Sangha of Auspicious Companions

April 27, 2021

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The Body’s Grace: A Paralyzed Yoga Teacher’s Insights

“Matthew Sanford says he’s never seen anyone live more deeply in their body — in all its grace and all its flaws — without becoming more compassionate toward all of life. He’s a renowned teacher of yoga. And he’s been paralyzed from the chest down since a car accident in 1978, when he was 13. He teaches yoga to the able-bodied. He also adapts yoga for people with ailments and disabilities, including military veterans. But Matthew Sanford has wisdom for us all on the strength and grace of our bodies, as we move through the ordinary span of our lives.” { read more }

Be The Change

Six years ago Ellen Pavitt was in a plane crash that left her paralyzed. In facing her new reality she felt a deep aspiration to grow spiritually and to be more loving. She now sees those two aspirations as one and the same. Join an intimate circle with Pat Benincasa in conversation with Ellen this Thursday: We Create Our Own Reality. { more }

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April 26, 2021

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Radical Joy For Hard Times

“Radical Joy for Hard Times is a worldwide community of people dedicated to bringing meaning, beauty, and value to places that have been damaged by human or natural acts. Through its online community and annual Global Earth Exchange event, Radical Joy uplifts and inspires values of relationship, community, ARTivism, and presence. Anyone can do the Radical Joy practice, which at its core invites us to share our sorrow or gratitude for places that have fallen on hard times. Founder Trebbe Johnson is the author of Radical Joy for Hard Times: Finding Meaning and Making Beauty in Earths Broken Places and 101 Ways to Make Guerrilla Beauty. Here she shares more about how Radical Joy invites us to spend time in wounded places: exposing our hearts to difficult feelings of loss and guilt; listening to the land and to one another; and opening ourselves to possibilities for finding and creating beauty.” { read more }

Be The Change

Participate in the 12th annual Global Earth Exchange in June and join others around the world in making beauty for a hurt place. { more }

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April 25, 2021

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They Sang with a Thousand Tongues

“Might I venture to say that our most compelling imperative today–if one is permitted to speak in those ways–is to reclaim the thickness of our tongues and learn the names and faces of our neighbours; it is to realize that our worldview is just a tittle in a never-ending sentence; it is to see that there are more ways to learn than school and polished degrees could ever accommodate and more ways to live than could be captured in a Facebook post. The imperative is to recognize that our theories of change have to change and that urgency is not always a function of increased effort and logical coherence. We must reacquaint ourselves with allies that cannot be seen, too subtle for the modern eye, and forgotten human capacities that are wondrous beyond compare, too outrageous for rational thought. We must recognize that our crises emerge from clinging too tightly to a single story, from drinking out of a single drying wellspring while others flow unattended. This recognition also implies that there are no convenient ‘others,’ no convenient enemies, and that we are the systems we oppose. It means admitting that we don’t know the answers, talk less of the questions — and that’s okay.” Bayo Akomolafe tells a story of western values in this thought-provoking piece. { read more }

Be The Change

Learn more about Akomolafe’s work and check out more of his writing here. { more }

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April 24, 2021

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Gardening as Resistance: Notes on Building Paradise

“The gardener digs in another time, without past or future, beginning or end…Here is the Amen beyond the prayer,” Derek Jarman wrote as he grieved his dying friends, faced his own death, and contemplated art, mortality, and resistance while planting a garden between an old lighthouse and a new nuclear plant on a barren shingled shore. Jarman is one of the artists whom Olivia Laing profiles and celebrates in Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency (public library) — her superb collection of meditations on art, activism, and our search for meaning, drawing on the lives of artists whose vision has changed the way we see the world, ourselves, and others.” Maria Popova shares more. { read more }

Be The Change

For more inspiration, read “Working with Soil, Attending to Soul.” { more }

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April 23, 2021

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Friend of the Water

“Above a clear, rocky stream, a tiny green tree frog perches on the belly of a leaf. Turning its minute snout toward the water, the frog lets out three chirps in the dark, struggling to make itself known. The act of naming is never a discovery, but a description of what always was there, a sound connected to a thought in time. The heart within the translucent chest of the tiny frog by the stream beats with blood dating back 300 million years, long before the first utterance of human language. And until recently, it survived, like 86 percent of terrestrial life, without a scientific name, unable to break through what taxonomists refer to as the Linnean shortfall.” Science writer Natalie Middleton shares more. { read more }

Be The Change

What is the meaning of your name, and the story behind it? Reflect on what, and who it connects you to.

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The Voice of a River

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April 22, 2021

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The Voice of the River

In 1973, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers prepared to open a new dam project, flooding miles of the Stanislaus River Canyon, a beautiful, pristine river valley flowing from the western Sierra Nevada mountains into California’s Central Valley. In 1979, Mark Dubois chained himself to a boulder behind the New Melones Dam and threw away the key. “If you guys are going to flood 9 million years of evolution, why not take one more creature with you,” he said. Mark’s action brought nationwide attention to the threats to our rivers and built a growing movement to protect them, helping to bring a halt to major dam building in the U.S. This is a story of a person who dared to fall in love with life’s miracle, this sacred Earth, and reminds us of what it means to ignite our own passion and step into our life’s purpose. { read more }

Be The Change

Mark Dubois’s philosophy of activism is that, first, one must fall in love. Discover his heartfelt approach to environmental protection in this interview in Works & Conversations. { more }

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April 21, 2021

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Melting Away: A Conversation with Camille Seaman

Camille Seaman’s journey to becoming a pre-eminent photographer and environmental activist is remarkable and inspiring in equal parts. “Why is my picture of an iceberg resonating with you in a way that someone else’s picture of an iceberg didn’t? I can only answer personally that I think my intention of looking at this thing as a living creature, as a being unto itself, an ancient being, and honoring that it has had a life that we will never comprehend. So, when I photograph it, that’s what I’m feeling and thinking about, and hopefully, if I do it right, you will feel some of that, too. I stepped foot onto the sea ice and started walking. It was really squeaky and dry and wasn’t what I expected. There were little twigs stuck in the ice every ten feet or so, which was the road. I thought, “Wow, there’s even a path.” Every ten minutes or so, a guy would come up on a snowmobile and ask, “Do you need help?” I’d be like, “I’m just going for a walk.” I walked for some time to point where there were no more twigs and no more traffic. It was just all white.” What happened in the next five hours was a turning point in Seamans life. { read more }

Be The Change

Check out this photo essay by Camille Seaman. { more }

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