Acclaimed singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette shares insights from her journey of psychological and spiritual exploration through the lens of her iconic song lyrics. Here she delves into themes of community, vulnerability, parenting, and living a life of service and curious inquiry. Morissette offers a powerful invitation to embrace our interconnectivity and…

Willis Barnstone is a poet, translator, biblical scholar, memoirist, anthologist, teacher, and painter. If we are to grasp his greatest contribution to culture over the course of his professional life, we can focus on his role first and foremost as a poet – a lover of words, both his own…

Jane Hirshfield believes that poetry can play a transformative role in our lives. “What poems are doing is counterbalancing the mainstream tenor of our culture, which is to do, to be active, to be energetic and to prove one’s self… and one of the messages underlying all poems that move…

How can we keep that sparkle and lively energy that we enjoyed as a child? Gelb suggests it can be done by raising our qi or vital energy. He has some simple practices that can immediately turn our low energy into exuberance. He says, “Some people had that energy when they…

Jones gives practical advice as to how we can engage in deep inner work through focused journaling. She shares exercises that can act as powerful tools in reframing the pieces of our past and our life stories, so that suffering becomes meaningful and can boost our healing, empowerment, growth, and…

Church attendance continues to decline as many of us abandon the religious institutions of our youth. However, in today’s culture the search for the sacred has never been more active. Thomas Moore suggests that nature, art, and accessing the wealth of traditional spiritual wisdom can be of enormous help in…

Shaw is our guide in examining our broken relationship with the world. He shares this advice about deep listening. “If myth is the way that the earth thinks, I needed to listen deeply to forests and to rivers and mountains and to gullies and to open more land, to see the…

In this time of global uncertainty good poems can soften the heart and help us face another day with curiosity, wonder and hope. A good poem gives us another lens with which to view the world and helps bring what is often unseen into view. It can be the observation…

Kaliko says when you learn a new language it changes you into a different person. He says of learning the Marquesan language: “It has its own personality. When I’m over there I’m like a different person. I might look the same on the outside but I feel that I express myself…

Jane Hirshfield points out that many people turn to poetry in times of great life transitions. She says, “You know when people fall in love, or when they lose love, or lose someone they loved, that is when they want a poem. When they get married, they want a poem. These great…