Project Uplift
Two Wings of a Bird
Photograph - One Yellow Crowned Night Heron chick flaps, jumping playfully into the nest. As it goes, that flap practice eventually transforms into an uplifted soar and larger view of the world.
We can say that wisdom + compassion are two wings of a bird. Wisdom is recognizing the interconnectedness of everything and compassion is a tender response to that recognition. Realizing that we're connected has the potential to enlarge our perspective to see others as if they are our sisters and brothers. Seeing this connection motivates possibility and engagement in projects, creativity, innovation, and organized effort to honor and enlarge kinship. This page celebrates these possibilities.
LOOK AT LIFE FROM BOTH SIDES "Something's lost but something's gained in living everyday." Re-listen to Joni Mitchell's song, Both Sides Now, as she sings at the Newport Folk Festival. Even those few who may not have heard the song before (in its 1500+ versions) will dab their eyes as Mitchell, 78, transforms the tune written in her youth into a time capsule of a life HERE.
SWIM Go beneath the waves of anxiety/and swim in the stillness of your inner peace/And experience all of life with stillness in motion (Chamtrul Rinpoche).
Close your eyes and float on your back with your ears under the water. Softly listen to the ambient sounds. Then open your eyes and with that same softness. Look at the clouds overhead and recognize that clouds are like thoughts and emotions, ever-changing and passing by. Listen to Phil France's score, The Swimmer, and imagine yourself swimming. HERE.
FALL IN LOVE WITH THE WORLD A story of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche's wandering retreat and near-death experience. George Saunders, the author of Lincoln in the Bardos, says that this is "one of the most generous, beautiful, and essential books I have ever read...This book has the potential to change your life forever." Pema Chodron agrees—"One of the most inspiring books I have ever read." HERE Image, a photograph of sunlight on my copy of Rinpoche's book.
INTERVIEW SOMEONE A way to listen to someone is to interview them using StoryCorps' good questions. "Joshua Littman, a 12-year-old boy with Asperger's syndrome, interviews his mother, Sarah. Joshua's unique questions and Sarah's loving, unguarded answers reveal a beautiful relationship that reminds us of the best—and the most challenging—parts of being a parent." Joshua and his mom's interview was made into a 4-minute film HERE.
TRUST CREATIVITY When we trust our creativity we encounter a supreme kind of enjoyment - an amazement at the natural unfolding of life beyond our ordinary way of looking at things (Kongtrul Jigme Namgyel). KJN's artworks are HERE.
READ POETRY A good resource is the Poetry Foundation. There are so many poets and poems. Mary Oliver's page is HERE. Image, I took a photograph of a favorite page in my copy of Oliver's book, Blue Horses.
RESILIENCE of the Barnacle Gosling. "In their first few days of life, tiny barnacle goslings are faced with one of the most extreme survival challenges in the natural world (BBC - Earth)." BBC filmmakers and producer Tom Hugh-Jones captured the 400-foot jump of the chicks in a 2-minute video. Utter awe. HERE.
BE INSPIRED a video conversation between Mate and Porges about trauma and the nervous system. "We wear our hearts on our faces." Image: screen grab from the book highlighted in the video.
REGULATE your nervous system. Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) using the Unyte app is an important tool in my body-regulation toolbox. It's "a practical application of Polyvagal Theory, which helps retune the nervous system to be more regulated and resilient to life's challenges." Image: screen grab from Unyte website.
INVESTIGATE a polyvagal perspective. This 9-minute video is based on Stephen W. Porges' research on polyvagal theory. It is a brief, clear introduction to a polyvagal view of how trauma and chronic stress affect our nervous system. Image: screen grab from Polyvagal Institute website.
START A PROJECT for positive change. Maggie Doyne has dedicated the last thirteen years of her life to educating children and empowering women. She created the BlinkNow Foundation to sustain, grow, and support Kopila Valley Children’s Home and School in Nepal and to share her ideas with young people. Named a CNN Hero of the Year and honored by the Dalai Lama as an Unsung Hero of Compassion, Maggie hopes others will start projects of their own that will generate positive change. Image: screen grab from her website.
REMEMBER OUR SHARED HUMANITY when reflecting on war. Yo-Yo Ma is inspired by, "Song of the Birds." Ma said the piece highlights the special qualities of birds: "They literally can have altitude and perspective on our world and have the freedom to cross all our boundaries and borders. There is something just wondrous about that. And we’re part of the same world. Can we learn from that ...?” Read the New York Times 3/2/23 interview with Ma HERE. Listen HERE. Image credit: a screen grab posted by Thanyaphong Na nakorn on YouTube.
