Top 1066 results for “color”

Colorful abstract
Fine-Tune Your Mood With Color

Here's how you can harness color as a powerful mood enhancer.

colorful city
Meditation for Sweet Dreams: The Colorful City of Your Mind

Immerse yourself in a colorful city in your mind to rock you to sleep.

Color Your Way to Peace

“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.” ~ Pablo Picasso When was the last time you opened a brand new box of colored pencils and thoughtfully colored…

What Is Color Meditation?

Discover how the creator of The Color Meditation Deck used color meditation to change her perspective, and how you can, too.

Colored Light Therapy for Anxiety

Explore how green, pink, blue, and purple lights can reduce anxiety, improve mood, and more.

How Colors Affect Our Moods

We all have preferences for certain colors, but do colors themselves inherently influence our mood?

Color Is The New Cool

Do your body a great kindness by adding more colors to your diet.

7 Coloring Books to Calm Your Mind

The popularity of coloring books is no surprise considering the benefits—from stress-relief to mindful awareness. Color your way to peace with these 7 picks from Spirituaity & Health.

6 Tips to Support Change With Color Therapy

Colors have frequencies that influence mood, impact our energy field, and support us in developing different aspects of ourselves.

How to Practice Color Meditation for Anxiety

Painting with watercolors channels the healing powers of both water and color.

How to Release Emotional Blocks With Color

Use a color therapy exercise to release pent-up and unhelpful emotions.

4 Ways Color and Interior Design Improve Emotional Wellbeing

If positive affirmations aren’t doing the trick to lift your mood, consider working with new colors. An expert in color and interior design explains why and how.

Creativity as a Relationship Skill

Get creative in how you approach your relationships.

108 Day Mindfulness Practice

Here are 108 suggestions for your own personalized 108-day mindfulness practice.

Ten Ways to Use Tarot in Your Everyday Life

Excerpted from The Tarot Coloring Book by Theresa Reed

The Health Benefits of Cauliflower Plus 3 Recipes

Cauliflower packs a serious nutritional punch and, if you're looking for a gluten-free, low-carb staple, is versatile enough to become a behind-the-scenes star of your kitchen.

Toolbox: Reignite Creativity

Feeling like you’ve been stuck in a perpetual creative slump? You’re not alone.

10 Resources for Clean Eating

A useful list for inspiration and recipes to eat clean

On the Passing of Michael Stone and Mental Health in the Yoga Community

Yoga, self-care, and alternative forms of medicine cannot always fix everything.

poem: no. 16

"she will fall for miles. / land on your face, / your shoulders, / your hands"

Raising the World’s Vibration

I find myself feeling despair, grief, and fear rise as I listen to the news of shootings, racism, hate crimes, discrimination and innocent lives lost. In my silent moments I questi…

Collaborate on a Painting

Two people, three colors, four layers—and a lot of fun!

Smelling in Technicolor

A new study provides insight into the captivating phenomenon of a sensory condition called synaesthesia.

Claiming Your Queen

In my practice, I’m witnessing a revitalized version of the Queen archetype reemerging

3 Tips on Eating Right

Sponsored Content from The Isha Foundation

Classical Musician Serenades the Chakras

Musician Miriam Jameson shares the story that inspired her new album.

The Peace Process

Learn to embrace your emotions and heal your past with this powerful technique from The Freemind Experience by Tom Fortes Mayer.

Chakra Flowers for Spiritual Healing

Each flower has a unique color and essence that vibrationally corresponds with one or more of the seven chakras in our body. Discover how to use chakra flowers for spiritual healing.

Saints R Us

A year and a half ago I became obsessed with the size of landfills. (This could be the result of too much time on my hands to simply think about things, but still.) I had seen some…

What’s Your Why?

Don’t get lost on the path to finding your purpose. Discover your “why” in three ways.

How to Start a Meditative Painting Practice

Use breathwork and color therapy to find your center in your meditative painting practice.

Jennie Dear

More…

Conscious Channeling

Did you know spiritual beings can readily deliver their messages to deeply embodied, clear, conscious channels?

Moon Practice: Ritual for a Spring Full Moon

On the full moon, create a ritual that has meaning for you.

Our Community Journal: A Mother’s Legacy

“Tomorrow morning put on dancing shoes.”

15 Mantras for Healing

Here are 15 affirmations for powerful healing support.

11 Questions to Change Your Perspective

If you reframe your perspective, your entire life can change. Ask yourself these questions to make the shift today.

Mindful Eating: The Benefits and How to Start

Mindful eating means being intentional about what, when, and how you eat. It can become more intuitive the more you practice.

Embracing the Holy Spirit for Non-Christians

“By adding the word holy in front of keywords, such as in the terms Holy God, Holy Bible, Holy Spirit, Holy Catholic Church, Holy Communion, Holy, etc., we’ve made non-Christians weary of hearing us talk with all of this canonized holiness in our lexicon.”

Film Review: Love Is a Verb

Love Is a VerbTerry Spencer Hesser and Stephan MazurekDark Sky FilmsThe Muslim thinker and academic Fetullah Gulen has been a controversial figure in his homeland of Turkey for&nbs…

The Compassionate Vision of Owsley Brown

Rabbi Rami talks to Owsley Brown about his latest documentary Serenade for Haiti and the upcoming Festival of Faiths. A review of the film appears in the March/April issue of Spiri…

If You Find It Hard to Meditate…

Try the difficult path to enlightenment

What to Do With the Stories That Haunt You…

What do we do with the stories that haunt us? Natalie Goldberg shows us in this excerpt from her 2016 book The Great Spring.

Seeing the Salad in the Sidewalk

Becoming a father who knows what’s tasty in the urban jungle

You Are an Infinite Nonzero Game

Excerpted from The Golden Rule & the Games People Play by Rami Shapiro

Is Detoxing Actually Healthy?

Helping your body detoxify through effective measures is a practice that can be traced back hundreds of years.

Our Memory Capacity Is Greater Than We Knew

Scientists have discovered ten times more memory capacity in the human brain.

The Difference Between Spiritual Advisors and Psychics

Sponsored Content from Psychic-Chat.co

Your Assignment: Heal a Parent/Child Relationship with Good Storytelling

We tried talk therapy and it didn’t work. Our attempts at reconciliation always ended in recrimination and competition. The guilt of a father for deserting the family and the pain …

Carry-On Wellness

No matter the duration of your flight, it’s important to take good care of yourself. What you do—or don’t do—aboard the plane makes all the difference in the world when…

You Are Better than Your Fitbit

The Simplest, Cheapest, And Most Accurate Way To Know How Hard To Work Out

Brain Health: 4 Stories on How to Nourish and Exercise the Brain

Take a look at these 4 stories for optimal brain health and how to provide nourishment, stimulation, and exercise to keep your brain healthy and strong.

Using Sound And Light To Picture The Brain And Body

A look at an innovative medical technology called photoacoustic imaging technique, a non-invasive process that uses the conversion of light and sound to create functional, molecular, and structural imaging.

Winter Practices To Support Your Inward Journey

This next month can be fertile ground for renewal of spirit and for clarity of mind and heart.

Go On, Change It All

Multiple, simultaneous life changes are possible.

How To Stop Being Absent-Minded

Want to stay sharp and focused all day long? Here are a few tips.

The Uncanny Practice of Entrainment

This key tool is employed, often unwittingly, by exceptional teachers, health care practitioners, clergy, and devoted guardians or parents.

Writing to Connect to your Body

A major aspect of my practice has always been about coming home to my body. We live in a culture that doesn’t always honor the body; we tend instead to objectify it as this thing t…

A Fresh Twist on Hydration

Staying hydrated, while seemingly simple, is something that lots of people struggle with. From forgetting to drink it, to a downright dislike of the taste of water, many of us live…

Home for Good Karma

Yoga offers the opportunity for pure connection. Connection to breath, to movement, to spirit. Teachers inspire by telling their students to just show up, on the mat, bringing with…

Poetry: Gratitude Pillow

An excerpt from Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners by Naomi Shihab Nye.

5 Ways to Process the Anger You Thought You Weren't Allowed to Feel

Start observing your anger to truly understand where it should be directed.

Dogitation

Canine help along the bodhisattva path

5 Cures For Insomnia You Haven’t Tried Yet

Here are five new ways to make peace with your pillow.

Cooperation, Meaning and Mission

What does it feel like to practice self-acceptance? This type of gentleness creates a whole new environment in which we can start to flourish.

Arugula Pesto Summer Salad

Green Is the color of cool.

13 Tips to Boost Confidence

For Mindfulness, Meditation, and Yoga Teachers

Alison Zak

Alison Zak is an author, yoga teacher, anthropologist, and animal. She lives in northern Virginia with her husband Vishu, Meeko the dog, and Monkey the adopted budgie. In addition …

Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (iBme)

iBme offers in-depth mindfulness programming for youth and parents and professionals who support them.

Walaa

Walaa is a certified color therapist, author, and qualified interior designer mentoring women and entrepreneurs to find renewed confidence, a strong sense of purpose, and a better …

One Step Beyond Eye Contact

A simple practice of mindfully noticing eye color can make medicine a little better.

Make Room for All Your Feelings

An Interview with Mark Epstein

Why First Impressions Count

Research shows how first impressions can color later interactions.

5 Questions to Heal a Relationship

“What do we do next?” is the last question to ask

Does Red Equal Well Fed?

A new study suggests that humans naturally choose red foods over other colors of foods.

Find Your North Star

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

16 Affirmations for Nurturing Creativity

Kickstart your creative self with these positive affirmations.

15 Affirmations for Practicing Acceptance and Tolerance

Acceptance and tolerance leads to inner and outer peace—use these acceptance affirmations to cultivate more unity in your life.

17 Affirmations for Focusing Your Attention

Get distracted easily? Us too. Try these focus affirmations to ... hey, where were we?

The Fire of Aliveness

“There are two fires that we have to encounter daily. The first is the fire of life, which reduces us to joy by burning away all that is false and not essential. This is the fire of aliveness ...

Menopause Symptoms Got You Down? Here’s How to Stay Positive

Menopause symptoms are a harsh reality of life. But “they should be seen not so much as the end of the reproductive years but as the beginning or rebirth of a whole new you.”

Poem: ​The Kind of May Day It Is

“If days were colors / I would name this one pink, / a pale pink like the rose quartz / pendant I wear,”

Fish, Freedom, and Fate

“Are we freer when we let go of the need to own, to control, and, sometimes, even to know, especially when the path to knowledge violates the spirit of other living things?”

Ilene Godofsky Moreno

Ilene Godofsky Moreno, author of The Colorful Kitchen and The Colorful Family Table, is a health coach, recipe developer, food photographer, and the author of t…

Rediscovering the Rosary

Not a rosary person? No matter your beliefs, you may be surprised at the power of this famous tool.

To the Yes in the Wind--A Poem

A Celebrant looks at the present moment, liminal as it may be, and still says yes.

Why Change Is Difficult for Us (and Ways to Overcome It)

“In the new year, many of us will be contemplating changing a behavior or an aspect of our lives. Some will dream of it, while the brave ones will get ready to take action. There is a reason you feel that spark. Life is finite. Don’t squander it. Here are four tips to help you be brave, conquer your fears, and pursue the spark.”

Meditation for Teen Emotional Wellbeing

A unique retreat program combats increasing rates of stress, anxiety, and depression in young people.

Guided Meditation for Self-Protection: The Shield

Imagine a protective sphere that keeps in positive energy, releasing what we do not need.

Got Gut Problems?

IBS? Leaky gut? CBD products can help with many digestive ailments.

Theresa Dominguez-Weiss

Theresa Dominguez-Weiss is a retired Family Nurse Practitioner, author, researcher, the world’s leading expert on Power Places, and a facilitator on transformational journeys to international Power Places, such as the Great Pyramid and Machu Picchu.

theresadominguezweiss.com

Travel with Theresa: theresajourneys.com

Follow Theresa on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter

The Way of Gratitude: A Minister’s View on Connection

The Way of Gratitude author and prominent Unitarian Universalist minister Galen Guengerich dives deep on faith, belonging, morality, and, of course, gratitude.

Tints of Tranquility: Shades for Sacred Spaces

Design a space mindfully using color to emphasize the energy you want to enhance.

Spirituality and Anxiety

Anxious? Approaching the problem with self-compassion and mindfulness may help. Discover more about spirituality and anxiety.

poem: no. 154

"but the color of moonrise / will visit at the same time / it did yesterday and make / constellations out of me."

Ending It Well: Missives From Inside the Death Wellness Movement

The death wellness movement is about facing hard choices openly and mindfully. For author Leslie Krongold, this has been a very personal exploration.

Dosha-licious: Pitta Radiant

Pitta, you are the light of the world. You bring us color, vision, clarity, focus, enthusiasm, adventure!

The Healing Truth

The goal of The World Wisdom Bible is not to create a world religion, but to create peace, 12 coffee cups at a time

Detox with this Gingery Lemon Soup

A clear vegetable soup with the warmth of ginger and the brightness of lemon adds punch to fresh, purifying produce.

Inner Climate Change

The world is inflamed, and so are we. Maybe the two are connected, and maybe healing our own bodies can help heal the world.

“Drunk, Stoned, or Laid”

Memories of Manhattan spur S&H Editor at Large Stephen Kiesling to reflect on the "masters of deprivation."

The Very Best Way to Pray for Peace

Explore how a CIA analyst began an interfaith quest for citizen diplomacy.

Moving from Fear to Flow

How to identify the fears blocking your relationship—and melt them away to restore wonder

The Food and Drink Industry Plays With Our Heads, Because It Can

Last week at the Fancy Food Show, an annual marketplace where over 1,000 food and drink purveyors showcase their wares, I tasted buttered coffee, beet ketchup, bay-leaf bitters, ci…

Where Does Gratitude Belong in Grief?

It’s pretty easy to feel grateful when good things happen. Win the lottery or fall in love? Easy. But what if you lose your spouse, or child, or even your job, how do we find grati…

Stuck? Change Your Perspective and Change the Game

Recently I took drastic measures to shift my perspective and conjure up some new ideas, and I can’t wait to tell you all about it! You see, I’ve been talking a lot lately with acti…

Luxury Therapy

Photo credit: Kristan Lawson

The Fear & Anxiety Solution

By Friedemann SchaubIf the anxious mind is a spiraling whirlpool of what-ifs and self-doubt, then The Fear & Anxiety Solution is an anchor that helps keep the spirit moored. Au…

Book Review: Home in Harmony

Home in HarmonyDesigning an Inspired LifeBy Christa O’LearyHay House, Inc.Habits determine a large chunk of our everyday activity. And becoming conscious of our habits, both the go…

Four Legal Entheogens for the Spiritual Explorer

Throughout human history, spiritual seekers have used sacred plants and fungi for healing, visionary encounters, and mystical experience. Though this history has been largely obfus…

Why Go Paleo?

One Doctor's Story

21 Days to Your Vision Quest

Get ready for the least-expensive, most-healing, most-enlightening 48 hours you may ever experience.

Leafy Green Recipes from Dr. Kale

An Excerpt from 50 Shades of Kale

Blue Mind: Solving the Crisis of Solitude

A team of researchers at the University of Virginia recently studied college students who were left alone in a room that was empty, except for a single button. When each student ar…

Chasing Happiness

Why does overvaluing happiness backfire? We dive into the effects of longing on our everyday outlook.

3 Legal Entheogens for the Spiritual Explorer

Throughout human history, spiritual seekers have used sacred plants and fungi for healing, visionary encounters, and mystical experience. Though this history has been largely obfus…

Being with Flowers

A sculptor of floral art reflects on his spiritual practice.

How Magnetism Affects How We Think and Feel

Alteration of magnetic fields can change the behavior of everything from individual neurons to overall behavior. Learn how magnets and spirituality connect.

Hanging on to Happiness

A brain surgeon’s quest to hold onto joy.

Blossoming After Dark

Create a twilight garden for a tranquil, outdoor meditative space.

Center of the Storm

Lama Surya Das shares his thoughts on walking an enlightened path in the modern world.

Marked Man

A midlife tattoo confounds his friends and family, but for writer Steve Lewis it provides an indelible sense of place.

Do Animals Have More Soul Than We Do?

Not only do animals live, they have lives—with “undiluted purity and clarity…”

Enriched by Animals

“As I walked, something walked with me. Not in the sand—but to my right, in the water, just beyond the breaking of the waves.”

Don’t Hold the Phone!

When you instinctively reach for your phone because you have a spare moment, here are 15 ways to fill that moment instead.

Find Your Path

Interspiritual wisdom to help you find your spiritual style, choose the grand questions that call you, and create your personal practice.

