Stephen Kiesling

Stephen Kiesling is editor in chief of S+H. He was a Scholar of the House in philosophy at Yale and rowed on the 1980 Olympic Rowing Team. He has written for the New Yorker and Sports illustrated and is the author of books including The Shell Game and Walking the Plank. He lives at Ti’lomikh Falls in Oregon, where he discovered The Story Chair and helped restart the ancient Takelma Salmon Ceremony, which is a likely source of the “Right to Life” in The Declaration of Independence.

Awakening to the Wisdom of the Oak

An Interview With Kristoffer Hughes

From the Editor: On Wild Awakenings

Steve Kiesling chats about Druidic enlightenment, time in nature, and what's fea…

The Time of Our Lives

An Interview With Chip Conley

Faith Tech

Stephen Kiesling has a virtual dialogue with venture capitalists bent on buying …

From the Editor: On Wise Elders and Workshops

Our editor-in-chief shares thoughts on the wisdom of aging, and explores what's …

Become a Connoisseur of Time

An Interview With Joel Bennett, PhD

The Source of The Declaration of Independence

Freedom is what makes America America. As we approach our nation’s 250th birthda…

From the Editor: 25 Years of Spirituality+Health

Our returning editor-in-chief shares what it was like at the very beginning of S…

Running on Gentle Power

An Interview With Emilia Elisabet Lahti, PhD

A Great Ancestor in the Making

An Interview With Ari Wallach

Lessons From Extreme Rituals: An Interview With Dimitris Xygalatas, PhD

Why do so many ordinary people regularly participate in painful religious rites?…

Restoring Relationships

An Interview with Fariha Róisín

Your Anxiety Isn’t All in Your Head

An Interview With Ellen Vora, MD

How to Embody Kindness

Lessons From a Lifetime of Spiritual Adventure

Understanding Humans

An Interview With Camilla Pang

Embracing Earth Medicine

An Interview With Felicia Cocotzin Ruiz

A Gardener’s Awakening

An Interview With Michael Pollan

Fierce and Tender Self-Compassion

Kristin Neff, PhD, created the scale that psychologists worldwide use to measure…

4 Crucial Words for a World of Chaos

An Interview With Nedra Glover Tawwab

Is Now the Best Time to Fast? The Doctor Says Yes

Interview With Andreas Michalsen, MD, PhD

What Is the Human Potential Movement?

The Human Potential Movement peaked in the 1960s and 1970s. Read about it from s…

The One Minute, Icy Cold Path of Awakening

An Interview With Wim Hof

Personal Accountability in Chaos

An Interview With James Hollis, PhD

Leap into Your Great Mystery Story

“I love mystery stories and so, decades ago, I wrote one. My agent told me that …

Escape the Trance of Busyness: A Conversation With Tara Brach, PhD

S&H's Stephen Kiesling sat down with Tara Brach, founder and senior teacher …

In Memory of Grandma Agnes Baker Pilgrim

“Grandma spoke of the Creator and traveled the world blessing water, but she did…

The Break-In Before Christmas

Yesterday, I went out to a distant corner of the property to put some lumber ins…

The Making of a Peacemaker

An Interview with Christian Conte

Thriving as an Empath

An Interview with Judith Orloff, MD

​How Spiritual Stories Take Flight

The world champion levitator had a good reason: To get to the front of the class…

Autobiography of a Yogını: An Interview with Seane Corn

Seane Corn describes her evolution and the revolution she's taking part in durin…

“Drunk, Stoned, or Laid”

Memories of Manhattan spur S&H Editor at Large Stephen Kiesling to reflect o…

Looking Back at Easter

"The rabbi wasn’t lying. I sensed that immediately. He believed what he was sayi…

Chasing That Most Important Point

Stephen Kiesling and Zen priest Edward Espe Brown converse about Zen, Tassajara,…

From the Editor

"We’re celebrating 20 years of S&H, and I find myself sorting through old st…

How to Swim in Our Sea of Fake News

What matters is keeping your own story strong, lighthearted, and up to date

From the Editor - March/April 2019

One of the big questions we’ve wrestled with since the launch of this magazine 2…

40 Days to a Lean, Calm, Energized & Happy Self

An interview with Sara Gottfried MD

Create Your 40-day, Brain Body Diet Book Club

This could be the healthiest group you’ll ever join.

Becoming Shameless

A Conversation with Nadia Bolz-Weber

From the Editor - January/February 2019

Just after our 20th Anniversary issue came off the press, I traveled by plane, t…

The New American LOVE Revolution

A conversation with Marianne Williamson

From the Editor: November/December

It’s the best possible time to be alive, when almost everything you thought you …

From the Editor: September/October

The Toe of Awakening In the rush of this issue I took a break and waded into th…

The Commons: The Best Place to Die?

Remodeling the nicest home in town for hospice

From the Editor: July/August 2018

In this issue we’ve got a letter from Jacki Mallett, an original subscriber (Tha…

From the Editor: May/June 2018

A note from our editor in chief, Stephen Kiesling.

From the Editor: March/April 2018

A note from our editor in chief, Stephen Kiesling.

From the Editor: January/February 2018

A note from our editor in chief, Stephen Kiesling.

​Is Your Yoga Class a Stanley Milgram Experiment?