TAKE ACTION WITH YOUTH Action for the Climate (ACE) is amplifying the voices and values of youth to meet climate change goals through networking, education, action, and influence. Learn more about this love of the planet movement by youth HERE. Image credit: a screen grab from the ACE website.
CAN OUR DEEPEST PAIN BE A SOURCE FOR HEALING? Yes. "Trauma is not what happens to you. Trauma is what happens inside you, as a result of what happens to you.” Dr. Gabor Maté gives us a new vision: a trauma-informed society in which parents, teachers, physicians, policy-makers and legal personnel are not concerned with fixing behaviors, making diagnoses, suppressing symptoms and judging, but seek instead to understand the sources from which troubling behaviors and diseases spring in the wounded human soul. Image credit. Watch the movie HERE.
BRINGING 'US' AND 'THEM' TOGETHER is a 6-minute video based on an op-ed and commencement speech (2017) written by Gregory J. Boyle (reprinted in the Sun Sentinel). Boyle is a Jesuit priest and the executive director and founder of Homeboy Industries in L.A., the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world. I've watched this video by GoalCast often, never without tears. Boyle and the Homies are heroes. Image credit: Homie Mario, a screen grab from video. HERE .
LOVE AND STEPPING INTO ANOTHER'S SHOES The Day I Became A Bird is an illustrated story about relationships and feelings. It's a story of a little boy who transforms himself into a bird to capture the attention of a young girl who loves birds. Ingrid Chabbert is the author and Raúl Nieto Guridi is the illustrator. Image, a photograph of a page in my copy of their book. © The author and illustrator.
CONVERSATION CONNECTION OnBeing's Better Conversations Guide intends to help ground and animate a gathering of friends or strangers in a conversation that might take place over weeks or months. Created by OnBeing staff experience from 15 years of listening to each other is timely help for all. A PDF of the Guide is HERE.
HOME See that white speck? That's here. That's home. That's us. Earth. Carl Sagan reads his poem about the photograph, The Pale Dot. "...On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who has lived out their lives. This aggregate of joy and suffering...a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena..." HERE. Image credit: NASA.
HAPPY is a song and gift from Pharrell Williams. It shows, again and again, the free-flowing-no agenda enthusiasm inside of all of us. If you're like me you might spontaneously begin to dance on the first note. "Clap along if you feel like happiness is a truth..." HERE. 24 HOURS OF HAPPY, HERE. Image, a screen grab from the video.
PRACTICE LISTENING USING BIRDS FOR SUPPORT A drawing of a selection of birds from a page on the Minnesota Natural Resources website. Click on a bird and hear its song. Then take a walk and listen to the birds announcing spring (or any moment). HERE. Image copyright: a screen grab from illustrator Bill Reynolds' beautiful drawing that helps us associate what we hear with the bird's call. All sounds are courtesy of The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds.
EXPLORE THE SACRED Marchele and Tim McCarthy invited the religious leaders in their town to their home for a discussion. They initiated the meeting because they were "concerned about the divisiveness in the world and our communities." What began as an experiment to see if people with different points of view could come together to overcome divisiveness continues. Now, 14 years later, these leaders have deep and meaningful friendships and continue to meet monthly. They call their project, "Exploring the Sacred." HERE. Image copyright: Marchele and Tim, from their website.
REVISIT HISTORY through stories, and start with this one. "Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson epic work of narrative nonfiction, The Warmth of Other Suns. She’s immersed herself in the stories of the Great Migration, the movement of six million African Americans to northern U.S. cities in the 20th century. The book is a carrier of histories and truths that help make sense of human and social challenges at the heart of our life together now." Listen to Krista Tippett's interview of her HERE. Find her book HERE.
HEAD TO A PLAYGROUND and hang from a high bar. Hanging from a bar is a way to develop connection with your body. Kai Simon is a personal trainer who encourages and teaches this childhood activity. Strengthening and fun. Her 4-minute video is HERE. Image copyright: Kai Simon, a screen grab from her video.
USE YOUR STORY Setsuka Thurlow was at school when her building collapsed from the blast of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. She saw her school friends horribly burned, and some killed. She said during the Nobel Peace Prize lecture to ICAN, "To every president and prime minister of every nation of the world, I beseech you: Join this treaty; forever eradicate the threat of nuclear annihilation. When I was a 13-year old girl, trapped in the smoldering rubble I kept pushing. I kept moving toward the light. And I survived. Our light now is the ban treaty." Let Thurlow's tireless courage open your mind and heart. Read about the nuclear arms ban treaty HERE.