Share Your Gifts at Burning Man

If you’re into exploring other worlds, altering your sense of gravity, and playing in some of the biggest waves on the planet—you just may want to jump in.

Can You Feel A Movie?

Mirror-touch synesthesia isn’t as unusual as you might guess.

Pay Attention Like a Poet

Cultivate presence by writing haiku poetry.

Heal Yourself, Heal the World

Drawing from the wisdom of spiritual teachers, writer Emma Pearse focuses on healing herself to heal the world.

Working Farms for Foodies

“There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.” —Aldo Leopold

7 Foods to Boost Memory and Clarity

Reduce inflammation and increase your brain’s natural power

You Are What You Eat: Yoga of Synthesis #3

Sponsored Content from Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat Bahamas

Creative Flow: How Yoga Can Spark Your Creativity

If you didn’t know me as a person, and all you knew about me was that I was a yoga teacher and a poet, you would probably think I was pretty boring. You’d think of poems filled wit…

Cutting-to-the-Chase Meditation

This is my arrangement of a transcription of the conversation/dharma talk with Zen priest Sokuzan Bob Brown last Sunday at our local meditation group. Bob began by describing the b…

On Getting Juiced for the First Time

Over the weekend, I broke down and finally purchased a juicer—after eyeing one on Amazon for almost two months—and was immediately impressed by the solid heft of the ne…

Finding the Light in the Shadows: On Shri and Kali

It’s 2012: the end of the Mayan Calendar, the year of New Age spiritual transformation, year of the Water Dragon. I started off 2012 learning about the Divine Feminine with Shiva R…

Calling on Fear with Tara Mohr

Set your soul’s calling into motion with Tara Mohr, Arianna Huffington, Danielle LaPorte, Eve Ensler, Sera Beak and more brilliant feminine leaders at Emerging Women Live, October 9-12, 2014. You can dive deep with Emerging Women Live speakers and their transformational insights right now with our free audio download Power Practices Vol 1: Women Who Are Changing the World.

Getting What You Want Might Not Destroy Western Civilization

Boarding the Azamara Quest in Barcelona, about to start a week-long Riviera cruise, I felt joy and two types of anxiety. One was luxuryphobia. The other was mortal fear.Surely, I t…

Deepen Your Practice: A Neighborhood Pilgrimage

By Amy Benedict We think of a pilgrimage as a journey of great spiritual or moral significance—yet our whole life’s course can be seen as a pilgrimage. A simple walk from yo…

A Goddess Water Ritual for New Year's Eve

by Elizabeth Phaire For those of us who follow the Gregorian calendar, the year is now coming to a close, and we look forward to the fresh start of a new year. In thinking about w…

Celebrating Winter: Retreat and Renew

Use these practices to inspire more ease and play this season

The Holy Family

The holy-days are a special time for children (and adults), in part because of the promise of toys, but also in part because of the rituals we participate in at this time of year—s…

Harvest Ritual: Feast On Your Life

By Nick Meima “Sit. Feast on your life.” – Derek Walcott, from the poem “Love after Love” In my community in Colorado, the following “harvest ritual” has been practiced for many …

Warm Your Heart with Homemade Chai

In the late fall, all I want to do is curl up with a mug of steaming chai: the aromatic beverage we Westerners have adopted from the Indian drink masala chai, which means, literall…

Honoring the Journeys in Adoption

Each year, November is recognized as National Adoption Month. It is a time to celebrate adoption and build awareness for the children still waiting for families — all 146 million of them.

A Drop in the Ocean

An excerpt from Living in Balance: A Mindful Guide for Thriving in a Complex World

Book Giveaway: Changing Diapers by Kelly Wels

Writer Kelly Wels wants to be your personal cheerleader for cloth diapering. In Changing Diapers: The Hip Mom’s Guide to Modern Cloth Diapering, the cloth diapering expert breaks d…

Meditation on a Snow Man

Our local meditation group had quite a few people for our 4-hour sitting yesterday and 8-10 people stayed afterward for tea and cheese and crackers and apples and various things pe…

6 Natural Practices for Breast Cancer Prevention

With National Breast Cancer Awareness Month coming to a close, there has been much coverage in the media about raising awareness, early detection, and funding research for a cure. …

Book Giveaway: "When She Woke" by Hillary Jordan

When She Woke, by Hillary Jordan (author of the New York Times bestseller, Mudbound), is a cautionary tale set in a future devoid of separation between church and state. Our beauti…

Ritual: Experience the Fullness of Life

By Joan Phillips This week opens with a full moon on the 12th, and four days later, on the birthday of the 18th-century American educator, lexicographer, and prolific author Noah …

Review (+ Recipe): Inspiring "Supernatural Kids" to Cook and Eat Well

Kids are notoriously picky eaters, and when my brother and I were little ones, we were no exception. During one particularly nutritionally deficient phase, my brother refused to ea…

Ritual: Reveal the Archetypal Energies Within

By Rani Findlay This week marks the new moon at harvest time, and the Hindu festival of Navaratri—a time to revel in dancing, singing, worshipping, and feasting, as a way to…

8 Creative Techniques to Cope with Painful Emotions

Many of us have a hard time coping with negative emotions. This makes sense. “Painful feelings like anxiety, sadness, anger and shame tap into the parts of our brain that are conne…

Paying Attention to the Most Beautiful Details

Last week I mentioned the power of paying attention to details. The details of our lives. The details of our surroundings. The details of our relationships. The details in the deta…

5 Playful Prompts for Creating a Meaningful Life

Play is powerful. I’ve written before about the importance of play for adults. Many of us dismiss play because we assume that once we become adults, it’s time to get serious, get t…

The Imperfect Home

Sacred spaces are reflections of us, our needs, our souls.

Resurrecting the Universal Christ Consciousness

Growing up in a conservative Christian family, I was taught to believe that being a “true” believer—and therefore getting “in” to heaven—meant worshipping Jesus Christ as my one an…

Healing Your Body Holistically

Remember having to wait in line at P.E. class in middle school to be checked for scoliosis? Bending over to touch your toes while some strange doctor checked your back for any abno…

How to Become Your Own Hero

Telling yourself, once or twenty thousand times, "I'm smart; I'm beautiful; everyone loves me" won't make it true (or untrue) but, more crucially, won't make you start believing it…

11 Tasty Vegan Thanksgiving Recipes

As a vegan, there’s nothing worse than showing up to holiday dinner hungry and discovering that there is nothing for you to eat.

Finding Unity During the Holiday

When I was little, I believed in Santa Claus. It was part of my family’s annual Christmas ritual. Each year, the day after Thanksgiving, dad climbed into the attic and pulled down …

Kindred Spirits Can Save Your Life, Even If You Never Actually Meet Them

If low self-esteem had a Constitution, its First Amendment would be: I hate myself.Its Second Amendment would be: Everyone hates me.Illogically, maddeningly, this Second Amendment …

How to Give Wisely This Holiday Season

I carefully pulled back the strings on the shiny bow of the hand-wrapped Christmas gift. I tore the wrapping paper gently from around it’s soft body. The paper crumpled easily in m…

Nourishing and Nurturing Yourself in November

What does it mean to nourish and nurture ourselves as catalysts of change?

New Rules of Style: Be Authentic

Great style is all about self-expression, so the easiest way to look and feel fabulous is by simply being yourself.Sometimes, being authentic is easier said than done. We’ve all fl…

Group Nature Walks Improve Mental Health

"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." ~ John Muir For those of us in the northern hemisphere, autumn is finally here—that time of year when we fee…

Tap into Your Inner Wild

“We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creat…

A San Francisco Treat: International Orange Yoga + Day Spa

In need of relaxation? On this episode of Conscious Living®, we're treating you to a day of healing at International Orange, one of the Bay Area's top urban day spas, named after t…

Is it Time for a Colonic?

For the bulk of my life, I was chronically constipated. If I was lucky, I’d go to the bathroom once or twice per week. After wreaking havoc on my digestive system with a diet full …

Mental Smog? Grab a Journal and Write

“Know thyself”—PlatoGreat words of wisdom, applicable to practicing yogis and non-yogis alike. Yoga is primarily about self-study (Svadhyaya). We pay attention to who we are at any…

Is it Safe to Get In?

The waves crash steadily along the jagged, obsidian-colored lava coastline, and foamy-white salt water gushes up onto the beach. Its fierceness recedes and softens as it reaches up…

What White People Don’t Know—or Don’t Admit

Believe it or not, as a blond haired, blue-eyed gal, I was the senior editor of Chicken Soup for the African American Soul and African American Woman’s Soul. While, yes, two of the…

VIDEO: Toxic-Free Summer Make-Up Tips

Still wearing toxic make-up filled with talcum powder, aluminum, parabens and other carcinogens? Then watch this episode of Conscious Living® featuring the founder of all-natural Z…

Is Lying to Ourselves Even Crueler Than Lying to Others?

Last year, I lost interest in writing.That was a problem, because writing's my career. It also, for better or worse—I suspect worse—largely comprises my sense of identity.My latest…

The Goddess of Vulnerability: Bherunda Nitya

If you look up at the moon on the fourth night from now, you’ll see a beautiful crescent shape. If it’s close enough to the horizon, it’s often a sweet hazy golden color. The godde…

Ashitaba: The Vegan Blood Builder and Longevity Super Plant

If you’re vegan, you probably hear it all the time, “vegans don’t get enough B12!” Well, not anymore with the recent resurgence of this traditional Japanese and Chinese healing foo…

Playing Outside Nurtures Spirituality in Children

"Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair." —Kahlil Gibran Do you remember—when you would spend time in natu…

Empathy: It's a Win-Win

At a family holiday dinner last week, it finally dawned on me that certain people I consider smart and beautiful consider themselves stupid and hideous.Granted, I spent most of my …

Eat Your Flowers

"Just living is not enough...one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower."—Hans Christian Andersen Flowers. They are the earth’s purest model of natural beauty. The…

Video: The Growing Solution to Urban Food Deserts

With the near epidemic of type-2 diabetes, breast cancer and other degenerative diseases ravaging people of color as compared to non-hispanic whites, the link between health dispar…

Love Can Be the Bottom Line

It’s finally happening, have you heard the whispers? We are seeing the glimmers of the remaking of the way we do business, a way that just might ensure a just and livable future. Q…

Be the Life of the Party

You're minding your own business, not thinking at all about bouncy music, balloons or boisterous crowds. Then, out of the blue, it arrives: a party invitation. It depicts smiley fa…

Your Body is Talking. Are You Listening?

Injuries often happen in the silliest ways. We are intelligent adults; we look both ways before crossing the street, we don't run with scissors or swallow toothpaste. But we badly …

Film Review: Hungry for Change

Hungry for Change: A New Look at Dieting and Healthy Living Over the past several years, food documentaries have become immensely popular. Teaching us about factory farms, process…

Tattooed Hipster Lutheran Pastor

I’ll confess. I have my preconceived ideas about what constitutes your typical Lutheran pastor. My stereotype is not simply drawn from years of listening of Garrison Keillor talki…

Film Review: "Yoga Is: A Transformational Journey"

This documentary from 2012 follows filmmaker Suzanne Bryant as she seeks healing and transformation of spirit through the practice of yoga. Bryant, a successful young journalist li…

The Yoga Sweat: How Our Glands Process Emotion

Sweating up a storm? Discover the emotional and spiritual meaning of sweating.

So You Think You Want a Divorce

If truth be told, I think every person in a marriage has questioned whether they married the right person at least once along the way. Either that or we get caught in the “grass wo…

The Lenses Through Which We Believe

We all know the concept of looking at the world through “rose-colored glasses,” an accusation of being overly or unduly optimistic. But lately I’m observing that more often than n…

Go With the Flow and Encounter an Ocean of Possibilities

I bent over, lifted my left leg, and tried to quickly slide my foot into the thick black rubber fin with as much grace as I could muster. My right foot toed the small sheath of my …

"Life of Pi": A Journey of Spirit and Survival

Like Pi Patel, the brave young protagonist of Yann Martel’s Booker prize-winning novel Life of Pi, Ang Lee attempted what was thought to be impossible when he decided to bring this…

A Simple Practice to Feel More Love In Your Life

Dear Eve,I’ve been in a few relationships, but I’m not sure if true love was ever part of the equation. I’m single now, and I’m feeling really isolated and alone. I just hate feeli…

5 Minutes of Marvel: How to Practice Extreme Awe

We’re still in that time of year when we challenge ourselves to create new and healthier habits. The newspapers are full of specials for gym memberships and packages of yoga classe…

Are Rainbows "Real"?

I left off last week’s post quoting Joseph Goldstein, where he says that some people think the recognition of suffering makes for pessimism. Then he says: “Actually, it is quite th…

Rice, Mushroom & Leek Stuffed Delicata Squash

Knobby, ribbed or smooth? Pale and muted or dark jewel colors? Winter squash come in so many visual varieties, they are a feast for the eyes every time you spot one. Each has an in…

Eat Leafy Greens for a Sharper Brain

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” —Hippocrates A new study has found that eating leafy green vegetables – such as spinach, kale and mustard greens – can h…

Feng Shui for Summer

In feng shui, summer is connected to the “fame and reputation” aspect of your life, which is located in the back-middle section of your home or office. Discover how to enhance the potent fire energy here.

“Samsara”: A Feast for the Senses

Samsara, a non-verbal, visually astounding documentary, is the second feature film by Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson, the creators of 1992’s critically acclaimed Baraka. Filmed in 25…

"Planeat": Making the Case for an Earth-Conscious Diet

The Latin origin of the word “companion” literally means “one who eats bread with another,” and anyone who has ever walked past a bustling restaurant on a Friday night and listened…

Tomato and White Bean Soup with Quinoa

Living in Ontario, I get very serious about stretching out warm weather as far as I can. I savor the tomatoes and juicy stone fruit, stay out in the sun and drink iced tea to my he…

Kale Salad with Apples, Avocado & Grilled Maple Tempeh

The aspens are changing their greens for yellows here in Colorado. Golden branches hug the base of the mountains and wrap me up in emotions. I'm grateful for their reminder to chan…

Timeless Respect: Honoring the Rights of Future Generations

"Treat the Earth well: It was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Childre…

What Are Your Charms?

Several years ago my husband and I decided we wanted to buy a home in a really nice part of Maui. The house we chose was all glass and wood and had a beautiful ocean view. We set o…

Charred Corn and Blueberry Salad

Editors' Note: We're excited to welcome food writer Kelsey Brown to our newest blog, Good Food. Kelsey and her partner Shaun moved cross-country this summer and they can't wait to …

The Yoga Fight: Why Yoga & I Are “On a Break”

I have a confession to make. I haven’t been practicing yoga. But I HAVE been flossing. Every night. Sometimes, too, I do put on some sweet tunes and roll around on my mat for a…

Synesthesia: A Practice for Translating Body Language

One of the reasons we practice yoga, in my opinion, is to become better translators.Our bodies have a complex language, and they are talking to us all the time. Our guts are receiv…

Radical Spirit

How Loving God Helps Us Become Better People

How To Establish A Deeper Connection In Your Relationship

Giving of yourself creates room for intimacy

7 Self-Care Practices to Support You

Self-care is about nourishing ourselves mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

Why, When & How to Eat Wheat

Eating wheat is healthy—but not in the ways we typically eat it today. The solution will likely improve your health dramatically.

Can a Spiritual Retreat Change Your Brain Chemistry?

The levels of two powerful neurotransmitters, dopamine and serotonin, are altered. Here’s how.

June the Month to Honor LGBTQ History and Celebration

Sponsored Content from Celebrant Foundation and Institute

A Teacher Creates His Toughest Test

Are students energized by my lessons or thinking of something else?

Watercress-Parsley Soup

From Signs & Seasons: An Astrology Cookbook

A Powerful Ceremony Reuniting a Birth Mother to Son

A Birth Mother Found, Embraces Second Chance To Be A Mother, Family Gathers For Ceremony

Rabbi Rami: As a fundamentalist Christian, am I safe from Muslims?

Question: I consider myself a fundamentalist Christian, and I fear Muslims coming to America. Is Islam compatible with American values?Rabbi Rami: If by “Islam” you mean fundamenta…

Happily Eating After ...

The best foods for life’s challenging healing moments.

The Soda Challenge

It’s time to stop swigging the sodas in favor of more healthful beverages.

Five Science-Backed Strategies to Build Resilience

When the road gets rocky, what do you do?

