worry

On Tuesday President Barack Obama will announce his plan for the war in Afghanistan... and I am worried.

I am worried for those who serve in the US Military.

I am worried for the people of Afghanistan.

I am worried for the people of Pakistan.

I am worried about children.

I am worried about peace.

It's a lot to be worried about.

I know that worry is futile. It has no place in the present moment and serves no good.

So I have decided today to let go of worry. I release you.

I am going to do what I can do:

I can vote.

I can support Greg Mortenson and the Central Asia Institute.

I can support the Acumen Fund.

And most importantly...

I can be peace - every day.

I can bring peace to my world. I can live peace.

I can not push against.

I can make sure that I am not at war with anything or anyone.

I can vow to...

Bring peace today.

Be peace today.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanks for being here,

for making a difference,

and for doing work that matters.

Thanksgiving Prayer

A Thanksgiving Prayer

by Alexis C Jolly

(Rhythmically, it's modeled off the Christian "Lord's Prayer," primarily out of laziness, but please modify it to fit your own religious, spiritual, skeptical, or atheistic beliefs.)

Our Universe, which is everywhere:

Man, we are really, really small compared to you.

I hope we learn to stop killing each other and live in peace,

because that would be awesome.

We're so lucky to have this food, and each other,

even though we've all acted like real jerks before--to strangers and, even more inexplicably, to each other.

But I hope we learn to act less crappy

and instead learn to appreciate the gifts and the love that surround us, each and every day.

Dig in.

Believe

Believe...

in the goodness of others.

...that all things are possible.

...in the hope of a new day.

...the best is yet to come.

1st anniversary

For what it's worth...

Today is the one-year anniversary of this blog.

... and so I continue in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.

What's your contribution?

I AM CERTAIN THAT AFTER THE DUST OF CENTURIES HAS PASSED OVER OUR CITIES, WE, TOO, WILL BE REMEMBERED NOT FOR VICTORIES OR DEFEATS IN BATTLE OR IN POLITICS, BUT FOR OUR CONTRIBUTION TO THE HUMAN SPIRIT.

-John Fitzgerald Kennedy

thirty-six

the following is an excerpt from the book

Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life

"From our first years in the educational system, society has ways of discouraging the expansive, questing mode of attention that’s essential to creativity and personal rebirth. In one poignant indication of what happens when young children learn to switch off active focusing and just go through the motions, second-graders from different schools were given a problem to solve: “There are twenty-six sheep and ten goats on a ship. How old is the captain?” Nearly 90 percent of students from traditional classrooms answered “Thirty-six”. Not one pointed out that the problem didn’t make sense, compared to almost a third of the kids from less conventional, more mindful classrooms."

— Winifred Gallagher

Yesterday I gave this problem to my kids to solve...

Victoria laughed and laughed.

Harry said, "That's not even a real question."

Later that night Harry asked me if I had any more of those "funny questions". I told him, "No. It's just something I read in a book."

Then he said that he made up a question for me...

"If a man is 82 and a woman is 42 and their cat is the same age as the woman, how old is the cat?" he questioned me.

"42" I said.

"Wrong!" he said with glee. "Cat years are like dog years, each year is 7 years. So, the cat is 6." he explained, as a matter of fact, and then he went to bed.

I have to say, I do love their school.

:)

a happy holiday

"Eddie Murphy, Michael Jackson, Mos Def, Mayor Bloomberg, and Barack Obama would like to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving."

This is, hands-down, my No. 1 favorite Thanksgiving card!

check out more of Michael Pellews pop culture art

The impact of oil

Thinking for the future.

I would vote for it.

Intention Friday

My intent this weekend is to expand the flow of abundance through the energy of gratitude.

How can we expect more when we don't appreciate what we already have?

What's your intent this weekend?

Education, Education, Education

Interesting trailer for the new movie:

We Are The People We've Been Waiting For

compassion

The Charter for Compassion launches today. Become a part at charterforcompassion.org

Veterans Day

Sending my thoughts, prayers, and gratitude to all who serve and who have served.

Watch the President's remarks on this Veterans Day.

Samaritan Experiment

Downtown Boise, Idaho

Intention Friday

Set your intention for the weekend.

My intent is to transform myself in order to transform the world.

Am I living my values?

Be the change...

What is your intention?

the things that are the same

Listen to ... Connecting to a Global Tribe (This I Believe)

"I believe globalization is forcing our brains to evolve.

I’ve had the privilege to see a lot more of the world than anyone my age could reasonably hope to. A few years ago, on a backpacking trip, I made a video of myself dancing terribly in exotic locations. I put it on my web site. Some friends started passing it around, and soon millions of people had watched it. I was offered sponsorship to continue my accidental vocation, and since then I’ve made two more videos that include 70 countries on all seven continents. A lot of people wanted to dance along with me, so I started inviting them to join in everywhere I went, from Toronto to Tokyo to Timbuktu.

Here’s what I can report back: People want to feel connected to each other. They want to be heard and seen, and they’re curious to hear and see others from places far away. I share that impulse. It’s part of what drives me to travel. But it’s constantly at odds with another impulse, which is to reduce and contain my exposure to a world that’s way too big for me to comprehend.

My brain was designed to inhabit a fairly small social network of maybe a few dozen other primates—a tribe. Beyond that size, I start to get overwhelmed.

And yet here I am in a world of over six billion people, all of whom are now inextricably linked together. I don’t need to travel to influence lives on the other side of the globe. All I have to do is buy a cup of coffee or a tank of gas. My tribe has grown into a single, impossibly vast social network, whether I like it or not. The problem, I believe, isn’t that the world has changed, it’s that my primitive caveman brain hasn’t.

I am fantastic at seeing differences. Everybody is. I can quickly pick out those who look or behave differently, and unless I actively override the tendency, I will perceive them as a threat. That instinct may have once been useful for my tribe but when I travel, it’s a liability.

When I dance with people, I see them smile and laugh and act ridiculous. It makes those differences seem smaller. The world seems simpler, and my caveman brain finds that comforting.

I believe my children will have brains ever so slightly better suited to the vast complexity that surrounds us. They will be more curious, more eager to absorb and to connect.

And I believe when they look into eyes of strangers, what they will see before the differences are the things that are the same." - Matt Harding

Samaritan Experiment

Post Office, Downtown Boise Idaho

To Transform the World, Transform Yourself

Have you heard of Meatless Monday? I first heard the idea from Michael Pollan at PopTech. Meatless Monday is an international campaign that encourages people to cut meat out of their diet on Monday.

By removing meat once a week, the average American reduces their saturated fat intake by 15%, diminishing the risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and various cancers.

According to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization... the meat industry generates nearly one fifth of the man-made greenhouse gas emissions that lead to climate change. Curbing meat consumption in the U.S. one day a week would have the equivalent effect of taking 20 million mid-size cars off the road.

Current meat production methods cause nearly half of all stream and river pollution. Meat also requires a great deal of fresh water to produce. The production of a pound of beef takes approximately 2,500 gallons of water. By not eating meat on Monday, each individual could save about 1,100 gallons of water a week.

Eating Animals

I just finished reading the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.

Amazing

Disturbing

Enlightening

Listen to Jonathan Safran Foer on All Things Considered.

Read what Rabbi David Wolpe, Natalie Portman, CNN, NPR, The New Yorker, and GOOD Magazine have to say about this book.

november

november is...
dark evenings
cold mornings
soups, casseroles, sage and squash
hot tea
slower, quieter
pies
cozy sweaters
puffy jackets

crunchy leaves
cranberries, apples and pears