STAND IN SOMEONE ELSE'S SHOES a beautiful 4 minute video that brings an empathetic understanding. HERE. Image credit: screengrab from the video.
OPEN QUESTION with Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel is a podcast. "If you have a genuine question you should explore it, continue to ask it, and then pay attention" to see what you can learn. Find her podcast of fascinating conversations HERE. Image credit: screengrab from her website.
DREAM Explore how your mind creates reality through the study of meditation, lucid dreaming, and the bardos. Andrew Holecek has been working with sleep and dreams for over 40 years. Join his Nightly Club and learn more HERE. Image copyright: Andrew Holecek, FaceBook page logo.
SEE THE PHOTO ARK Joel Sartore is the founder of The Photo Ark, a groundbreaking effort to photograph species before they disappear and to get people to care while there is still time. His photographs are astounding. Look HERE to see them and buy his books which support his effort. (His philosophy inspires my purpose of photographing wildlife and sharing photographs with neighbors. I recommend trying this.) Image: a screen grab detail from his website, copyright Joel Sartore.
JUST LIKE YOU is the title of a song by NF, a songwriter, rapper, singer. His song reminds us that we all want to be happy and free of feeling not okay. The lyrics begin: "Just in case my car goes off the highway/Or the plane that I get on decides that it's my last day/I want you to know when you're alone and you feel afraid/You're not the only person in the world that isn't okay/There's millions of us just like you, like you, like you... Listen HERE. Image copyright, a screen grab of NF from his video.
BEAUTIFUL NEWS highlights the amazing things happening in our world--unseen trends, uplifting stats, creative solutions. A few beauties - 50 countries have reduced their overuse of fertilizers, 476 million more East and South Asians have access to basic drinking water, China is winning its war on air pollution, citizens of Mumbai conducted the largest beach clean-up in human history - for the first time in 20 years, sea turtles were born on the beach. HERE.
PLAY WITH YOUR PERSPECTIVE Be inspired by the movie, Infinite Potential: The Life and Ideas of David Bohm, an hour-long film. David Bohm is a physicist, philosopher, and explorer of consciousness. Einstein called Bohm his spiritual son, the Dalai Lama called him his science guru. "Ordinarily when we look to the sky and look to the stars we think of stars as objects far out and vast spaces between them. There's another way we can look at it. We can look at the vacuum, the emptiness as a plenum, as infinitely full rather than infinitely empty and that the material objects themselves are like little bubbles, little vacancies in this vast sea." - David Bohm (remembered and told by Dr. David C. Schrum, a quantum theorist, when Bohm and he were on a nighttime walk). The movie HERE. Image: screengrab of Bohm from the movie.
TALK TO EACH OTHER Listen to Christian ethicist David Gushee and reproductive rights activist Frances Kissling in conversation, "Pro-Life, Pro-Choice, Pro-Dialogue." (From Onbeing, Civil Conversations Project.) Perhaps like me, you'll feel encouraged by the possibility of engaging in difficult conversations and thoughtful communication HERE. Image credit: screengrab of their individual portraits from the Onbeing website.
WORK ON FRIENDSHIP WITH YOUR BODY Find a yoga class or join me in practicing with a favorite teacher, Becky Klett. Her studio is in Denton, TX and her ongoing Zoom classes are for beginners and seasoned practitioners. Find this opportunity HERE.
ASK, "WHAT HAPPENED?" Bruce Perry, M.D., Ph.D., founder of the ChildTrauma Academy and author of The Boy Who Was Raised by a Dog, tells us how to begin when helping a troubled child. Rather than, "What's wrong with that child or person?" or "Why is that person behaving like that?" ask, "What happened to that person?" CBS 60 Minutes interview transcript excerpt HERE. A 17-minute video about the relational gift of our brains. Image credit: a screengrab from the 60 Minutes interview.
JOIN OR HOST A (GRIEF) DINNER PARTY Two friends, Carla Fernandez and Lennon Flowers, created an opportunity to help 20 and 30 year-olds who’ve experienced a major loss. "There's something so simple about putting a meal in the center of a conversation about healing..." Learn more about this beautiful way to work with grief. A video is HERE. The website is HERE. Image credit: a screengrab from their website.
INFLUENCE CARE FOR CHILDREN Fred Rogers appeared before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Communications to encourage funding PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by telling senators how his program, "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," was beneficial to children. HERE.
THE BIGGEST LITTLE FARM Molly and John Chester, a chef and cinematographer, made a promise to each other on their wedding day: leave the city and establish a farm on 200 acres of barren land north of Los Angeles. Not just any farm. Their dream was to establish a harmonic ecosystem. This movie is about what they did and learned HERE.