The Gift of a Head Covering in Kundalini Yoga

1. Khalsa, Siri Guru Granth Sahib Ji,

2. The Teachings of Yogi Bhajan, July 7, 1989

Celebrating Black Yogis for Black History Month

Yoga has its roots in India, but it has changed and evolved hugely since it came to North America. For some people it’s a spiritual practice, and for others it’s purely physical. T…

Dance Like No One's Watching: How to Get Your Creative Groove Back

“Creativity is God’s will for us and should be practiced like any other spiritual practice – one day at a time.” – Julia CameronAs a child, being creative is a natural part of ever…

The Art of Aliveness

In a recent interview on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, actress and writer Lena Dunham shared a thought about her father’s profession as a painter. She said, “We have so many options no…

The Self-Loathing Look

In a public place thousands of miles from here, a stranger identified me as someone who lives in the same town as himself. I happen to hate this town, where the person behind you …

Prayers for Our Children

A soon to be mother asked me what prayers she could do for the child in her womb. It brought me back to my days as a pregnant lady. There was a sensation of something incredible on…

The Real Earth Day Celebration

We were so excited to make signs that morning at Grandpa Paul's house in Brooklyn.His was really clever."More Braniacs, less Maniacs"My husband, daughter and I had just arrived fro…

3 Ways to Feed Your Brain

I recently saw a friend who had just returned home after visiting his grandmother for her 96th birthday celebration. While she was not as active as she once had been, he told me ab…

Kneading Love and Loss in the Kitchen

Lily Diamond learned the sensorial magic of culinary creativity from her mother, whose life was cut tragically short. In her new book Kale and Caramel (Atria 2017), Diamond shares …

How to Learn From Your Past Lives

One tranquil morning on the beautiful island of Bali, I reclined outdoors on a spa chair at a destination resort. Perched atop a shelf of rice paddy fields, my eye caught a farmer …

How Doodling Lights Up the Brain

A few years back, I came across an old box that held notebooks from my college courses. As I leafed through the pages, I smiled at my prolific use of the margins as a space for doo…

Service: Seane Corn

In our spiritual luminary series, each week we will feature someone who personifies a key spiritual value. In the first installment, we chat with yogi and activist Seane Corn, who …

How to Remain in Balance With Your Emotions

Blame it on the environment, your work, the stress, your partner, the kids, the overwhelm—yet the truth remains—your emotions are your own and for you to remain in bala…

The Goddess of Intoxication

Vajresvari wants us to find power in being present with our joy, imbibing in delightful experiences even to the point of intoxication.

Grounded Movement

A daily stroll is widely recognized as a useful tool for becoming healthier. It benefits your heart, your lungs, your muscles and your mood. There are also more subtle and less qua…

New Moon, New Year: Wisdom from the Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year, celebrated on the second new moon after the winter solstice represents a brand new chance to start all over again.

How to Make an Intentional Space

Craving a space that aligns with your spiritual needs? Follow five steps to create an intentional space that’s right for you.

Giving Thanks for Giving Thanks

One day recently, as we sat outside a bakery where the season's first pumpkin pies had just gone on display, my friend T told me that she hates Thanksgiving.She said she hates it b…

Heal Your Relationship with Your Body

If you’ve ever looked in the mirror at your body with disgust, or punished yourself for eating one too many cookies by spending hours on the treadmill, then you may recognize that …

Activating Prana

It had been a long, intense summer. Between my husband’s immobilized shoulder and two kids out of school and ready for action, I was exhausted. Every morning left me aching for the…

We Are All Responsible for Shootings

When I was a school counselor, there was a girl in the sixth grade who was absent more than present. When she did make it to school, kids called her “Dead Girl” because of her mono…

6 Techniques to Overcome Touch Starvation

Virtual gatherings are flourishing, but quarantining has cut physically isolated individuals off from the comfort of tender touch we crave in uncertain times. These self-soothing practices can help overcome skin hunger and the crave for human touch.

Animal Mystics

How can we live in sacred relationship with the more-than-human world?

6 Ways Nature Can Help You Now

Nature provides a welcome respite from the chaos of the modern world. Seeking out the solace found in the natural world can offer a path out of feeling hopeless.

Book Preview: Awaken the Sleeping Giant

“A spiritual revolution is long overdue. A simple shift in awareness is all that is needed. No shots will be fired. No blood will be shed.”

Why It Matters Who Tells Your Story

“And thus we observe/ Seed to root to plant to flower to seed/ Earth to bloom to earth/ A soul returns.”

Ben Martin

Ben Martin is a certified Life-Cycle Celebrant®. He is also an instructor for the Celebrant Foundation and Institute, helping to train and certify Life-Cycle Celebrants to officiat…

4 Lessons on Forgiveness From a Rescue Dog

Maggie the Wunderdog was shot, attacked, and left for dead, but, thanks to a rescuer, survived, is thriving—and is loving. Here are four lessons on forgiveness rescue dogs like Maggie teach us.

Recipe: ​Lentil Pate

For the perfect late-summer dish, try this Lentil Pate recipe from Mindi K. Counts’ Everyday Chinese Medicine.

Digestive Health and the Earth Element

Support the immune and digestive systems by balancing the Earth element and nourishing the spleen.

Toolbox: I Teal You

In recognition of Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month, these awareness-raising selections benefit the cause while soothing the soul.

A Journey Through Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth

Julie Peters describes her experience with SIBO and her long journey back to health.

3 Nature-Based Practices for Battling Zoom Fatigue

How greening your space, petting your animal bestie, and taking a break to walk can fight Zoom fatigue and improve your work-from-home routine.

Writing Yourself Back to Yourself

Meera Lee Patel’s latest journal, Create Your Own Calm, is publishing as anxiety levels across the world are rising dramatically. Patel shared her creative process and personal journaling practice with S&H.

Featured Artist: Erin Robinson

S&H editor Ben Nussbaum spoke with Brooklyn-based artist Erin Robinson about the corporate world, digital art, and her evolution as an illustrator.

An Unexpected Gift of Ginger

Like serotonin for your soul, ginger root during the pandemic can be a balm for anxiety—among its many other benefits. Mary Novaria spins a yarn about how the superfood brought her relief.

Mary Novaria

Mary Novaria is an award-winning essayist whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, O The Oprah Magazine, and many others. She lives in Colorado with her husband an…

Ahimsa: How to Practice Nonviolence in Nature

Do no harm: Three surprising insights and reflections on the practice of ahimsa from the fungi on the forest floor, plus five practices for tapping in.

Follow the Spirit of Your Heart Through Meditation and Awareness

Here are 7 simple soulful steps you can take every day to bring more light to your heart chakra.

Spiritual Responsibility in the Age of Black Lives Matter

“Despite my upbringing, my education, and my experience, I still have a lot to learn about racism in America. ... There is a great deal of listening and learning to be done.”

7 Chakra Healings to Reduce Financial Stress

Has the pandemic triggered money worries? Track the issue to its corresponding chakra to clear your financial challenges and take simple, prescribed steps toward prosperity.

Recipe: Crimson Beets and Purple Cabbage Kraut

Add this colorful and tangy kraut to your salad or stir fry and your taste buds, and gut, will be singing.

Working Toward Loving Conditions for All Beings

Reverend Aline Silva is a Baptist pastor and preacher, and a member of the queer community. She has a profound passion for an intersectional approach to community outreach, which is a central focus in her work with CreatureKind, and a firm belief in the power of radical love.

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Pandemic Fatigue: 20 Affirmations for Getting Through Winter

Banish coronavirus burnout and pandemic fatigue with these positive affirmation statements.

3 Wise Men, 3 Wise Gift-Giving Tips

Deliver delight this year. Look to the Magi to inspire new gift-giving practices this holiday season.

Thankful This Pandemic Season

“Facing mortality is only one of the gifts I am thankful for this pandemic season. Another is lockdown.”

What to Do With the Winter Blues

This year is bluer than most—and this may be the bluest winter on record. Fight the winter blues in five ways.

How I Learned to Pray

“For me, God is no longer some old fellow with a long white beard sitting in a fancy chair who grants boons to some but not to others. The Living Light Philosophy teaches that God is an infinite, divine, intelligent Energy, a consciousness that lovingly sustains all form in all universes.”

Passion and Presence: Aging, Intimacy, and Mindful Sex

A conversation with sex therapist Maci Daye on the importance of bringing play, adventure, and curiosity into the bedroom and why “Great sex has more to do with the state of our mind than with the function of our body.”

Recipe: Pumpkin Pie Granola

Give your senses a thrill and bring the rich and cozy scents of pumpkin pie into the kitchen and onto the breakfast table.

Rivvy Neshama

Rivvy Neshama is a writer, editor, and community organizer who holds degrees in philosophy, comparative literature, social work, and education. Her writing has appeared in such pub…

Black Cats: Reclaiming the Sacred Feline

Halloween and the season of black cats is a good time to examine our misplaced beliefs and return our relationship with cats to a sacred sphere.

7 Steps to Resolve and Release Emotional Turmoil

Pain from the past can build up and fester within us. These 7 steps will help you alleviate that pain and move forward to a more mindful state.

Cultivate Your Spiritual Sweet Tooth

Munching through the Halloween and Christmas holidays alone, Americans consume over a billion dollars of chocolate each year. Turn your sweet tooth into a delectable sacred practice with a side of mindful advocacy.

Knitting as an Act of Love

The shared act of knitting with a beloved grandmother opens up space, time, and stories.

Hope, Peace, and Love: A 2020 Holiday Gift Guide

A small way we can get out from feelings of overwhelm and helplessness is by using our dollars to support people, organizations, and values that are important to us.

Nourishing Self-Care Practices for Now

Stressed? Depleted? Us too. These restorative practices are designed to help you replenish yourself.

Black Lives Matter Protests: Rabbi Rami Answers Your Questions

Rabbi Rami’s inbox has been filling up with questions from people troubled by and conflicted over what they have been seeing in the news. Here are some of the questions that were sent to Rabbi Rami and his responses.

The Spiritual Dementia of Racism

“The place to start deepening my understanding of the unconditional worth of every person is within myself.”

Lessons From Yin Yoga for Managing Chronic Pain

Yin yoga works the connective tissue that wraps around our muscles and carries messages from the brain. By practicing yin yoga, we may be able to reprogram some of the physical patterns causing chronic pain.

Lectio Divina: Divine Reading for the Here and Now

Lectio Divina is an ancient Christian practice that can give you a fresh take on any text.

Personal Accountability in Chaos

James Hollis and Stephen Kiesling discuss Jung, accountability, and the stories we tell ourselves.

Christ and Krishna

Got questions? Rabbi Rami has answers.

A Nature Meditation for Finding Stillness

Navigate these uncertain and unsettling times with this open-eyed, open-senses meditation to ground, center, and enliven you reconnecting with the natural world.

So You Want to Read About Race

With the interest in books about race and anti-racism surging nationwide, many S&H readers are interested in books on those topics specifically. Here are some independent book sellers you can order from who support issues such as social justice and diverse voices.

Traditional Chinese Medicine: The Witchiest Medicine of the West?

Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners are modern-day witches—swapping potions and rituals for age-old proven herbal medicine formulas, acupuncture, moxa burning, and more—providing healing power not only to physical beings, but also to mind and spirit.

Mindi K. Counts, MA, LAc

Mindi Counts is a holistic medical practitioner, herbalist and acupuncturist who uses traditional Chinese medicine to support clients in living their best lives both in her clinic and internationally. Her new book, Everyday Chinese Medicine, is a wisdom guide that demystifies this 2,000-year-old healing practice. By walking the reader through the seasons, elements, and organ systems, the book is easily navigated to pinpoint your unique five element constitution and to set a plan to achieve energetic and physical balance using simple recipes, self-care practices, and time-tested herbal remedies.

Mindi works remotely with clients from all over the world, supporting them in uncovering their constitution and troubleshooting imbalance and illness. In addition to having a private practice in the foothills of Colorado, she also founded a nonprofit that takes her around the world to provide healthcare for deeply impoverished communities.

re/VIEW: Sharon Salzberg

Renowned Buddhist meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg’s first book on meditation was Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness, which she penned in 1995. Since then, she ha…

Community Champion: Sherry Cole

Community Champion Sherry Cole is a tireless advocate for people without housing.

Anna Nussbaum Keating

Anna Keating is the co-author of The Catholic Catalogue: A Field Guide to the Daily Acts That Make Up a Catholic Life (Penguin Random House) and the co-owner of Keat…

5 Ways to Practice Grounding for Spiritual Renewal

“Thirty minutes spent grounded and expressing yourself through visual arts is 30 minutes of fresh, pure creative energy flowing through your body and infusing your cells—to flush old energy out and wash in new life, giving energy on a spiritual level! … A renewal of spirit.”

Music Is My Salvation

“There are very extreme opposites in response to this pandemic, which, in a sense, are in all of us. I’m just hoping that the positive, compassionate response is the one that sings out the loudest.” —Jai Uttal

7 Steps to Emotional Perspective and Transformation

Difficult conversations are a powerful time to learn to handle strong emotions. It's not an easy practice, but it is worth the effort.

Catching Up With Macy Gray

Macy Gray talks with S&H about creating real change with her mental health initiative.

5 Spiritual Lessons We Learn From Cats

Cats are spiritual—or at least they can help us be spiritual. Here are five lessons your spiritual cat wants to teach you.

5 Questions to Help Decode Your Chronic Back Pain

That chronic back pain is a message from your body. Are you listening? These 5 questions will help you gain insight.

Community Champion: Savannah Ballet Theatre’s Abby McCuen

Savannah Ballet Theatre’s Abby McCuen is making theater more inclusive with sensory-friendly performances.

Between Earth Day and Beltane

“It might be time to learn to hunker down, pace ourselves, and try to marinate in all those daily small wonders.”

8 Tips From an Introvert on How to Stay Home

"With stay-home orders issued worldwide and offenders arrested for attending funerals and weddings, it's time that society learned a thing or two from introverts."

Coronavirus From the Perspective of Mother Earth

“What if I look at this pandemic from the perspective of Earth? What might our 4.5 billion-year-old planet have to say to the most disruptive of her 8.7 million species right now?”

A Spiritual Journey of Place, Identity, and Belonging

“As I put roots into the ground, every step I take brings more roots up to accept and welcome me in—into my heritage and into the woman I am slowly becoming, even in this very moment.”

Here’s Your Happiness Shopping List

These feel-good foods are better alternatives than inhaling a sleeve of ultraprocessed crackers.

Drink Less, Meditate More

Even casual drinkers are giving up booze for a month, a year, or forever in a movement that combines mental and physical wellness. Melissa Howsam talks to two mothers of the movement.

The Brainbow Blueprint for Mental Health

There’s a saying that asking people to change their diet is like asking them to change their religion. What we eat and how we eat might be our most personal choices.

Pets and Coronavirus: What We Need to Know

The news that a tiger in the Bronx Zoo tested positive for COVID-19 is raising questions about interspecies transmission and how to keep our pets healthy.

8 Health-Boosting Drink Ingredients for Spring Lockdown

So you need a drink? Here are eight healthful ingredients you likely already have in your home or garden that give maximum boost with minimum thinking time—no recipe required.

Let Go of Pandemic Perfection

The pandemic has put a sudden emphasis on the domestic sphere, and it can feel overwhelming.

Enjoy Yourself, Even Now

It's okay to find the silver lining and enjoy yourself, even now.

Foods to Support Energy and Positive Emotions

“Eating foods that will center or calm your energy center is a great way to shift your energy from anxious and scared, to balanced and strong.”

5 Ways to Be Brave Today

“Now that the whole world feels enveloped in a cloud of fear, we think only healthcare providers and a rare few others can be counted as courageous. Yes, they are: But so are you.”

5 Ways to Unblock Your Home’s Chi

Our homes can exhibit symptoms of stuck chi, leading us to feel lethargic, indecisive, and unmotivated. Here’s how to unblock your home’s chi flow.

4 Super Greens to Grow in Your Spring Garden

Eating a diet rich in greens can help you improve your blood pressure, boost your immune system, enhance your cardiovascular health, and even sharpen your mental capabilities.

Welcoming Spring and Change

Getting out of our comfort zone is not always easy, but we may find that releasing our grip allows it to feel a little more like grace.

An Alternative Spiritual Guide to Disaster

“There’s always some new world on the other side of that destruction, even if we can’t imagine it yet.”

6 Early Signs of Type 2 Diabetes and How to Fight Back

Learn the symptoms of type 2 diabetes, what causes it, and how to take action and regain control of your life.

10 Best Foods For Eye Health

Though lifestyle and genetics play a role in our overall health, when it comes to our precious eyes, seeing clearly is important and it turns out that certain foods can support and improve your eyes’ overall health.

Boost Your Brain: 5 Natural Nootropics

These superfoods not only protect neurological function, they can also improve mental performance.

