the Good in a Nasty Election Cycle
"Of course, you dont need me to tell you that this is a stressful election. According to a Harris poll conducted for the American Psychological Association, 52 percent of American adults say that the...
View ArticleThe Beauty of What We'll Never Know
Sometimes transformation can be facilitated not by knowledge, but the lack of knowledge. In this novel and intriguing TED talk, Pico Iyer discusses the flip side of knowledge on the self-discovery...
View ArticleWhat Do You Do When Someone Pushes You?
If someone provokes you, do you push back? Turn the other cheek? Change course? If so, how? You may find the answers in Aikido, a Japanese martial art whose name has been translated as "the way of...
View ArticleDesiderata: Go Placidly Amidst the Noise & Haste
When "Zen Pencils" cartoonist Gavin Than asked fans to vote for their favorite poem to be turned into a comic strip, they chose "Desiderata", the widely popular poem written by Max Ehrmann in 1927,...
View ArticleA Library Where Kids Learn to Tinker
"Supplied with iPads, power tools, a 3-D printer, hot-glue guns, paint and buckets of marbles, buttons and other knick-knacks, the preteen participants [of this community "Maker Space" in Philadelphia]...
View ArticleHow Sleep Resets the Brain's Emotional Compass
"As most of us know all too well, lack of sleep and a bad mood often go hand-in-hand. But a poor night's sleep doesn't just put a damper on your own emotions. New research from The University of...
View ArticleOnline 'University of Anywhere' for Refugees
"The University of the People, based in California, is a fast-growing, non-profit project designed to provide higher education for those with the academic ability to study, but without the ability to...
View ArticleCommunity, Conflict and Ways of Knowing
"I argue that the relation established between the knower and the known, between the student and the subject, tends to become the relation of the living person to world itself." In this beautifully...
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