Sangha of Auspicious Companions

July 11, 2023

a project of ServiceSpace

A Prickly Pear History Lesson

“Summer monsoons in the Southwestern Sonoran Desert produce a wild bounty of crimson fruit. Rising from Engelmann’s prickly pear cacti (Opuntia engelmannii), these fruits, or tuna in Spanish, perch atop Mickey Mouse-shaped pads like ruby crowns. Against muted browns and greens of the desert, the tuna are eye-popping. When I landed in Tucson for graduate school more than thirty years ago, I was amazed to learn the spine-covered fruits were edible. I sent store-bought prickly pear jelly back home to midwestern friends for the holidays, its dazzling pink hue a cheeky reminder of the deserts December sunshine. I knew, though, that with enough determination, I could put up my own preserves from foraged fruit just as my Kansas grandmother had canned foods from her garden. When I realized I wasn’t moving after a decade of desert living, I decided to see if harvesting prickly pear fruit could connect me to the native foodways of my adopted home.” More in this essay by Lisa K. Harris. { read more }

Be The Change

Reflect on a plant or tree that connects you to the place you grew up in. What does it signify to you?

DailyGood is a volunteer-run initiative that delivers “good news” to 156,282 subscribers. There are many ways to help. To unsubscribe, click here.

Other ServiceSpace projects include:

KindSpring // KarmaTube // Conversations // Awakin // More

Inspiring Links of the Week

July 10, 2023

a project of ServiceSpace

Giving Up on Your Dreams

“Perhaps being prudent in dreams also comes down to having a sound sense of self. By rejecting the expectations imposed by others, you can devote time and effort towards what truly works for you, such as growing stout and taking up track and field. Such is the case for the Somali ostrich, soundest and heaviest of all living birds. Not needing to train his pecs for flight means that every day becomes leg day, as the ostrich might disclose during one of his rare, non-ditzy moments, when he isnt strutting around showing off his dressy ruffled feathers and blue-hued gams or boasting his half-marathon times against any four-legged creature under the African sun. When pressed for secrets on his terrestrial lifestyle, he may choose to respond in his own peculiar way, by unsquiggling his seventeen-vertebrae rubberneck to stare through you with billiard ball-sized eyes before bouncing off like a shot! Sprinting past in a blur! Thus you will receive a living reminder that dreams are not mere ends to aspire towards, but acts to be enacted and embodied, and here one is, on full display by one with a heart thrice your size, and with such spring in each two-toed, tendon-taut step. Exercising the right dream to its fullest extent can encompass ones whole body, ones whole being, an entire life. And it can be complete. And it can be enough.” In an essay that is by quick turns playful, informative, philosophical, and wonder-full, Issac Yuen explores the teeming diversity of Earth’s non-human dreamers and their gloriously ungovernable dreams. { read more }

Be The Change

What kind of a dreamer are you? Daunted? Incorrigible? Modest? Obsessed? Embodied? Practical? Enigmatic– or–? How is your own nature reflected in the nature of your dreams?

DailyGood is a volunteer-run initiative that delivers “good news” to 156,301 subscribers. There are many ways to help. To unsubscribe, click here.

Other ServiceSpace projects include:

KindSpring // KarmaTube // Conversations // Awakin // More

July 9, 2023

a project of ServiceSpace

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

“In fact, human beings do not see very well. The brain itself makes assumptions about what it is seeing, and can actually can change perceptions to fit its assumptions. You may be familiar with the so-called constancies, perceptual constancy, form constancy, and concept constancy. This means that the brain, which is always looking for easy ways to do things, makes quick assumptions about perceptions based on its previous knowledge. And often these assumptions are wrong. Learning to draw can help to make one’s perceptions fit more closely with reality. First of all, drawing teaches accurate perception–how to see what is really out there. Second, perceptual skills learned through drawing can transfer usefully to other fields…” More in this fascinating interview with Betty Edwards, author of, the best-selling book, “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.” First published in 1979, it has inspired millions of people around the world to hone their perception, and discover their inner artist. { read more }

Be The Change

For more inspiration, check out this interview with Betty on, “Learning to Draw for Thinking’s Sake.” { more }

DailyGood is a volunteer-run initiative that delivers “good news” to 156,306 subscribers. There are many ways to help. To unsubscribe, click here.

Other ServiceSpace projects include:

KindSpring // KarmaTube // Conversations // Awakin // More

July 8, 2023

a project of ServiceSpace

Forests Need Its People to Survive

B. Siddan, known as the Birdman of Bokkapuram, has an expert knowledge of birds in his region of India. He enthusiastically shares his love of birds in this short video, proudly introducing them by name like the old friends that they have become after his many years of bird watching. One such bird friend, a spot-bellied eagle owl, looks down knowingly on him. In holistic conservation, which B. describes as the whole village and all who live in the forest working for its benefit, all species can grow and thrive. { read more }

Be The Change

What in your local environment evokes love and joy for you? Share that love with someone new today.