Guest House: Space for All in an Open Heart

"This is a challenging time worldwide, yet I have great faith that our spiritual communities can become true refuges of love, integrity, and compassion. We can focus on what connects all of us, with honesty at the forefront. Until recently, not many spiritually based organizations had even thought about inclusivity or multiculturalism, or even talked about racism. This has been a facet of the diamond of spiritual life left unpolished for many years."

Recipe: Fennel Apple Radish Salad

Fresh, crunchy, and packed with flavor, this versatile salad will wake up your taste buds.

Recipe: Mediterranean Vegetable Rice

This delicious dish from Jamie Oliver blends green pesto with olive tapenade , creamy mozzarella, and basil.

Get Grounded With These 3 Root Chakra Soups (Plus 1 Bonus Recipe)

Are you looking for more clarity, confidence, security, and balance in your life? It’s possible your root chakra could need some nourishment. Use these three soup recipes to help realign your root chakra.

Featured Artist: Mary Alayne Thomas

S&H editor Ben Nussbaum talked with Portland-based artist Mary Alayne Thomas about Santa Fe, moodiness, querencia, and more.

My Cancer Survival Saga

In this book, the author shares an inspiring and deeply personal cancer story, as well as advice on how to work toward a cure rather than just remission.

Featured Artist: Flora Bowley

S&H editor Ben Nussbaum and Portland-based artist Flora Bowley spoke about teaching, the link between creativity and intuition, and how limitations can create freedom.

Dismantling Your Pandemic Pod

Pandemic pods kept you sane while keeping COVID-19 at bay. It's okay to mourn the loss of your pod as you celebrate the world moving closer to normal.

4 Practices to Embrace Blue Spirituality

Water is more than a resource. Water is a life-bringing entity, via aqua. Embrace old and new practices for healing planetary waters.

Throwing the Bones: Finding Your Future

What does the future hold? Consult with the ancestors about what's to come through a form of divination called bone casting. What will you learn by throwing the bones?

6 Tantric Techniques to Improve Your Sex Life

Applying Tantric techniques can transform your sex life—and your sense of “potent aliveness.”

Black History Month 2021: 8 Ways to Celebrate

From dance parties to conversations with leading scholars, here are online ways to honor Black history and the pursuit of racial justice during Black History Month 2021.

Is It Time for a Robopet?

Robo-dog? Sounds straight out of a sci-fi movie. Technology has come a long way since the 1997 release of the Tamagotchi. Still, today robopets continue to bring comfort and cure loneliness.

Addressing Trauma Through Yoga Practice

Hala Khouri has been a yoga teacher for over 25 years. She is a therapist and somatic experiencing practitioner. She uses her practice to address trauma, stress, and anxiety on a spiritual and physical level.

The Gods May Be Laughing, But ...

We all have a head-mind and a body-mind. And though the head-mind can perform amazing feats of convolution and calculation, the body-mind speaks a simple truth. It doesn’t lie ...

Increase Ojas to Strengthen Your Immune System

Incorporate Ayurvedic eating principles into your life to increase ojas and support your immune system.

12 Ways to Beat Winter Blues

Cooped up inside, hiding from the sunless winter (tundra sometimes included), you may be asking yourself, “What does a girl who kayaks and bikes for sanity do in the winter?” The answer: “Lots of things.”

Redoing Retreats

A retreat, in every definition of the word, may be unattainable in your corner of the world. But retreat centers are anticipating your visit in 2021.

Toolbox: Appreciate Your Feet

It doesn’t have to be sandals season to have twinkle toes.

Making the Mind Leap

Searching for the heart of haiku through Allan Ginsberg and Basho.

Spiritual Radicals: A New Spirituality

These seven spiritual leaders represent a variety of perspectives, backgrounds, and traditions. They are creating change on the ground, touching lives, and helping to define the future of spirituality.

Featured Artist: Carmen García Gordillo

With an assist from Google Translate, S&H editor Ben Nussbaum and Spanish artist Carmen García Gordillo discussed dreams, snakes, yoga, and much more.

Roadmap for Resilience After a Broken Heart

Opening ourselves to life means becoming vulnerable, which means that at some point we will suffer loss and pain. Being achingly present to the experience helps us recover.

Eat With Grace to Deepen Your Connection With Others and the Earth

Eating with mindfulness and awareness may be one of the clearest pathways to understanding the soul/mind/body connection and can help strengthen our bond to the rest of the natural world.

Want to Try Intuitive Eating? Here Are 5 Ways to Get Started

Tuning in to your body’s cues when it comes to eating is easier said than done. But with practice and patience, intuitive eating is a great way to figure out what your body really needs.

7 Unique Valentine’s Day Gifts for a Wellness and Self-Care Lifestyle

In a sea of chocolates and roses, it can be hard to choose a Valentine’s Day gift that speaks to the unique passions of your chosen recipient.

Recipe: Turmeric Roasted Roots

Turn these delicious roasted roots into a main meal by serving on a bed of cooked grains, like quinoa, along with a few dark salad greens like baby kale or spinach.

9 Tips to Detox Your Closet

“A closet detox is not simply decluttering—it’s emotional detox.”

Why You Want Turmeric in Your Life

Turmeric root is one of those rare and valuable herbs that is balancing for all of the doshas, or Ayurvedic body types, making it a beneficial addition to almost everyone’s diet.

Self-Trust: Two Secrets to Try

We can’t second-guess every choice we make. So how do we know what it means for something to feel right?

Acceptance: The Surprising Antidote to Suffering

“We tend to think of stress as something that happens outside of ourselves; something that happens to us. But science is showing that it’s not the stressors in our life, but how we perceive them that determines how much we suffer.”

A Ritual for Honoring the Loss of a Human or Animal Companion

Rosemary has long signified deep friendship and lasting memories. This ritual for grief, built around rosemary, creates time and space for grieving and allows others to join and share the healing process.

The Discussion: How Can I Pray Better?

And should better prayer even be a goal?

Build Resilience by Creating an Upward Emotional Spiral

Want to be more resilient? Start building your resilience now and benefit in hard times. Start by being mindful with your emotions and learning to focus on 'moments that glisten.'

Mindful Money Management

“There are plenty of good tips out there for how to manage our money, but if we’re not taking into account the emotional side of it, we’ll never be able to truly make change.”

9 Wellness Resources for Black Women When Life Gets You Down

Black Girl Magic can’t protect us from everything. Here are nine online resources to help black women keep our cool when racism rears its ugly head.

9 Tips for Enhancing Your Emotional Wellbeing in 2020

Boosting your emotional wellbeing doesn’t always have to feature grand gestures and sweeping changes. Here are nine small adjustments you can make in your day-to-day life.

Frustration and Change Don’t Need to be Linked

Similar to meditation, intuitive art is an approach to examine issues in a less judgment-filled way.

The Purpose of Prayer

“Prayer is very important when we utilize it to reach God, because it connects us to Him. It’s the way of talking to God.”

Detox Your Fridge

Prepare for success by turning your refrigerator into a lean, mean, clean machine.

20 Creative (and Shame-Free) New Year’s Resolutions

Sometimes we set ourselves up for failure by making promises we can’t keep or by initiating resolutions steeped in self-blame.

Build a Better Morning with Ayurveda

Integrative psychiatrist Judith Pentz, MD, shares six ways Ayurveda can rejuvenate mind, body, and spirit.

Waking Up to the World of Dreams

Learn how leverage your imagination to explore your dreams, which can act as a catalyst for expanding self-awareness.

Our Walk in the World: The Quarter Turn

I suddenly knew I was looking at it from the wrong angle and I gave the cloth in my hand a quarter turn. Immediately I saw a beautiful and coherent golden pattern. ... In won…

Recipe: Pear and Candied Ginger Muffins

We may all go a little stir-crazy when the shorter, colder days of winter keep us stuck in the house, but at least we have baking to look forward to as a hibernation activity.

8 Tricks for Controlling Holiday Binge Eating and Drinking

Avoid overeating and drinking too much this holiday season by mindfully focusing on giving yourself pleasure rather than trying to numb the pain.

The Intertwined Nature of Dharma and Karma

What is the difference between dharma and karma? Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswatiji explains.

Poem: A Participation of Waters

“It’s raining and I let myself sit and look / a long time. At water returning, or rather,”

How Listening Shapes Your Stories

Increased literacy, critical thinking, empathy, and cultural learning are all connected to storytelling, which starts with listening.

8 Meaningful Gifts for Everyone on Your List

Fill your loved ones’ stockings with just the right gift to fuel their passion.

4 Super Powerful Pantry Herbs (and How to Use Them)

Common herbs parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme are packed with health benefits.

Eleanor Ford

Eleanor Ford, whose architect father designed hotels in Bali and Java, was a frequent traveler to Indonesia throughout her childhood. One particular grey winter in London, she and …

Thanksgiving and Gratitude in Hard Times

Many Americans struggling with health, financial, and emotional problems find it challenging to feel grateful this Thanksgiving. Learn how to develop an attitude of gratitude.

How Now, Brown Cow

“The fact that I am not among the 16.4 million Americans who think chocolate milk comes from brown cows is sheer luck!”

​8 Ways to Feel More at Home in a New House

Moving is exciting—and stressful. Here are ways to make your new space feel more “you.”

A President Who Thinks Outside the Pew

Will there ever be a U.S. President who sits outside mainstream Christianity? That might be the wrong question to ask.

Create Your Own Rituals: Ideas for Weddings, Funerals, and More

“When we, or someone we love, goes through a rite of passage, we need the alchemical blend of jubilation and gravitas.”

Ways of Knowing

Intuitive ways of knowing go beyond conscious thinking and guide us to truths that are difficult to prove or even explain.

Film Review: Fantastic Fungi

Louie Schwartzberg’s documentary is a dreamy, informative, and hopeful dive into the world of mushrooms and fungi

3 Ways to Harness the Healing Power of Comfrey

Infused into oil, tea, or a salve, the herb Comfrey can heal the respiratory system, stomach, and bladder.

Eat Well, Laugh a Lot

Mark Hyman and Mia Lux are trying to make people healthier—body and soul.

How to Fight Inflammation with Food

There’s a simple thing you can do to control systemic inflammation: focus on nutrition, with delicious foods like berries. Here’s what to choose, and what to skip.

What Can Be Done About Religious Fanatics?

“In addition to neutralizing its noxious expressions, we need to learn more about what drives religious fanaticism and take steps to prevent it from taking root in the minds and hearts of the young.”

How Listening to Your Gut Can Curb Anxiety: An Eater’s Guide

Creating balance in your gut can help to alleviate your anxiety.

The Time for a Spiritual Revolution is Now

Our collective purpose is to discover, surrender, and inspire.

The Art Inside You

The world needs our creativity, compassion, and intuitive intelligence. Today it is essential that we sense the interconnectedness of our world. Whatever happens to any one of us —…

Music Review: Beautiful Love

Beautiful LovePaulinho GarciaJazzmin Records and Shrinktunes MediaBeautiful Love, by Paulinho Garcia could be the perfect soundtrack for this scene in your life: enjoying a sunset …

Book Review: Rewilding Our Hearts

Rewilding Our HeartsBuilding Pathways of Compassion and CoexistenceBy Marc BekoffNew World LibraryI saw Jane Goodall give a talk in person once. When she took questions at the…

Music Review: Freedom Highway

Freedom HighwayRhiannon GiddensNonesuch RecordsFreedom Highway is the new album of soulful Southern tunes by Rhiannon Giddens, who previously won a Grammy Award as a member of the …

Film Review: Seed: The Untold Story

Seed: The Untold Story Jon Betz and Taggart Siegel Collective Eye Films Documentaries about the environment and food safety are a dime a dozen, but here’s a topic that’s rarely …

Film Review: Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet

Kahlil Gibran’s The ProphetDirected by Roger AllersGKIDS There are few things in life more glorious than the sound of Liam Neeson reading lines from the great poet Gibran’s The Pr…

Awakening the Heroine with Carol Pearson

Rabbi Rami talks to Carol S. Pearson, Ph.D. about her new book Persephone Rising: Awakening the Heroine Within. A review of her book an be found in November/December 2015 issue of …

Creative at Midlife with Gay Hendricks

Eve Hogan talks to Gay Hendricks about the power of creativity, the different dynamics of relationships in midlife, and his new book Conscious Loving Ever After. An excerpt from th…

Cold Turkey

At first, being vegetarian was great, and when I say great at first, I’m really referring to the time between making the conscious decision to forever swear off meat and the 22 hou…

Music Review: Winds of Samsara

Winds of SamsaraRicky Kej & Wouter Kellerman Revolution Studios/Kellerman MusicNonviolence and world peace are themes gently blowing through Winds of Samsara, the beautifu…

The Chant at This Sacred Ritual Is Cheers

It was a Saturday evening, and attending would mean spending two days in a row in church. Nevertheless, many of the congregation gathered in fellowship for a sacred ritual—the annual beer contest.

Barefoot Healing

The old people came literally to love the soil, and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. It was good for the skin to touch the ear…

Building a New Relationship With My Feet

As a kid, my hands and feet were a source of quiet shame for me. I was born with what adults kindly referred to as “old soul’s hands,” which in the schoolyard translated to a regul…

Forbidden Rice? How Watermelon Heals

“Forbidden” Black Rice Rivals Blueberries in AntioxidantsBlueberries are well known for their high antioxidant levels and disease-fighting properties, but the king of berries has a…

Dynamize Your Garden With These Biodynamic Practices

One afternoon last summer, an official from the Department of Agriculture unexpectedly stopped by Angela Macke’s farm in Leelanau County, Michigan, to give her—believe it or not—an…

The Heart of Tantra

When I was a young student of religions, my first Sanskrit teacher, Nandini, with her ever-mirthful air of serenity, lured her entire class headlong into the tangled jungle of that…

7 Ways to Make Happiness Last

As a surgeon I have used the word “cancer” — the C-word — thousands of times in my life. I have spent my entire professional life researching it, trying to find ways to resect it, …

Transformative Travel: The Advantages of Many Gods

“What’s the most soulful place in Taipei?” I asked a Taiwanese woman whose English name is Norma.“Come with me,” she said, and she led me to the much-beloved Longshan Temple in the…

Rumi

Whirling DervishText and Illustrations by DemiMarshall Cavendish, 2009, $19.99Turkish and Chinese inks with gold overlay fill Demi’s joyful children’s book about the man many consi…

Every Second Something Happens

Poems for the Mind and SensesSelected by Christine San José and Bill Johnson, with illustrations by Melanie HallPoetry for children has to be the very best. It has to tickle the mi…

The Raw Truth

The Raw Truth: Recipes and Resources for the Living Foods Lifestyleby Jeremy S. SafronWith more than 200 recipes to delight the palate, enticing and colorful photos, and just the r…

Expanding Horizons

by Atmic Vision The three musicians who comprise Atmic Vision have created an exotic fusion of Indian and American styles that is accessible and mesmerizing. Their Indian bamboo f…

The Grandfathers

Written by Jim Hanon and Jillian Hanon, Produced by Mart GreenEthnographic Media presents this film about a young man’s search for answers to his own identity among the South Ameri…

Tasting the Universe

Tasting the Universe: A Spiritual and Scientific Exploration of SynesthesiaBy Maureen SeabergNew Page BooksImagine a world in which numbers have color, musical sounds shimmer …

Gabriel Mann and Tanya Witman

Vive, Chakra SongsParkhill Records / Shabby MusicGabriel Mann and Tanya Witman have created this music to enhance relaxation and activate the energy of the chakras, using the known…

Ann Licater

Following the Call: Wood and Clay Flute Music for Meditation and InspirationCul de Sac Mystic ProductionsAnn Licater skillfully blends intuition and her classical training to craft…

The Barefoot Book of Earth Tales

By Dawn Casey, with illustrations by Anne WilsonBarefoot Books, 2009, $19.99Both children and adults will delight in these seven stories from seven different cultures, pleasingly r…

In the River They Swim

Essays from Around the World on Enterprise Solutions to PovertyEdited by Michael Fairbanks, Malik Fal, Marcela Escobar-Rose, and Elizabeth HooperTempleton Foundation Press, 2009, $…

What If a Day

N. Sophia EngkvistSophia’s SongfireEngkvist’s ethereal songs are New Age in style and, with the exception of the title song, are her original writing. Accompanying Engkvist’s vocal…

Kelsey Brown

Kelsey Brown is the is the writer and creator of http://happyolks.com, a blog dedicated to sharing the experience of creating wholesome meals and the happiness that inherently grows from it. Kelsey believes that when we make room in our lives to celebrate the good things growing, we can honor the earth, the day, and one another. When she's not making messes in the kitchen, you can find her biking, hiking, running, and more at her new home (playground) of Denver, Colorado with her partner, Shaun Boyte.