ABOUT THE CRACKS IN OUR HEARTS Leonard Cohen's song, Anthem, encourages personal bravery to face and learn from the difficult experiences of our lives. HERE.
EXPLORE REALITY AND THE MIND John Forbes Nash, Jr., a Princeton professor and brilliant Nobel laureate, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia mid-career. (He was the only person to win both the Nobel and Abel Prizes.) His mental struggles with his work and life became the basis of A Beautiful Mind, an intriguing movie and book that invites questions about perception, illusion, and delusion. The movie is HERE. The book, HERE. Image, a screengrab from the movie trailer, Russell Crow as Nash.
PRACTICE LIVING GRATEFULLY A Network for Grateful Living is a website and global organization offering online services for offline living. Engage in a meaningful ritual, reflect on the gifts of your life, express your care and gratitude, write a personal journal entry. Gorgeous community and inspiration. LISTEN to co-founder Brother David Steindl-Rast's welcome.
QUOTES FROM BELOVED BOOKS at Maria Popova's evocative Literary Jukebox. (I love visiting the Jutebox!) Maria thematically matches a quote with music. An example, "Human beings must always be on the watch for the coming of wonders." E.B. White (Charlotte's Web) matched with "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong. HERE.
SUPPORT SOMEONE Jessica Melore knows adversity intimately. She is a heart attack survivor, heart transplant recipient, leg amputee, and 3x cancer survivor. She's a writer and speaker who shares her story to give others hope no matter what they’ve been through in life. Right now, Jessica awaits a new heart and two kidneys. Leave a message for her on Facebook, HERE. (Jessica passed peacefully on September 25, 2019. A tribute video is here.)
YOUR CLOSEST PALS are making helpful contributions to others in ways you might not be aware. (Just ask.) Like a friend who cares and takes action in dozens of ways (she's so amazing). Right now she's sewing (sanitary pads) for Days for Girls (and delivering them). A video about why this gift is helpful (girls don't miss school because of their period) and the important work of this organization is HERE.
BEGIN WITH AWE Neil Pasricha began a blog when he hit some bumps in life. He decided to every day find something awesome in his life and note it on a blog that looked sort of like a list. His goal was 1000 awesome things. And he won a Webby for it. Awesome! His TEDtalk VIDEO. His WEBSITE. Image credit: a photo from his website.
BEAUTIFUL DAY Bono and U2 perform their song. "The heart is a bloom...it's a beautiful day, don't let it get away..." HERE. Image, a screen grab from the video.
READ THESE ILLUSTRATED LETTERS Imagine someone so in love with reading that she asks 121 of "the most inspired humans in the world" to write to young readers about why we read. This someone with incredible friends is renown blogger and author, Maria Popova. She spent 8 years making A Velocity of Being. HERE. Image credit, art by Ofra Amit for a letter by Mara Faye Lethem, from Popova's book, A Velocity of Being.
FREE YOUR MIND Spend time with Richard Davidson. Watch his videos, read his research, or watch a new film about the brain on Netflix. Davidson says, "We can shape our brains in ways which are more beneficial, increase happiness and well-being, and also promote pro-social behavior.” Read an interview, "A Neuroscientist on Love and Learning," HERE. A movie trailer is HERE. Image, a screengrab from the movie trailer.
PAUSE AND THEN KEEP GOING Bob Dylan won the 2016 Nobel Prize honor for literature and was unable to attend the ceremony. He sent an acceptance speech and asked Patti Smith to sing. Smith chose Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, a song that asks hard questions. When Smith sang it, she says she was overwhelmed and nervous by the magnitude of the experience. Watch how she responds to her nerves HERE.
BIRDWATCH Need some help to get started? It's as easy as heading outside and looking up. I bring a camera to take and share photos of the birds I see. Later I describe what I notice, think about, and learn HERE. Another uplifting idea, watch All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology webcams. Amazing.
"YOU ARE ENOUGH" In this video clip, Gregory Boyle's beautiful message to the homies is that we are enough just as we are. (Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Industries.) The 5-minute VIDEO.
WALK WITH ME is a contemplative film about a Buddhist community whose search for happiness takes them on the road with world-renowned peace activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Thich Nhat Hanh. HERE.
PONDER THIS DAY "You think this is just another day in your life. It's not just another day. It's the one day that is given to you—today." Brother David Steindl-Rast recorded this remarkable 5-minute video titled, A Good Day HERE.
WRITE THINGS DOWN "Very rarely do you hear anyone say they write things down and feel worse. It’s an act that helps you, preserves you, energizes you in the very doing of it." - Poet, Naomi Shihab Nye, from an OnBeing interview that will inspire you to let words flow like gold from your fingertips. HERE. Image, a page from Susan's journal a few weeks after her son passed unexpectedly.