DailyGood is a volunteer-run initiative that delivers “good news” to 156,312 subscribers. There are many ways to help. To unsubscribe, click here.

Other ServiceSpace projects include:

KindSpring // KarmaTube // Conversations // Awakin // More

July 7, 2023

a project of ServiceSpace

Excavating Ancestral Wisdom

“Stephen Lewis, a social catalyst of community transformation and healing, was shaped by the classroom and medicine making activities that existed within his grandparents’ kitchen. Without a college education, Stephen’s grandparents held degrees in the practice of hospitality, leadership formation, and business. They were wise elders, farmers, food alchemists, educators, and community healers who imparted wisdom about life, the Sacred, and responsibility to family, friends, and neighbors who visited, ate, or graced their kitchen. Today, Stephen leads and instigates change and healing in faith communities, higher education, and social entrepreneurship.” { read more }

Be The Change

Join an Awakin Call this Saturday with Stephen Lewis. More details and RSVP info here. { more }

DailyGood is a volunteer-run initiative that delivers “good news” to 156,326 subscribers. There are many ways to help. To unsubscribe, click here.

Other ServiceSpace projects include:

KindSpring // KarmaTube // Conversations // Awakin // More

Forests Need Its People to Survive

DailyGood // Conversations // iJourney // HelpOthers

MovedByLove // CF Sites // Karma Kitchen // More

Thank you for helping us spread the good. This newsletter now reaches 43,949 subscribers.

July 6, 2023

a project of ServiceSpace

Instructions for Traveling West

“Somewhere in the middle of the pandemic, I started driving west. The instinct was as startling as it was insatiable. I lapped up skylines like honey after famine. Then came six weeks of climbing mountains, avoiding clients and swallowing as much sunshine as I could. One morning in the middle of Arizona, I sat down with my laptop. A desert hummingbirdits whole body, the shape of a shining comma, hovered out the kitchen window. I told myself to write, really write for myself. No clients. No strategic messaging. No keywords or SEO. Just the truth of my life trembling on the page. That morning, I wrote myself a poem called Instructions for Traveling West. I wrote it as imperative, as incantation.” Read Joy Sullivan’s powerful poem, and learn more about the story behind it here. { read more }

Be The Change

Take a few minutes today to ‘write, really write,” for yourself.

DailyGood is a volunteer-run initiative that delivers “good news” to 156,363 subscribers. There are many ways to help. To unsubscribe, click here.

Other ServiceSpace projects include:

KindSpring // KarmaTube // Conversations // Awakin // More

July 5, 2023

a project of ServiceSpace

Seasons of the Monastic Table

“‘Remember the earth whose skin you are,’ writes Joy Harjo, and there is literal truth to this. We are grown from the body of the Earth, we are made of it, and to it we return. Plants, bacteria, animals, fungi, humans: we all exist in relationship to each other and to a rotating and orbiting planet whose journey around the sun gives us waxing and waning light, seed sprouts and withering stems. Being attentive to these cycles and patterns can be a practice of remembrance.” From Emergence Magazine comes a cookbook inspired by monastic cuisine, that honors the seasons with twenty-eight recipes to celebrate spring, summer, autumn, and winter. { read more }

Be The Change

Take a moment to reflect on the connections that exist or don’t exist between your own daily life and the play of seasons. In what ways are your seasonal rhythms, activities and inputs linked to Nature’s cycles?

DailyGood is a volunteer-run initiative that delivers “good news” to 156,375 subscribers. There are many ways to help. To unsubscribe, click here.

Other ServiceSpace projects include:

KindSpring // KarmaTube // Conversations // Awakin // More

July 4, 2023

a project of ServiceSpace

The Cataclysm Sentence

“One day in 1961, the famous physicist Richard Feynman stepped in front of a Caltech lecture hall and posed this question to a group of undergraduate students: If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence was passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? Now, Feynman had an answer to his own question – a good one. But his question got the entire team at Radiolab wondering, what did his sentence leave out? So we posed Feynman’s cataclysm question to some of our favorite writers, artists, historians, futurists – all kinds of great thinkers. We asked them, What’s the one sentence you would want to pass on to the next generation that would contain the most information in the fewest words? What came back was an explosive collage of what it means to be alive right here and now, and what we want to say before we go.” Read or listen to this compelling episode from Radiolab here. { read more }

Be The Change

What is the one sentence you’d like to pass on to the next generation?

DailyGood is a volunteer-run initiative that delivers “good news” to 156,411 subscribers. There are many ways to help. To unsubscribe, click here.

Other ServiceSpace projects include:

KindSpring // KarmaTube // Conversations // Awakin // More