Music Review: Rising Appalachia

Rising AppalachiaWider CirclesRISING APPALACHIA A few years ago a friend emailed me the music video for Sunu by Rising Appalachia. The simple and earthy song had a playful feeling…

Koralations

Foday Musa Suso and Gretchen RoweSUSO MUSICKORALATIONS IS A MEETING of two musical storytellers from distant continents. Foday Musa Suso grew up in Gambia, Africa, in a family of M…

Root-to-Stalk Cooking

The Art of Using the Whole VegetableBy Tara DugganTen Speed PressIn an age of nose-to-tail animal cookery, it’s only natural that an enterprising chef should turn her attentio…

Book Review: Personal Intelligence

Personal IntelligenceThe Power of Personality and How It Shapes Our LivesBy John D. MayerScientific American/Farrar, Straus and GirouxIt’s always exciting when an original psycholo…

The Earth Made New

Plains Indian Stories of CreationBy Paul Goble, with Foreword by Joe Medicine CrowWorld Wisdom, 2009, $17.95Joe Medicine Crow tells how he would follow his grandfather everywhere, …

Seven Falls

Marshall StylerStyler Music, BMIMarshall Styler is known for creating deeply moving melodies for piano and instrumental keyboard accompaniments; this gentle and romantic improvisat…

"Anastasis" by Dead Can Dance

Rebirth. That’s how fans worldwide of Dead Can Dance must be describing the release of DCD’s first album in 16 years, Anastasis. Indeed, “anastasis” is the Greek word for “res…

Book Review: Eating Wildly

Eating WildlyForaging for Life, Love, and the Perfect MealBy Ava ChinSimon & Schuster On first glance, Ava Chin’s Eating Wildly runs the risk of feeling overly busy: part memoir, …

Music Review: The Gospel According to the Other Mary

The Gospel According to the Other Mary: A Passion Oratorio in Two ActsJohn AdamsDeutsche GrammophonThe Passion story—the story of the arrest and execution of Jesus—is always told w…

Turning the Tide against Fracking

Love. It may sound corny, but it’s what drove Sandra Steingraber to spark an uprising against an industry focused on short-term economic gain at the expense of long-term environmen…

Alice Walker Film Review: Beauty in Truth

Pratibha Parmar’s powerful new film, Beauty in Truth, recounts the historically rich story of the first African American woman writer to win a Pulitzer Prize. Walker has publish…

3 Great Homemade Health Tonics

Get up close and personal with kombucha, kefir, and kvass.

Joy in Her Bones

An American journalist honors her mother with an altar during Mexico's Day of the Dead celebration.

Natural Medicine: Is Coffee Good or Bad for You?

I was thrilled to read the National Institutes of Health study that found so many benefits to drinking coffee. What are your thoughts on this?Dr. Michael Murray: My first thought w…

Perpetual Motion

Vivian "Spiral" Hancock finds her flow in circus arts.

Let There Be dark

Light pollution harms the environment, wildlife, and even human health.

Honey Primer + 5 Honey Ideas

Its healthful benefits, from allergy aid to antioxidant superhero (plus recipes).

Everything Radish—from Taxonomy to Tabletop

Part of the cruciferous family, radishes are in season in the early spring and early fall. Victoria Shanta Retelny, author of The Essential Guide to Healthy Healing Foods, from 201…

Appreciating Our Body, Imperfections and All

An Excerpt from Parenting with Presence

Feeding a California Community

With her Oakland-based nonprofit People's Grocery, Nikki Henderson is leading more than just a food revolution.

Channeling Depression Into a Powerful Tool for Creativity

I wouldn't exactly call depression a gift, but I’ve come to accept the restless emptiness and nagging sadness as signals from my soul instead of merely the symptoms of an illness t…

Out of Her Element

Writer Jennie Dorris thought she left the wilderness behind when she chose city life, but nature continued to guide her.

The Second Coming of Psychedelics

The times, they are a'changin'—explore how psychedelic medicines have found popularity in the 21st century.

The Power of Group Devotion, 100 Million Strong

Groups of Sadhus, Hindu holy men, their foreheads smeared with sacred ash, their necks encircled with marigold garlands as bright orange as the robes they wear, sit atop decorated …

Hungry for More: What to Eat for Sexual Vitality

Rev up your sexual vitality with cinnamon and other surprising foods.

Home Sweet Home? Not for Domestic Workers. Ai-jen Poo Demands Justice

On the front lines fighting for the dignity of an invisible workforce, Ai-jen Poo aims to rehumanize society.

Ayurveda for Inflammation

Every choice we make, everything we do, is either inflammatory or anti-inflammatory. Try Ayurveda for inflammation.

Riding the Edge at Maya Yoga

Just getting to Nicki Doane and Eddie Modestini’s yoga studio in the rain-forested heart of Maui inspires a change in attitude. Head east on Hana Highway (a twisting, rainbow-washe…

Hemp, The Hero Plant

Celebrate the third annual Hemp History Week, June 4th - 10th, with a plethora of products that are good for you and for our planet. Eco-friendly hemp isn't only a nutritious food,…

Using a Love Triangle to Ease Tension

Learn how to recognize your Hero, Victim, and Villain.

What Makes an Ordinary Place a Sacred Space?

With one in five Americans now unaffiliated with organized religion, a new generation is on a journey to create—or discover—the next great sacred space.

Reclaiming Energy Medicine

Intuition medicine pioneer Francesca McCartney has grown from a nearly silent little girl into an outspoken proponent of a once-clandestine healing technology, making the science of energy a respectable twenty-first-century health care choice.

Take 10

This simple way to use conscious, rhythmic breathing can help you savor life and live more fully.

Budokon with Cameron Shayne

Budokon started off as a Hollywood fitness fad, but creator Cameron Shayne left the limelight to take his life arts program to a deeper level.

Living Large in Small Spaces

Several years ago, film student Christopher Smith saw a magazine cover that caught his eye. The auspicious image — a smiling Washingtonian named Dee Williams, relaxing in her 84-sq…

Microgreen Power

When it comes to plant-based nutrition, most people envision long rows of organic farmland with luxurious stretches of leafy lettuces, kale, and other greens. But there’s another t…

The Soundtrack of Healing

Outside the main entrance to the 80-acre campus of Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center in Lafayette, Colorado, the air is filled with the sweet serenade of chirping bobwhites and…

Petal Power: Healing with Flower Essences

Try flower essences to gently catalyze mental, emotional, and even spiritual transformation.

The Dangers of Microbeads

Leaders against plastic pollution, Marcus Eriksen and Anna Cummins ask cosmetics companies to rethink “microbeads.”

The Healing Power of Water

For millennia, humans have sought physical relief, emotional healing, and even spiritual renewal by immersing themselves in water. Writer Lindsey Crittenden soaks it all in.

6 Traits for a Sustainable You

The health of the planet may be linked to humanity’s psychological health. Embracing an encouraging worldview of beauty and creativity can enrich our spirits, revitalize our lives, and maybe even save civilization.

The Spiritual Traveler: Why Does God Hate Me?

Rabbi Rami Shapiro is an award-winning author, poet, and teacher. In this column, he answers reader-submitted questions pertaining to faith, morality, religious traditions, and oth…

Earthly Goods: Get Fit, Feel Better

Strengthen Your CoreI have a friend in her late 80s who has more pep in her step and sparkle in her eye than ever — and she attributes it to her thrice weekly Pilates sessions that…

Teachers We Trust

Here’s a simple truth: Everyone is a spiritual teacher. Parents, of course, are profound spiritual teachers. So are children. So are siblings. So are priests and imams and school t…

Stressed Out? Scared? Taking Yourself Too Seriously?

Forget feathers, bones, and beads. Most shamans dress normally and carry no magic objects. In these exercises you are asked to play. Try the trickster way of tinkering with your li…

To Your Health

This summer, bring a splash of color to your table.As someone who has been fascinated by and infatuated with food for as long as I can remember (and through subsequent chapters as …

Summer Festival Round-Up

[EDITOR'S NOTE: WE ARE NO LONGER ACCEPTING ENTRIES FOR THE BHAKTI TICKET GIVEAWAY, CONGRATS TO OUR WINNER!]Every summer, countless people flock to outdoor amphitheaters, campground…

Survival Consciousness

Infinite bliss and enlightenment may be just a breath away. But what does that really mean?Many years ago a stage hypnotist came to my high school for a routine performance in whic…

That Barking Dog May Want to Chat About Fairness

Scientists tell us that humans and wolves began to cooperate with each other for the simple reason that they shared the same habitat and hunted the same prey. But what started as e…

Balancing the Brain Toward Joy

An Interview with Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.Twelve years ago, at 37, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist and spokeswoman for the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Cen…

Sleep: What You Need to Know

Every night we lie mostly paralyzed and unconscious, snuffed out except for brief flares of Technicolor quasi-psychosis we call dreaming. Why?

Material World

BLACK PURSE FROM INNER TUBESIn Latin America, tire repair shops (take out the inner tube, patch, etc.) are ubiquitous and carry the lively name of “vulcanizadoras,” for the Greek V…

Just Say T–I–A

My wife, Amy, arrived with Patrick Dale Sutherland, our newly adopted 14-month-old son from Zambia, on Sunday, April 26. She had been in Zambia for 14 weeks. Zambia is a peaceful c…

Sailing into Sacred Spaces

A warm tropical sun caresses our bodies. Clean, cool water beckons us to go snorkeling. The British Virgin Islands overwhelm the senses with their spectacular physical beauty, espe…

Going Out Green

One Man’s Adventure Planning His Own Natural BurialOld Arctic Inuit hunters could supposedly sit for days, harpoon poised and ready to strike, just staring at a hole on an otherwis…

Where Professional Chefs Shop for Ideas

While some chefs belong to culinary think tanks or attend creative recipe-writing workshops in venues like Bologna or San Sebastian, most of the world’s top restaurant chefs need n…

Why We Remember Days with Wine and Chocolate

Protect Your Brain with Things You LoveNew research links moderate consumption of wine, chocolate, and tea with improved cognitive function and reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease …

Rituals for Wastelands

"Pastures ranged over the rolling hills. Tall oak and beech woods lined both sides of the valley, and when sunlight suffused through them, they seemed as enchanted to Lisa as when she and her sister had played there as children."

Putting Chakras in Their Place

An anatomist studies the maps of our human energy systems.

Try the Deity with Alcohol Dribbling Down His Chin

The first time I saw him in Guatemala, he was sitting on a chair in a native marketplace, dressed in a black suit, black shoes, and black hat. His mouth was open, shaped into a sma…

This Thanksgiving, Call in the Directions

Over the past 25 years, the Mankind Project and New Warrior Training Adventure have created safe “containers” for more than 43,000 men to work on self-examination and to connect wi…

When It’s Time for Dad to Give up the Keys

Transitional Keys is a groundbreaking program that uses the elements and structure of ritual to ease people through whatever transition is occurring.

Transformative Travel: In Search of Mary and Miracles

For most of us, the word “Fatima” conjures up images of three shepherd children who, while praying the rosary in a field in central Portugal on May 13, 1917, saw a vision of the Vi…

Making Peace With Salt

Even as the FDA harangues the food industry for using excessive levels of sodium, and your doctor tsk-tsks at your high blood pressure, bear in mind that salt keeps us alive. The h…

One Couple's Search for Oneness

By Judith Blackstone, Ph.D. and Zoran Josipovic, Ph.D.As a couple, we have been attempting to create a shared understanding of the experience of the underlying oneness of God and c…

The Heart's Original Position

Eight years ago, Smithsonian magazine sent me to Wyoming to write about a Northern Arapaho man named Stanford Addison, who had a growing reputation as a horse trainer. He was noted…

Create a Garden of the Senses

Sensory gardens look, smell, feel, taste, and sound beautiful. They are designed to be therapeutic for those with special needs.Yet the greatest healing of these magical places com…

Transformative Travel: Three Museums That Will Shake Your Soul

Here are three museums that take the notion seriously that who we are—spiritually, morally, ethically—is not a fixed thing. These museums plunk visitors into radical, intense, real…

Close to Grace: The Physics of Silent Transmission

A laser pioneer explores how the coherent light of a laser beam may help explain the joy experienced in the presence of a saint or a sage.

The Physics of Our Entanglements

Reality isn’t what it used to be.Historians disagree over precisely when it changed. Some say the year 1905. Others point to key events in 1964 and 1982. I think of it as a glacial…

Focusing on What Matters, Moment by Moment

“Many of the world's contemplative traditions teach that the normal mind is afflicted in various ways; that since it so readily brings us suffering and anxiety, it can't be deemed healthy.”

The Joy of Thanks

Shifting into gratitude not only feels great, research shows that it is powerfully healing.

Should Non-Natives Practice Indigenous Religions?

Seekers in the West hunger to learn from indigenous spiritual teachers, but what are the politics and ethics of taking on and changing the traditions of others?

The Quest for Justice

As any detective knows, when something is missing that should be present, a void where there should be a plenum, it is an important clue. Like the archetypal philosophical detective Socrates, I set out to discover what had happened to justice. Had it disappeared from modern minds, hearts, and conversation? Or merely from the consciousness of New Age pilgrims?

Iced Tea Taste Test

At the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, iced tea was the preferred drink among the attendees. Today, it accounts for 75 percent of the tea we drink in North America.The first recip…

Letters to My Mom

A moment of gratitude from Sonia Kang to Irene Martinez

Why Nostalgia is Good for Us

Nostalgia has been found to be a valuable coping tool for dealing with loneliness, boredom, and anxiety.

The Upside of Talking to Strangers

Technology tends to isolate us from others, but science points to the real value in reaching out.

Cell Phone Safety: Electromagnetic fields are a cause for concern

Chances are, you’ve heard reports linking cell phones to brain cancer—then a second later, you might have pulled your iPhone out of your pocket to answer a call. Nonetheless, a sli…

Natural Medicine: Quick Tips for Better Health

I hear that ghee has a higher level of bad cholesterol, but I thought it was better for you than butter. Which is healthier, ghee or butter?Dr. Michael Murray: Ghee is clarified bu…

A Christmas Pilgrimage

A pilgrimage to the Taos Pueblo for a traditional ceremony gives author Rivvy Neshama a new understanding of Christmas.One year, after family plans fell through, John and I were de…

Use Rituals to Ease the Anguish of Loss

Experts and survivors agree—use rituals to ease the anguish of loss. Then practice acts of love to move forward toward a sense of peace.Near midnight on Good Friday, 1990, just hou…

Everything You Need to Know About Seaweed

When most of us hear the word "seaweed," we think of nori, the pressed dried sheets of kelp used to wrap around sushi. But those papery sheets are just a small sampling of the abun…

Becoming Ourselves: A great read can help us discover our highest self

Becoming Kuan Yin: The Evolution of CompassionBy Stephen Levine (Weiser Books) Stephen Levine’s Becoming Kuan Yin tells of Miao Shan, the daughter of a spiteful Chinese king. When…

In Pursuit of Sacred Sex

In a world where Judeo-Christian faith no longer writes the rules on intimacy, who will define the new sexual ethics?

Ghee Whiz: Try clarified butter for a tasty—and healthful—alternative to oil

For centuries, cooks across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East have heated butterfat to remove the milk solids and water, making ghee, or clarified butter. Ghee has a longer shelf l…

The Heart of Money: Is Solar a Good Investment?

[Paul pictured with his oldest son, who heads to university this fall.]

Face to the Floor: How a Buddhist American woman opened her heart to Islam

Omar stood on my doorstep, smiling and peering at me through square, outdated glasses. He placed his hand over his heart in a traditional Muslim greeting and stepped inside. His d…

The 10 Breaths Practice

Excerpted from Ten Breaths to Happiness: Touching Life in Its Fullness, by Glen Schneider

Design Therapy

Does your décor reveal your secret anxieties? Never fear—holistic design expert Laura Benko is here.

A Food Cure for Inflammation

Herbalist Kathy Abascal is on a mission to change the way we eat, with her TQI (“to quiet inflammation”) diet plan.

The 10 Breaths Practice

Excerpted from Ten Breaths to Happiness: Touching Life in Its Fullness, by Glen Schneider

Product Review: Healthy Eating Web Sites

Get the stats, the recipes—and the all-important incentive—from these entertaining experts.