LISTEN TO TALKS and explore the meaning of life through another's view. David Foster Wallace speaks to Kenyon College Class of 2005. Diane Didonato speaks to Julliard School Class of 2014. Carrie Mae Weems speaks to the School of Visual Arts, NYC Class of 2016.
HEALING WOUNDS Andrea Northwood, Ph.D., LP looks directly at profound, dehumanizing behaviors and systems. She is the Director of Client Services at the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT), one of a team, that works in locations in Africa, the Middle East, and the United States to heal the wounds of torture and to bring an end to its use in the world. Andrea and her colleagues are forging new ways to advance human rights and build a future free of torture (more HERE). Northwood writes about an example of choosing to look at the horror and effect of torture HERE.
ASK WISE PEOPLE QUESTIONS A young girl asks peace activist and Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh a question, "How to let anger out?" Plum Village Monastery, May 2014. HERE.
SHE USED HER BIRTHDAY Rachel Beckwith had a wish for her 9th birthday. She wanted to raise $300 for charity: water so 15 people in Ethiopia could get clean drinking water. She fell short. A month later she was tragically killed in a car accident. People heard about her birthday wish and $1,265,823 was donated. A 5-minute video of this story and a town that received water. HERE.
PLANT A TREE 800,000 volunteers worked for 24 hours planting 80 different tree species along roads, railways, and on public land. The effort was part of the commitment India made at the Paris Climate Conference in December 2015. "India agreed to spend $6 billion to reforest 12% of its land bringing total forest cover to 235 million acres by 2030." The record they broke was held by Pakistanis. National Geographic. Photograph by Rajesh Kumar Singh, Associated Press HERE.
THE HEART AND THE BOTTLE is a children's book about love and loss, written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers. An inquisitive child who is enchanted by the world around her is badly shaken when she loses someone she loves. She stops noticing the stars and the sea, which she had previously delighted in. One day she meets someone whose own curiosity and zest for life remind her of the curious, happy child that still resides within. HERE (Maria Popova's insightful reading of Jeffer's book).
THE DODO The Dodo's highly sharable animal-related stories touch and open our caring hearts. Sometimes a story invites looking with a new perspective, like this young woman who swims with sharks. Or, offering kindness to all beings, like this pilot flying with a rescued chimp on his lap. HERE, so many stories... This one about a stork flying thousands of miles each year to be with its injured mate is one of my favorites - HERE.
OLIVER SACKS My meditation practice thrives in nature. Perhaps this article, a chapter in Sacks' book EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE will inspire you, too. "The effects of nature's qualities on health are not only spiritual and emotional but physical and neurological. I have no doubt that they reflect deep changes in the brain's physiology, and perhaps even its structure." HERE.
JOYFUL EFFORT or enthusiasm looks like courage, strength, and wakeful sustained effort, even in the midst of difficulty. Alex Honnold had tremendous imagination. He wanted to climb El Capitan in Yosemite Park free solo (without any ropes or support) and began rigorously training his body and mind to achieve his goal. "Alex Honnold's free solo climb...should be celebrated as one of the greatest athletic feats of any kind ever." - The New York Times. The movie is HERE.
HELP A FRIEND What would you do if someone you cared about was forced to give up her dreams? When Rumi didn't show up to school, her 14-year-old friends saved her from child marriage and inspired a foundation. Rumi and her friends are among 20,000 people in Bangladesh trained in The Hunger Project's Safe School For Girls program HERE.
IMAGINE is John Lennon's song and dream about a peaceful world. HERE .
ON BEING has a newsletter called The Pause. This is an example. Just like this card, as a Montessori teacher, I gave children poems for calligraphy practice hoping that the wise words would in some way touch their hearts. Check out The Pause HERE.
GRATITUDE GROWS If you could give a gift to 100 people who have touched your life, who would you pick? Lori Portka sat down and made a list of 100 people she adored and made each one of them a painting. Her friend Hailey Bartholomew filmed the project, a 5-minute video so touching that Oprah aired it on SUPER SOUL SUNDAY. HERE.
WHILE NEVER GIVING UP, TAKE A BREATH Twelve members of a soccer team, aged 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old assistant coach entered a cave on June 23 after football practice. Shortly afterward, heavy rains partially flooded the cave, trapping the group inside. They were discovered alive on July 2 and all rescued between July 8 - 10. To stay calm, the coach practiced meditation with them. (Story credit; Photograph, Thai Navy Seals).