Perhaps the hardest pose—and greatest enlightenment—is to sit comfortably.…

From the Editor: November/December 2017

I’ve been wrestling lately with some extra pounds that have me worried—and…

Why Immortality Is the Great White Hope

If we crack the “Aging Code,” we’re all in the shark tank.

Entrepreneurs of Civilization

We have no wisdom traditions nearly as old as we are, and maybe that’s because w…

Book Review: How Cycling Can Save the World

Cycling could save the world, and very quickly. If we all switched to bikes for …

Maybe the “First Agreement” Is “Don’t Bite Anybody”

Then Comes “Share the Wealth,” “Reduce Your Footprint,” and “Don’t Poison the Bugs Inside You.”

Restival

The New Art of the Retreat Festival

Why Ojai

A Tourist Town Where Mindfulness Is the Main Attraction

Your Assignment: Complete the Story

Complete the Story of The Sword in the Storytelling Stone and Win $1000

The New Physics of Immortality

What if we put two geniuses in Schrödinger’s cat box?

Your Assignment: Shake Things Loose

Share your own special practice

Find Your North Star

Let the gravity of your star pull you into your dreams.

Are You Closer to Muhammad Than to Jesus?

Last summer, the University of Birmingham announced a startling discovery: two m…

Why We Should Listen to Mary

Even if she’s all in your head, she has something important to say

The Commons: Create First Nations Day

Grandma Agnes Baker Pilgrim, 91, was about to fly to Amsterdam and then on to Af…

The Island of Vitality

A place to get right and write

The Fashions of Our Addictions

Did shamans pack tobacco leaves into leather pouches only for symbolic reasons?

Bringing Grandma Home

Grandma Aggie wants to sit in her family chair. Who could say no to that? But Gr…

Playing with Food

What to eat amid the sounds of caterpillars munching?

How the Body Creates Our Moods

Classic research grounds our moods in the body, not in the head, and points toward simple steps to happiness.

Prioritize Your Priorities!

Living an authentic, conscious life now requires us to manage ourselves like modern multinationals. Here’s how!

A Lifetime of Spiritual Evolution

Honoring our legendary founding editor, T George Harris

How to Achieve Whole Body Happiness

One thing I have learned in my weekly men's group is how fragile we are. Lawyer,…

Injustice in a Group Boosts Willingness to Volunteer

Research from New York University suggests a counter intuitive notion: A sense o…

How Much of Aging Is in Your Head?

In 1979 a young Harvard psychology professor named Ellen Langer (soon to be play…

Lessons from Peak Experiences

About 10 years ago I paddled my white-water kayak onto a wave at “Steamer Lane” …

How Meditation Might Help Break the Cycle of Poverty

In our July issue we reported on studies by Martha Farah, director for Cognitive…

Latest Message from Water: Is Dr. Emoto a Spiritual Madoff?

Ten years ago this magazine received an advance copy of Dr. Masaru Emoto’s book …

A Perfect Day for Couples In Santa Fe

Whether it’s Adam and Eve, Adam and Adam, or Eve and Eve, neuroscience suggests …

Survival Consciousness

Infinite bliss and enlightenment may be just a breath away. But what does that r…

Is Yoga Safe?

Two years ago, at breakfast with the dean of yoga at Kripalu Center for Yoga and…

Virtue Fatigue: The Anatomy of Temptation

Consider the classic recipe for seduction: chocolates, dinner, wine, dessert, da…

Practicing the Art of Trying with a 28-Year Comeback at the Olympic Trials

The time is 6:39 p.m. at the Olympic Rowing Center at Lake Mercer, New Jersey. T…

Beyond the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

About fifteen years ago, Robert E. Thayer, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at C…

Wired for Compassion

In the mid-seventies, psychologist Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., left teaching at Harva…

The Ceremony at the Heart of "Salmon Nation"

About 18 months ago, an extraordinary woman came to my home on the Rogue River i…

Be the Change

“You must be the change you want to see in the world,” said “Mahatma” Gandhi, wh…

This Thanksgiving, Call in the Directions

Over the past 25 years, the Mankind Project and New Warrior Training Adventure h…

America's Most Spiritual Spa 2010: Osmosis Day Spa Sanctuary

Even a first award requires a history. And any history of spiritual spas leads i…

Do Eyeshades Protect Against Obesity and Cancer?

In Newsweek last December, science writer Sharon Begley pulled together research…

The New Power Plant in the Backyard?

One day recently my friend Oliver Fix and his colleague Rudy Behrens arrived at …

Teaching a Boy to Meditate Underwater

Relax, and bring your attention to your breath. If you are like many, this is a …

Why We Surprise Ourselves Doing Grand or Stupid Things

Over the last decade a number of studies and books have likened willpower to a s…

Most Spiritual Spa 2011: Haramara Retreat Center

Religious faith can turn any place or building or gathering into a potential sou…

The Second Coming

What if Jesus Is Buried in the Galilee?

Keeping Up With the Primates?

How many times do our closest genetic relatives, the peace-loving primates known…

The Generative Game of Life

Generative people tend to be those who have worked through their identity crises…

The Company You Keep: Does it Need Transformation?

Shaping corporations to enhance rather than crush the spirit of employees turns …