Post-traumatic Strength, through Faith

A Light at the End of the Trauma Tunnel

Beauty From the Sea

“We turn to the ocean around us to restore, replenish, and purify the ocean that is within all of us,” says Dan Fryda, a.k.a. the “Jacques Cousteau of the beauty world,” and founde…

How to Achieve Whole Body Happiness

One thing I have learned in my weekly men's group is how fragile we are. Lawyer, felon, editor-in-chief, our lives go up and down. We are healthy and not, wealthy and not. Yet we s…

40 Years of Moosewood: Memories & Recipes from the Legendary Vegetarian Restaurant

The cookbooks that fed a generation—and sparked a vegetarian revolution—got their start at the improbable restaurant that became a legend.

Pilgrimage to India with MC Yogi

Bhakti-hop innovator MC Yogi travels to India for an unwitting spiritual chiropractic adjustment—and artistic inspiration for his newest musical offering.

True Intimacy

I INVITE BEAU, now four, to lunch. I want him to meet my good friend Koho, who is visiting from Detroit. I haven’t seen Koho for several years. He is busy in his role as the guidin…

Enjoy the Fun of Getting, But Teach the Power of Giving

To these perennial questions, I offer some answers — not to close a conversation, but to broaden one. I do not claim to know anything you don’t know, but if I can help you remember…

Veg Revolution: Recipes from Moosewood Restaurant

Moosewood Cookbook—that cozy, hand-lettered, and charmingly illustrated collection of vegetarian recipes—is one of the 10 best-selling cookbooks of all time. But more than being a …

Gifts from Trees

They house us, feed us, and help us breathe, yet what we tend to forget is the healing aspect of trees. Leaves, bark, and buds have long been used in rituals and medicines, and now…

Your Food Pharmacy

Before chronic health issues like inflammation and fatigue take hold, look for a cure in your kitchen.

Turmeric: The Healing Spice

Easy ways to benefit from nature's golden treasure.

The Medicine of Poetry

“I never could connect with poetry,” Jan said. “I’m a math teacher!” She was sitting on my living room couch surrounded by piles of poetry books. On the coffee table was a stack of…

Try This Back-to-School Line Dance

At Naropa, the arts university “dedicated to advancing contemplative education” in Boulder, Colorado, students in the Master of Divinity program are anywhere from 20-something to 6…

It’s Summer! Hurry Up and Relax!

An exercise to relax ... and connect with summertime.

The Eye-Twitch Path to Peace

Two months before my 38th birthday, I was offered the job of my lifetime: joining the marketing and management consulting staff of a large, well-regarded international consulting g…

The Self and the Other

Civil rights expert John A. Powell explores the delicate yet enduring cord between our spiritual practice and social justice.

Challenging the Legacy of Privilege

Awakening us to our interdependency with others, Paul Kivel questions the mythology of success based on individual achievement and hard work.

The Tattoo Lady and the Pastor

The first time I heard about Mary was through her daughter. Out of the blue, the daughter called to interview me. She searched for, “A liberal pastor that would not be bothered by …

Latest Remodeling Tip: Install a Faraday Cage

For at least the past 35 years, scientists have debated the health effects of exposure to electromagnetic radiation. Does it cause cancer? Does it overexcite our wearied and worrie…

You May Not Put Down Your Chalk!

“You may not put down your chalk. You may not return to your desk until you have correctly solved the math problem!” bellowed Sister. Once again, I was losing the math relay for my…

Material World September-October 2009

START YOUR DAY WITH PASSIONWho wouldn’t want to enjoy premium gourmet coffee while supporting fair trade, biodiversity, bird habitat, organic agriculture, and indigenous rights? Hi…

Can Too Much Meat Lead to Diabetes?

Too much protein eaten along with fat may lead to insulin resistance, reports an animal study from Duke University Medical Center, providing a clue as to why the blood chemistry of…

Wild Edible Greens

Foraging wild edible plants connects us to the abundance of nature and to our ancestors. Discover which greens to pick, prepare, and pair with Frey’s biodynamic wines.

The Wisdom of the Wilt: Medicine for a Tired Spirit

It might seem counterintuitive, but wilting can be a great strategy for long-term growth.

How To Be Weird: 2 Tips To Beat Monotony

Use these two spiritual and practical tips to embrace the strangeness of life.

How to Turn a Wine Tasting Into a Spiritual Experience

A spiritual wine tasting experience connects nature and winemaking in revelatory communion.

5 Best Crystals for Focus

Can’t concentrate? Wear, carry, or display fluorite and other crystals for focus.

Featured Artist: Shelley Kommers

S&H Editor Ben Nussbaum spoke with Los Angeles-based artist Shelley Kommers about mandalas, the colors pink and green, and working with gold leaf.

An Ethical Obligation to Ticks?

Ticks are animals, just like us. Is it possible to stay safe while keeping ticks in our circle of compassion?

Awyn Dawn

Awyn Dawn is a pagan high priestess who has been working with spiritual seekers for nearly ten years. After being incarcerated and overcoming her own life challenges, Awyn dedicate…

A Ritual-Full Life

“Every time I have gathered in community ritual or personal ceremony, I have experienced a healing.”

Music Review: Breaking the Thermometer

Breaking the Thermometer by Leyla McCalla is an ambitious and rewarding project that intersects music, politics, journalism, and personal history. A vocalist and multi-instrument…

Holy Habitats

Instead of traveling to distant spiritual sites, what we if we found such sanctuaries in our own selves?

Mother Aya

How can plant sacred medicine bring us back to a place of rootedness?

Lisa Solomon

Lisa Solomon received her BA in art practice from UC Berkeley, her MFA from Mills College, and has been a professor in the Bay Area for over fifteen years. She is profoundly intere…

Quiz: What’s Your Nourishment Style?

Find your unique nourishment style, based on the five elements and Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Poem: Sand and Legs

A poem from the forthcoming book Real.Vibrant, poems for all that matters

How and Why to Use Yoga for Menstruation

Yoga, when utilized skillfully, can be exceptionally helpful during your period. Dive into how you can practice yoga for menstruation.

How To Embody the Triple Goddess Archetype

Understanding the gifts and lessons of each aspect of the Triple Goddess can create wholeness and unity within us, no matter our chronological age.

Podcast: Awyn Dawn, Paganism on Parole

What is it like to deepen your spirituality in prison, as a pagan? Author and high priestess Awyn Dawn shares with Rabbi Rami.

An Autumn Equinox Ritual

Day Schildkret offers a Shake and Harvest Ritual. His newest book is Hello, Goodbye: 75 Rituals for Times of Loss, Celebration and Change.

A Life of Evolution

Trailblazer Joseph L. Graves, Jr. believes that we can solve stubborn problems by applying the science of evolutionary biology.

Guided Audio Meditation: Root Yourself in Nature

Connect to the peace of our planet in 10 minutes with a guided outdoor mindfulness meditation.

Oracle Cards: No Wrong Answers

Confused about oracle cards? Oracle experts explain what they're all about.

Hot Mugs and Mocktails to Induce Calm and Boost Health

Sip mindfully with matcha, masala spice, and more.

Lessons From an Underwater Monastery

“Each morning I threw on a wetsuit and plunged into a life-filled, underwater monastery.”

5 Ways to Handle Energy Pushers and Energy Thieves

Energy pushers and energy thieves can both leave you feeling depleted and depressed. Learn how to spot them and preserve your positive energy.

5 Journaling Prompts & Affirmations for Chronic Pain

Managing chronic pain takes a multi-pronged approach. Affirmations and journaling prompts for chronic pain can help.

Spiritual Meaning of the Full Worm Moon

Springtime brings a much-anticipated return to life. The spiritual meaning of the Worm Moon is a subtle yet powerful reminder of the early stirrings of that life.

Interrupting Trauma in its Tracks With Somatic Experiencing

SCOPE is designed for grounding yourself during high-stress situations, disrupting your body’s trauma response.

Breathwork for the Sensual Self

Sensuality is an intimacy with one’s core being and desires. When we practice breathwork, we arouse and express our sensual self.

What’s in Jo Dunbar’s Herbalist Garden?

Jo Dunbar’s holistic approach combines herbal medicine with hypnotherapy, diagnostic tests, nutritional supplements, and dietary advice.

How to Get Guidance From Your Dreams

Dreams respond well to engagement. Asking dreams for guidance is an ancient, widespread tradition, and easily accessible.

Seeing Is Empathy

Mixed-media artist Morgan Harper Nichols explores how art can lead to empathy.

Soothing Anxiety by Balancing the Solar Plexus Chakra

The solar plexus chakra is key when it comes to anxiety. Discover how to bring balance to this chakra.

Featured Artist: Alena Hennessy

S&H editor Ben Nussbaum spoke with North Carolina–based artist Alena Hennessy about her favorite color, describing the painting process in words, and finding a personal style.

Creating Personal Sanctuary

Craft your own personal sanctuary, inside and out, for a safe place of refuge.

Heal Grief with Aimless Creativity

Fuzzy yarn, a toy xylophone, or a box of glass beads can be a better prescription than a pill.

Bathing in Citrus Magick

Boost your immune system, your spiritual energy, or both with a citrus bath. Discover the benefits of specific citrus fruits.

Just Say No Mow

Discover the risks and lost opportunities of the so-called perfect lawn.

Fear & Hope

Musings and active imagination on fear and hope inspired by journaled dreams.

A Letting-Go/Calling-In Burn Ritual for the Full Flower Moon

Turn what’s holding you back to ash. Drink in the blossoming energy of the full Flower Moon.

4 Naturopathic Self-Care Practices for Whole-Body Health

Stimulating the lymph system and changing your toilet posture are just two naturopathic self-care practices you can try to feel better.

How to Meditate With a Raisin to Ease Anxiety

The raisin meditation focuses all your senses to calm anxious thoughts.

Heal Your Inner Child with Visual Art

One writer’s experience in an unconventional art class opened healing pathways for her inner child. Learn how your inner child can benefit from visual art too.

5 Spiritual Books About Animals

If you consider yourself a spiritual animal lover, dive into these five book titles suggested by our animal chaplain.

Crystal Cheatham’s Rainbow Resonance Through Socially Responsible Spirituality

The philosophy of socially responsible spirituality helps individuals who face prejudice feel a sense of belonging, especially when dealing with the complexities of faith and identity.

Dogs Demystified

Our animal chaplain spoke with a cognitive ethologist to get the best information possible on how to love and communicate with our canine companions.

Dreams Show the Way

The creator of Somatic Experiencing shares about a powerful dream that changed the course of his life.

The Spirit of Art

Art and spirituality are intertwined. “Art is to spirituality what a car is to speed. It’s not the only vehicle that will get you there, but it can do the trick.”

The Spiritual Meaning of the Full Flower Moon

The May full moon marks a turning point, a movement into the bright, sunshiny half of the year.

4 Practices for Cultivating Feminine Magnetism

Are you feeling stiff, sluggish—as if the energy within you is in stasis? It may be time to reconnect with your intrinsic feminine magnetism.

Balancing the Throat Chakra for Neck and Shoulder Pain

When there is pain in the neck or restriction in the throat chakra, it’s worth asking: What emotions are caught in our throat, unable to be spoken?

The Strong Hold of Our Self-Prejudices

“Connected to my body and to each other, aware of the distortions from my own self-prejudices, I can learn to discern the core unconditional worth of every human prior to labeling them as villain or hero.”

Clink, Rustle, Clack, Swoosh: The Basics and Benefits of ASMR

ASMR calms and engages with materials that clink, rustle, clack, swoosh, brush, smoosh, and slurp.

Gardens of Grief, Gardens of Grace

A grief garden provides natural healing, connecting you with those who are no longer living.

A Letter-Writing Burn Ritual for Healing

With this ritual, become an observer to your emotions surrounding loss, and release them into the universe.

Natural Allergy Relief Remedies

Natural allergy relief, from vibrant foods to natural cough syrup made by bees, offers potent cures.

Always Bring Presence

Being present is a healing gift you can offer to anyone—loved ones and strangers alike.

More Than Making

“Creativity is an essential part of being human.” Artist Flora Bowley offers everyday ways to move past “creative wounds” and flex your creative muscles.

The Spiritual Meaning of the Easter Season

“Regardless of what traditions you follow, the spiritual meaning of Easter is a new light after sacrifice or tribulation.”

Your Nervous System Is at War—How to Negotiate Peace

Your nervous system has a sweet spot. Reach the optimal state of calm arousal and call a cease-fire on the war within you.

Women’s History Month 2021: 5 Ways to Celebrate Online

National Women’s History Month encourages us to celebrate, study, and observe the vital role of women in American history. Here are online events to get you started.

Tune Into Your Major Chakra to Design Your Optimal Sacred Space

Create a sacred space in your home. First find your major chakra, then discover the aesthetic that fits that chakra’s energy.

5 Predictions for the Future of Retreats

The baths will be back! Retreat veteran Mary Bemis shares her predictions for the future of retreats.

Be Squirrely

Giant squirrels, giant lessons? Animal chaplain Sarah Bowen explores what squirrels can show us about mindfulness.

Wounds and the Womb

Explore how to heal a relationship with your sacred womb—a place of death, life, and possibilities.

How Pets Alleviate Touch Deprivation

Time to adopt a furry friend? Your four-legged friend’s company helps relieve touch deprivation and feelings of isolation.

Gregory Lamping

Gregory Lamping has been a psychiatric nurse for over thirty years. He’s also a colored pencil artist specializing in drawing animals, both wild and domestic.

Diving Deep Into Darkness

Zen Buddhist priest Osho Zenju Earthlyn Manuel shares her wisdom on leaning into life’s many difficulties and invites us to explore our relationships to darkness and blackness as we know them.

Podcast: Dr. Ken Mogi, The Way of Nagomi

What is nagomi, and how can it help us find harmony in our emotions? Writer and neuroscientist Ken Mogi explains.

Begin Your Journey to a Safe, Healthy, Happy Pregnancy

Discover what may be preventing you from getting pregnant—it might not be what you think.

5 Lessons From Lunar New Year to Support Sleep

Use these five lessons to start the Year of the Rabbit on the right foot by making sleep a priority and allowing an abundance of rest to hop through your front door.

The Present Potential of Psychedelics

Psychedelic-assisted therapy might just be the evolution of medicine. Here are some highlights from this year’s Psychedelic Assisted Therapy Global Summit.

Why Spirituality and Science Need Each Other

Spirituality informs science, and science strengthens spirituality—explore a lifelong peace activist's thoughts on the intersection of the two.

A Goddess Ritual for Peace and Wellbeing

In times of global unrest and personal distress, call to the beloved Buddhist goddess Green Tara to help you find peace and ease.

Featured Artist: Pete Sandker

S+H lead digital editor Brenna Lilly spoke to artist Pete Sandker about walks in the woods, childhood inspiration, and the following call of art. Find Pete’s art throughout the issue.

4 Ways to Foster Ancestral Healing

Ancestral healing is a challenging but powerful practice. Learn four ways to access this practice in your own life.

Put Your Wisdom to Work

People are finding their higher purpose by sharing their spiritual gifts, interests, and skills.

How to Practice Individuation

Have you ever felt like your personality is not your own, but rather an amalgamation of inherited patterns? It may be time to try individuation.

The Spiritual Meaning of Ostara

The spring equinox is a potent time of year for welcoming in new energy and revitalizing your life. Explore the spiritual meaning of Ostara, the pagan celebration of spring.

Podcast: Dr. Joanna LaPrade, Navigating Darkness

How can we use life's dark moments to our advantage? Therapist and author Dr. Joanna LaPrade shows us.

Nature Poetry as Spiritual Practice

Spiritual practice in need of an infusion of life? Try reading—and writing—nature poetry.

8 Steps to Use Active Imagination for Pain Relief

The imagination combines the power of the waking world with the potential of the dreaming world. Learn how to address your pain in this imaginal space.

Healing the Worry Habit

The "worry habit" can be inherited, but it can also be transformed. Explore one life coach and medium's methods for un-learning fear, and enjoy a short calming meditation.

Kiara Norwood, M.A.

Kiara Norwood M.A., is a healer specializing in helping women of color holistically heal trauma and live fulfilling lives through ancestral remedies and alternative wellness therap…

Featured Artist: Julie Liger-Belair

Lead digital editor Brenna Lilly spoke with artist Julie Liger-Belair about sacred art, household altars, and the “muscle” of creativity.

Delightfully Deep in the Weeds

Our lead digital editor spent a week apprenticed to a master seaweed harvester—and learned much more than how to gather kelp.

Crisis and Transformation

Suzanne Mariott’s beautiful memoir on caregiving, published this month, began taking shape years ago with conversations at a S+H writer’s workshop.

Toolbox: Bee the Change

Welcome bees to your outdoor space and you’ll create beauty in your life and neighborhood. Why? Because bees bring flowers, and flowers bring insects and birds, which restores our natural spaces. Even small gardens lift spirits; they show others that they are more than their troubles or worries. Establishing a supportive habitat for bees provides a sustainable and balanced environment for all our buzzworthy friends.

The Work of Flourishing

“As the ancient sages all confirm, everything softens in time. If we want to soften while still alive, we have to bring our hurt places into the light.”

5 Ways to Spread Joy This Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is an opportunity to spread some joy. Discover five easy ways to brighten someone else’s holiday.

To Admire

"Admiration is a powerful resource because when we admire someone or something, we are, if open, introduced to where those qualities live in us."

Featured Artist: Lucy Campbell

We spoke with Lucy Campbell about Northern influences, diversity, and her possible future as a tattoo artist.

An Autumn Harvest Moon Ritual

Delight in the goodness of autumn and let go of what no longer serves you with a full moon ritual.

Building a Garden of Boundaries: A Practice to Honor Sensitivity

In this excerpt from Mirrors in the Earth, an herbalist and flower essence practitioner offers her guidance on cultivating a mental garden—with yourself as the center.

How to Outsmart the Saboteur Archetype

Your inner Saboteur knows your weaknesses. Here’s how to outsmart the Saboteur archetype.

The Spiritual Meaning of the Full Hunter’s Moon

To align with the spiritual meaning of the full Hunter’s Moon this October, complete your internal harvest.

Aleesha Jordan

Aleesha Jordan is a California-based professional development and emotional wellbeing expert who gets heart-centered business events aligned, organized, and launched. She’s the cre…

How to Create a Crystal Pendulum Wheel Tailored to Any Question

Pendulum wheels are “wheels of possibilities.” Discover how a home-crafted crystal pendulum wheel can help you answer spiritual questions.

Dr. Joanna LaPrade

Dr. Joanna LaPrade earned her MA and PhD in Jungian and Archetypal Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in Carpinteria, California. She is now the founder of Aion Psychother…

When Logic Fails

Stumped? Winter Ross offers a reminder that we can call on more than our rational mind.

Dive Into the Root of Your Illness With Ayurveda

With a little help from the ancient “science of life,” it’s possible to explore the root of your ailments, even when Western medicine hasn’t helped.

The Spiritual Meaning of the Hanged Man Tarot Card

Did you draw the Hanged Man tarot card? Discover the spiritual meaning behind this often-misunderstood symbol.

A Recipe From the Cellars at Frey Vineyards: Roasted Cauliflower

Enjoy this delicious Malbec-infused winter recipe from Frey Vineyards.

Tending to Your Brain’s Alarm System in Times of Stress

Explore these concrete ways to re-program the "smoke alarm" in your brain for more calm and less anxiety.

An Ayurvedic Approach to Treating Acne

Suffering from acne? Ayurveda may have the answers you need to clear your skin.

Roadside Assistance: Becoming Enlightened

Rabbi Rami Shapiro answers pressing questions on America, immortality, and enlightenment as a goal.

Towards Joy

Ben Nussbaum spoke with Cyndie Spiegel about her latest book, Microjoys.

23 Great Places to Pause, Reflect, and Renew

Our 2023 Retreat Guide features 23 unique retreat centers design to help you heal, restore, and connect with your highest self. Where will you retreat to this year?

Toolbox: Spreading Gratitude

Utilize these seven tools to promote gratitude in your life and in the lives of your loved ones.

Music Review: Synesthesia

Sherry Finzer’s new album is a journey of radiant solo flute music that releases stress and relaxes the mind and body. Finzer specializes in native flutes and low flutes. This is t…

re/VIEW: Tara Brach

“Both psychological work and what we call spiritual work are seeking ways to deal with suffering, and really learning how to love without holding back, how to let go of the armoring.”

Toolbox: Refreshing Bath Rituals

Get the most from your you-time with these products that can make your bath extra rejuvenating.

Amy Engle

Amy Engle is a freelance writer and communications specialist based in the beautiful San Luis Valley of southern Colorado. She and her husband run a centennial cattle ranch where t…

9 Steps to Zen & Inner Peace

What is the secret to happiness and spiritual expansion? Follow these 9 steps to zen and develop an inner state of balance and tranquility.

Exploring the Spiritual Meaning of Lower Back Pain

To understand the spiritual meaning of lower back pain, head to the source: the sacrum, or “sacred bone.”

Recasting: Grandma’s Irish Stew Goes Vegan

All the flavors will come together, like ancestral pathways.

What’s Your Vibrational Healing Style?

Is your style aromatherapy, sound healing, or one of the others? This spiritual vibration test will tell you.

Thistle Seed and This’ll Seed

Playing with language can be a powerful way to reframe burdensome thoughts.

From Loneliness to Aloneness

An art practice for embracing solitude.

Embracing Earth Medicine

As a teen, Felicia Cocotzin Ruiz realized that her ancestral foods were medicine. Now a chef and curandera, she shares a lifetime of personal remedies and body care recipes.

Becoming Moon-imals

What might we gain from considering ourselves in the same way, affected by both our earthly presence and the influence of the moon?

Affirming Healthy Narcissism

Seeing ourselves and others in a highly positive light is part of a healthy narcissism that, unlike classic narcissism, can be good for everyone.

Sound Your Note

“We are known by a different name for each vibrational level we reach, as our lower names no longer resonate.”

Podcast: Michelle Cassandra Johnson, Finding Refuge

Author and activist Michelle Cassandra Johnson discusses generational trauma, yoga, beekeeping, and more.

Your Best Friend Is Within You

“Our closest relationships may begin as a recognition or the delight of positive relatedness with someone who shares our most cherished values.”

Feng Shui to Attract Love and Magnetize Pleasure

Get your cosmic vacuum ready and begin to magnetize your desires.

Spiritual Meaning of the Blood Moon

The appearance of a blood moon has had spiritual meaning throughout history.

Living in the Now Through Ritual

Let go of nostalgia and start living for today through ritual. "It is essential to our sense of belonging ... that we mark the moments of transition in our lives."

Hayes Carll’s 7 Spiritually Uplifting Songs

“What makes a song spiritually uplifting to me is when it can achieve some combination of putting life into perspective, bringing joy, and making me feel less alone.”

No, Ayurvedic Cooking Isn’t Just Making Indian Food

Ayurvedic cooking tests whether food has a heating or cooling effect in your body, which in turn impacts metabolism and digestion.

5 Beautiful Ways to Use Pumpkin for Skin

You can have your pumpkin for skin and eat it too with these seasonal skincare recipes.

Divine Depiction: The Use of Icons for Prayer and Transformation

More than religious art, iconography is an entry point into divine presence.

Are You Blocked? Take This Chakra Quiz to Find Out

Answer eight chakra quiz questions to determine where there’s imbalance in your system and how you can realign.

From Separation to Connection

We are one. There is no separation.

Understanding How Special You Are

“The Enneagram teaches that there are nine different personality styles in the world, one of which we naturally gravitate toward and adopt in childhood to cope and feel safe.”

7 Ways to Truly Trust Your Gut

With its trillions of microbes working to regulate the immune system, produce vitamins and hormones, and communicate with the brain, the gut may just be the best advice-giver around, if you know how to listen.

Lakota Activist and Builder Christinia Eala

The values of her Lakota culture inform Christinia Eala’s work helping to build sustainable reservation housing.

Stomach Pain and the Chakras

Stomach pain is connected to an unbalanced third chakra, located next to the stomach above the belly button.

5 Mistakes to Avoid for a Happy Relationship

Have you designed your relationship vision? Are you aware of your love wounds? Avoid five common relationship mistakes.

Add Salt to Your New Moon Ritual

The combination of the lunar phase and the spiritual potency of salt amplify the power of this New Moon ritual.

Alejandro Mandes Is Opening Our Eyes to Our Multiethnic Future

Dr. Alejandro Mandes’ book “Embracing the New Samaria: Opening Our Eyes to Our Multiethnic Future” has one ultimate goal: unity.

Making Honest

Sewing can be a meditative practice. It’s all about connecting the threads.

Rethinking Burial: Burial Shrouds and More Ideas

Burial shrouds offer a better way to tend to the dead, according to one shroud-maker.

Toolbox: Child-like Play

When was the last time you did something because it was fun? It may be time to embrace your inner child.

Feeding Your Demons

A demon is a metaphor for anything that is taking your energy, be it fear, obsession, addiction, or something else.

Noah Time Like Today

Sometimes you just need an Egyptian vulture named Bob to lead you in the right direction.

Book Review: Finding Refuge

Synthesizing her work as a social justice activist, anti-racism trainer, and yoga teacher, Michelle Cassandra Johnson’s latest book explicitly sets out to empower readers to prio…

5 Tips to Support Change With Flower Essence Therapy

After several intriguing exchanges abroad, a woman named for a fragrant plant embraces the power of flower essence therapy.

Clearing Disruptive Energies

“Disruptive energies are constantly around us. The good news is our body usually does a really good job of deflecting them.”

One With the One

Read the story of a woman who died, went to heaven, returned to a broken body, and was miraculously healed.

5 Herbs & Spices to Eat This Pitta Season

Cilantro and fennel are among the Ayurvedic herbs that help to calm Pitta’s heat.

High Summer and the Divine Feminine

What kind of summer do you want to have? Explore the divine feminine within yourself, whatever your gender.

Nature’s Image for the Universal Oneness of Humanity

If we’re all one interconnected humanity, what’s our common root system? Do we exist in a state of universal oneness?

The Spiritual Meaning of Visual Art

“The world remains a work in progress. To view art is to witness the manifest energy of being alive and being creative.”

How to Embody Kindness

Willa Blythe Baker sits down to discuss her somatic mindfulness journey.

5 Cuddling Techniques to Ease Stress

Depending on your comfort level, you can try these cuddling techniques with a partner, friend, family member, or even your pet.

Toolbox: Head Off Headaches

Experiment with these unique headache relief gadgets and resources—and maybe make head pain just an unpleasant memory.

Book Review: The Shamanic Bones of Zen

THE SHAMANIC BONES OF ZEN by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel is a deep exploration of the indigenous and mystical roots of Zen Buddhism, aspects that became hidden or lost as Zen spread worl…

Erin Brott-Holtzman

Erin Brott-Holtzman is an artist and educator currently residing in Ferndale, Michigan. She is driven by curiosity to investigate the nuances that exist in daily life and strive to…

Practices for Loving Yourself Through Sickness

Sick? Love yourself through the illness with cozy comfort, breathwork, restorative yoga, and more.

Medical Intuition: Tap Into the Body’s Wisdom

Intuitive medicine is a complementary tool for health assessments. It works alongside traditional medicine.

Zenju Earthlyn Manuel Is Not Your Typical Soto Zen Buddhist Priest

Soto Zen Buddhist Priest Zenju Earthlyn Manuel wades through the muck of racism, sexism, and homophobia to empower practitioners.

David Chernikoff

David Chernikoff is one of the guiding teachers of the Insight Meditation Community of Colorado and has a private practice as a spiritual counselor and life coach in Boulder. He is…

Staying Spiritually Connected on a Busy Schedule

The key to staying spiritually connected in the midst of a busy schedule, says actress and activist Torrey DeVitto, is embracing simplicity and constant exploration.

6 Ways to Ease Acroparesthesia

Acroparesthesia is often a burning feeling in your hands or feet and can cause pain, discomfort, and anxiety.

Art Journaling for Relaxation and Release

Reduce anxiety and express yourself with 3 DIY art journaling prompts.

Don’t Deny Yourself Joy

Do something that brings you joy without it having to have any other productive or useful outcome.

Spiritual Fire: A Candle-Burning Ritual for Happiness

Ignite spiritual fire and attract joy with this revamped spin on an age-old practice.

7 New Ways to Get Closer to Your Partner This Valentine’s Day

Ask questions, read each other’s dreams, make chakra soups, and more.

Stop Fearing Change

Are you living your life resistant to change? Are you living your life resistant to life?

Your Sankalpa and the New Moon

Sankalpa are your heart’s truest intentions. In the shadowy hush of the new moon, sankalpa can be unearthed and discovered.

A True Respite: The Retreat Costa Rica

It may sound trite to write that a location is magical—but this one is.

Searching for Nature’s Medicine

A trip to the Sharri Mountains in the pursuit of folklore about plants.

Blood Moon Meditation

Explore what is normally unseen and celebrate the rare blood moon with a blood moon meditation.

Skin Hydration Tips for Every Season

Hydration is key to healthy, youthful-looking skin in any season but especially in the colder fall and winter months.

Mindful Lessons From Hummingbirds

For one, its possible to be slow and fast at the same time.

Why Ayurveda Quizzes Aren’t Helpful

We like to believe we know ourselves. But is that enough for determining our dosha?

Featured Artist: Tracy Verdugo

S&H editor Ben Nussbaum spoke with Australian artist Tracy Verdugo about evolution, Embracing the Contrast, and taking a break from color.

Looking for a Standard

Rabbi Rami provides wisdom on reincarnation, yoga classes as appropriation, astrology predicting the future, and more.

The Spiritual Practice of Writing

Ideas for how to get started journaling and why it’s such a powerful tool.

The Spiritual Benefits of Pumpkin & Other Orange Foods

Nourish your sacral chakra with these four orange-hued desserts.

5 Transformational Ways to Work With Scorpio Energy

Scorpio or not, Scorpio energy inclines us to dive deep, pursue our passions, and transform.

3 DIY Forms of Divination for a Fun Halloween

This Halloween, elevate your celebration by gaining some new tools to divine answers to your questions!

Art for Transformation

Curious about shamanic art? Dive into a practice to explore your own mind.

Podcast: After Death Communication ... Don’t Be Afraid, You’re Not Alone

“I understood then that this was the point of the dream. That I was being shown this world as a guest, that my job was to witness, to validate its existence. Perhaps even report that I had seen it.”

3 Dessert Smoothies for Beautiful Skin

If your skin needs some love, chances are your internal systems could use a boost too. These smoothies for skin help from the inside.

The Role of the Nervous System in the Development of Illness or Being Healthy

Every cell of the body has a consciousness, a subconscious, and a spirit consciousness.

Oracle Cards for Beginners

Discover how they differ from tarot cards, how to choose the right oracle deck, and more.

Cancer and Canopy: The Healing Power of Forest Bathing

Researchers are continuing to learn what role forests play in everything from human happiness to cancer treatment.

Elemental Fashion: Wearing Earth, Air, Fire, and Water

Four element fashion strives to bring nature’s elements and our living ecosystem into balance.

6 Things in Your House That Could Be Triggering Stress

Clutter, chemicals, negative media, and more can unknowingly cause stress. The good news is there’s a lot you can do about it.

Featured Artist: Leila Rose Fanner

South African artist Leila Rose Fanner talks about symmetry, race, getting in flow, and more. Look for illustrations from Leila throughout the January/February 2022 issue.

Wonder Seeker’s Practices for Connecting With Nature

Discover 3 ways to actively seek wonder in the natural world around you.

Poison Into Medicine

What does it mean to suffer effectively?

5 Everyday Rituals for Botanical Connection

An acupuncturist and herbalist offers five potent rituals to connect us with the botanical world, no matter what our creativity level or spiritual path may be.

How to Get in Touch With the Energy of Late Summer

The coming of fall doesn’t have to be a hard transition. Honor the magic of the end of summer with an altar, rituals, crystals, and affirmations.

Out of the Ashes...

While it may seem that the world is collapsing, underneath it all there is a wave of positive transformation. Find out more.

How to Turn Invisible Woman Syndrome Into Your Superpower

Elderhood comes with powers and freedoms unheard of in youth. Learn how to challenge invisible woman syndrome and step into your power as an older woman.

9 Flower Essences for Sensual Empowerment

A master flower essence practitioner offers her favorite flower essences to encourage healing and embodied sensuality.

An Animal Blessing for All Creatures

In honor of the Feast of St. Francis, our animal chaplain offers an alternative animal blessing—and suggests that you utilize it, too.

The Good Medicine of Letting Go

An energy medicine practitioner offers a “prescription” for the powerful practice of letting go.

Optimizing Music Choices for Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy

Explore how one Grammy-nominated recording artist and sound healer incorporates healing music with psychedelic medicine.

How to Make Meditation a Habit—the Buddhist Way

Meditation practice not sticking? Get back to the basics and find exactly what works for you in these 12 helpful steps.

Practicing Transformative Pilgrimage, Whether You Leave Home or Not

A renowned pastoral counselor offers her thoughts on the power of pilgrimage to help us build stronger communities and find belonging to one another.

Taking Space to Honor Your Feelings When Experiencing Racial Apathy

Racial apathy can be devastating for people of color. Jacquelyn Ogorchukwu Iyamah offers methods of support for the individual experiencing it, and for institutions to foster racial empathy.

Kat Armas

Kat Armas (MDiv and MAT, Fuller Theological Seminary), a Cuban American writer and speaker, hosts The Protagonistas podcast, where she highlights stories of everyday women of color…

Quinoa—Mother Grain

Learn more about Eden quinoa cultivation, source, its farmers, and delicious richness.

5 Quick Ways to Manage Big Emotions

Overwhelming emotions are common but often feel insurmountable. Try these five techniques to ground yourself and unwind.

Circadian Rhythms: How to Light Your Way to Better Sleep

Aligning your daily routine with the rhythm of day and night can drastically improve your sleep.

The Spiritual Meaning of Yule

The ancient pagan celebration of the winter solstice deeply influenced many of our modern-day holiday traditions. What is the spiritual meaning of Yule?

From the Hollywood Mindset to the Himalayan Mindset

The director of the International Yoga Festival shares her story of discovering oneness with the Divine.

Yoga—a Panacea for All That Ails Our World

The director of the International Yoga Festival offers wisdom on the power of yoga to help heal our broken world.

4 Steps to Support Your Vision for Your Life

These four steps will help you get into better alignment with your vision for life and help you create space to flourish.

The Healing Power of Our Voice

"Our sound is a gift. The evidence of this is everywhere present."

Intuitive Eating for Nervous System Health

A board-certified nutritionist, herbalist, and intuitive eating coach offers her best tips to practice intuitive eating in a way that nourishes your nervous system.

Dragon-Inspired Practices for Embracing Power and Generosity

Animal chaplain Sarah Bowen offers practices inspired by the Year of the Dragon to help you connect to Dragon’s bold, confident, and charitable nature.

Find Your Unicorn

Explore how an artistic practice can support your wellbeing well into your golden years.

A Beltane Ritual for Hope, Possibility, and Creativity

Celebrate this springtime holiday with a ritual for inviting in creative energy and blessings.

Beyond the Status Quo: A Journey to Living a Purpose-Filled Life

Try these three methods to step into alignment with a purpose-filled life. It might be easier than you think.

8 Ways to Ground Yourself Amidst Drama

Feeling stressed by other people's dramatic tendencies? A clinical psychologist and mind-body expert offers some solutions to ground yourself.

Brandie Wilkerson

Brandie Wilkerson is the reigning women’s World Beach Volleyball silver medalist and also the first and only women of color to ever represent Canada in her sport of beach volleybal…

Asking AI About Animals and Emerging Forms of Intelligence

Animal chaplain Sarah Bowen chatted with ChatGPT, an online artificial intelligence chatbot, about animal ethics.

The Spiritual Meaning of the Hierophant Tarot Card

Who sits between you and God? Learn more about the meaning of this masculine major arcana card.

An Animal-Friendly Summer Reading List for Kids

Explore Rev. Sarah Bowen's top four books for animal-loving kids, and enjoy a bonus interview with animal advocate Camille Licate.

5 Health Benefits of Stargazing

Have you looked up at the cosmos lately? Learn all about the health benefits of stargazing.

Featured Artist: Shachi Kale

We spoke with Shachi Kale about healing with art, wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita, and the female journey.

It's Not Just a Metaphor

For the past 15 years, I’ve helped clients shift into a place of being where they connect with their own healing power, Divine wisdom, and creative genius. It can be a dramatic and instantaneous shift, which I first encountered by accident, head-on…

The Spiritual Meaning of Beltane

As we greet the midway point between spring and summer, celebrating the ancient Celtic festival of Beltane is a joyous way to invite pleasure and connection into our lives.

Toolbox: The Caffeines of Summer

Dive into the deliciousness of summer with these caffeinated (and caffeine-inspired) products for mind and body.

Book Review: The Dawn of a Mindful Universe

Climate change experts have warned us for decades of the devastating consequences to come if we don’t change the way we interact with the natural world. So then, why does the air q…

The Arts of Liberation

Mark Nepo discusses liberal arts, opening hearts, and what liberation can look like.

How Meditation Can Help Combat Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

A seasonal affective disorder expert and light therapy pioneer shares how mindfulness can strongly support other treatments for SAD.

The Fabric of Our Spiritual Nature

Explore how one scientist's explorations gave him greater insight into the nature of being.

Uniting Hearts and Souls: A Journey Through Bhakti Fest

Welcome home. Join us this year for 3 days of kirtan, yoga, and community-building when Bhakti Fest returns to Joshua Tree September 15-17. Learn more about the heart-opening conscious event.

Tongue Reading for Your Health

The practice of tongue reading—looking at the texture, color, and shape of one’s tongue—can help us better understand our health. Learn more about the basics of tongue reading.

The Best Gemstone for You According to Ayurveda

In Ayurveda, gemstones can help support your health according to your dosha. Learn more about how gems interact with the doshas and how astrology is involved.

Medicinal Mushrooms

Some mushrooms, such as the lion's mane mushroom, have powerful medical properties, another reason to add more of these fungi to your diet.

Featured Artist Deedee Cheriel

S&H editor Ben Nussbaum chatted with Deedee about her spiritual journey and how it intersects with her art, simplicity, and why images of mothers are so important to her.

Become a Mindful Reader

Reading—it’s one of the first things we do in life, sitting on our loved ones’ laps and enjoying the soothing voice of a parent explaining the world through pictures and words. What begins as a jumble of marks, black against white, conjures colors, monsters and beasts, emotions, laughter, and tears. Eventually, the process of changing squiggles into words becomes as natural to us as breathing—and just as necessary.

Mindful Sexuality, Divine Sexuality

Sexual energy may be an expression of the divine within each of us. That's one reason a mindful approach to sacred sexuality is so important.

Science & Spirit: Travel Tips, Cool Off Pitta, and Circadian Weirdness

This week discover advice for summer travelers, ways to cool the Pitta Dosha in hot months, and the fun fact that your liver can keep time. Want to know more? Read on.

Dreams at the Edge of Sleep

Liminal dreaming is a remarkable mind state, one you can channel for creativity or problem solving, use as a form of metacognition to explore your thought processes, or simply play with as a form of consciousness exploration.

More Than Food: Mushroom Art

In the last part of her five-part series on mushrooms, Leslie Krongold looks at mushroom ... art, including dyes made from mushrooms.

It’s Time to Transcend Tolerance and Compromise

"I don't want Christians to tolerate Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and atheists. I don't want straight people to tolerate their LGBQ neighbors. I want us all to do better than that."

Mushrooms: A Great Way to Get More from a Nature Walk

Gathering mushrooms adds a new dimension to walks in nature. Learn more about how to start your own mushroom habit.

The Spirit of Identity

The complicated issue of identity.

That Lonely Spell

The author recalls a period of loneliness long ago—a feeling that has come back, again, after decades.

Explore CBD

In our special section we explore CBD from a variety of angles. Dive in to get up to speed on this huge trend.

5 Foods to Keep You Cool Inside

Cooling foods help you beat inner inflammation.

CBD Buying Tips: What to Consider if You're in the Market

With so many CBD products on the market, knowing what to look for can feel overwhelming. S&H spoke with Christina Sasser, the CEO, founder, and chief product officer at Portland-ba…

Who is Mingyur Rinpoche?

The author is a student of Mingyur Rinpoche and explains her experiences with the monk.

New Mythology for a New World

Sponsored Content from Four Winds Society An excerpt from Grow a New Body, by Alberto Villoldo, PhD The right side of the neocortex, the higher brain, operates on stories and myt…

The Equinox as Catalyst for Healing

Think of March as a second New Year with resolutions for healing and recovery in our lives.

Journaling That Taps Into Your Own Wisdom

An invitation to mine the depths of your own truth.

Sunshine Soup: A Bowl of Radiance

This soup is a warm break from winter’s toil, and another good reason to celebrate the return of light and approach of a new year.

Mountainside Serenity

Embrace your inner mountain goat and…

The Golden Rules of Psychic Development

This energy can be tapped by anyone who chooses to make an effort to tune into its subtle vibrations.

Creative Practice: Gathering Inspiration through Intuitive Wandering

In the second of episode of Your Creative Spirit, Flora Bowley shares how to gather inspiration through intuitive wandering.

Foods That Douse the Flames of Inflammation

Why the fountain of youth isn’t actually full of water

What Are the Best Presents for People With Low Self-Esteem?

Here are some strategies for picking gifts that not only are relatively trigger-free, but also possess healing powers which might outlast the gifts themselves.

Healthy Holidays: Chocolate Raspberry Tart

Enjoy this bright and healthy tart for the holidays.

Become Free From Addiction through Spiritual Understanding: Part 1 of 2

Jagad Guru says that all addiction is rooted in misunderstandings about who we are and what we need to be truly happy and fulfilled.

Is Buddhism True?

An Interview with Robert Wright

Coping Tips for Empaths

Being an empath is all about ‘feeling’ the emotions of others. Sometimes we need extra tools to help us stay grounded and connected.

Week 3: Spreading Love throughout Your Body, Soul, and Spirit

Nurture your soul, your spirit, and your body so that you can connect to your authentic self.

5 Peruvian Superfoods You’ve Never Heard Of

Quinoa, açai, and maca first scaled the heights of health-conscious glory. Now meet the latest Peruvian powerhouses.

Conscious Aging & Ceremonies for Seniors

In our senior years, we may benefit from support in creating a new and clear vision for our lives.

The Magical Synthesis of Art and Process

The transformative potential of the blend of coaching, creative expression and depth work is undeniable to those who have experienced this method.

5 Weeks to Break Out of a Rut

Shake up your routine and get inspired with these five ideas.

Book Review: Awakening Together

From climate change to white supremacy and the threat of nuclear war, the world’s alarming problems seem to be growing exponentially. That means we need to tackle them as teams, as…

Finding Refuge Robin Stremlow

Gratitude for the sisterhood at a Tibetan Buddhist Nunnery

Inside the Nov/Dec 2017 Issue

A preview of the Nov/Dec 2017 issue.

If You Came to My Church…

You wouldn’t have to say the Creed.

How to Find Calm Amid Chaos

Begin to lessen the overwhelming emotional response you may be experiencing to the smallest provocation.

Awakening to the Kalachakra

How easy it is to completely miss the inner wisdom of our ancient wisdom traditions.

Marketplace Jan/Feb 2019

Books, services, education and products that are sustainable and environmentally friendly.

It's OK to Envy Belle Delphine

What is your sense of purpose?

If You Want To... Immerse Yourself In Another Culture

Journeys That Are Truly Transformational

Untangling the Gems of Your Story

Try these lessons to get started on a writing process in earnest.

CBD Oil for Insomnia

Can CBD oil help you get some much-needed sleep?

Finding the Cracks Where the Holy Light Comes In

The cracks where the light gets in may not be immediately apparent, but they are everywhere and it would seem to be our duty, both to ourselves and one another, to find them.

Treating Phobias with Imagination

The power of our minds can help us overcome fears.

Holiday Snowball Truffle Energy Balls

Get an energy boost with these Ayurvedic holiday treats.

How Brainwaves Boost Our Creativity

Certain electrical activity suppresses the obvious

Ceremony for First Year Anniversary: Reconnect

People new to mourning are often surprised at how brutal the run-up to the first anniversary of the death can be.

Naturally Energize This Winter

4 ways to boost your energy levels.

Eating The Sun: A Soup for the Darkest of Seasons

Celebrate the return of light with this sunny and bright soup.

How the Invisible World of Spirit Impacts Health and Healing

When you participate in the shared awareness of all Creation, you recognize your Oneness with all beings and with nature.

Showing Up for What Is

The contemplative life of women mystics.

Why False Beliefs Stick

Science explains why people cling to ideas, even when they have contradictory evidence.

Music Review: Dionysus

Like all of Dead Can Dance’s albums, this Australian world beat/neoclassical group’s latest offering is an epic and ethereal work, informed by the music and lore of many cultures a…

Our “Go Kit” for the Zombie Apocalypse

How to remain spiritually hale in a crumbling world and useful to a society emerging from the ashes

Do I have to give up being gay or give up being Muslim?

I am a gay Muslim man. My imam says there are no gay Muslims, meaning that a gay person cannot be Muslim. He told me I have to give up being gay or give up being Muslim. Which do I…

Rabbi Rami: Is It Trump’s Fault?

Author and teacher Rabbi Rami Shapiro is encouraging Perennial Wisdom to lead us beyond alienation and isolation to integration and unity, based on Genesis 12:3: “You shall be a blessing to all the families of the earth.”

Write Your Memoir in a Flash

The big advantage of thinking small.

Next Level Lattes to Nurture Your Spirit

Take a dive into the wonderful world of superfoods, crystals, or both with these delicious- and beautiful- beverages.

Our Community Journal: Restoration to Flight

One woman's journey with Rheumatoid Arthritis has served as a spiritual blessing and teacher.

Our Community Journal: A Glass of Water

A retired English teacher's touching, and timely, memory of his mother's kindness.

How Meditation and Magick Saved My Life on Death Row and After I Was Finally Set Free

Excerpted from HIGH MAGICK: A Guide to the Spiritual Practices That Saved My Life on Death Row

3 Signs You May be Emotionally Constipated

When someone or something shows up in our lives, throws us off track, and preoccupies our thoughts, our body may be looking to process an undigested emotion.

A Full Moon Ritual for Release

The full moon offers a potent time to create rituals.

Music Review: Deva

Deva Premal and Miten have been making music together for almost 30 years. Their mantra-based albums are loved worldwide, and, with Nepalese flutist/vocalist Manose, they play to a…

Contributors - November/December 2018

Contributors to our September/October 2018 issue: Kevin Anderson PhD, Julia Cameron, Deborah Gordon MD, Alena Hennessy, Erik Sean Larson, Hal Robinson

Toolbox: Gifts That Give

Support a cycle of giving by choosing from these 
socially and environmentally conscious brands.

Marketplace Nov/Dec 2018

Books, services, education and products that are sustainable and environmentally friendly.

Toolbox: Clear the Air

Breath is Life. Try these picks from S&H to breathe with ease.

Does Jerky Make You Manic?

There’s a strange link between meat and your mind.

Joyful Eating

More…

You Ask Us What We Want....

For those of us who struggle with low self-esteem, desire can be triggering.

Marketplace Sep/Oct 2018

Books, services, education and products that are sustainable and environmentally friendly.

Contributors: July/August

Contributors to our July/August 2018 issue: Kelly Boys, Sandra Dieckmann, Stephanie Ludwig PhD, Jan Phillips, Parker J. Palmer PhD, and Kazuaki Tanahashi

Film Review: Gauguin

Voyage to Tahiti

How to Experience Canine Flow

“A fantastic way to harness and empower your own heart frequencies and create happiness . . .”

Create A Living Ritual

No matter your spirituality or background, it's possible to turn every day into a living, breathing ritual. Explore how one author transformed her life by doing so.

A Root Cause of Pessimism, Revealed

New research could lead to better treatment of anxiety and depression.

Are Smoothies Healthy? 4 Ways to Make Them Work

Plus, a peaches 'n cream smoothie recipe.

Guided Meditation: Alignment into Being

An audio meditation for chakra alignment.

News That Uplifts

If the relentless bad news is leaving you feeling down, there are alternatives.

3 Journals for Finding Your Way in a Complex World

These journals are interactive and aim to unlock the hidden places inside of us.

Psychic Protection

Contain your energy and utilize psychic protection by setting your chakras and auric boundaries.

Artists: July/August 2018

Summary of artists featured in the July/August 2018 issue.

A Dream—and a Once-in-a-Lifetime Joke

The idea came to me of doing the entire exhibition in one stroke.

Poetry: The Sound of the Sea at the Shore

As one grows older,there should be fewerand fewer words to say. Each one a few lettersbut taken togethermeaning something large. Sea. Sun. Shell. I gathera little pile, burying,u…

Altar Your Reality With the Five Elements of Feng Shui

Energize your altar space with the five elements.

Can You Capture Your Aura with a Kirlian Photograph?

Here's what a Kirlian photograph says about your aura.

Music Review: 7

WITH ITS HUSHED FEMALE VOCALS and lush layers of keyboard and guitar, Beach House’s atmospheric dream pop is the sort of thing hipsters might sing their babies to sleep with. But s…

Vaccinate Against Stress

Beneficial bacteria may become the basis for an immunization.

How to Invite Wild Sacred Nature into Your World

Bring the sacred indoors with elements foraged from nature.

5 Ways to Get Closet Clarity

Our relationship with clothing is complex and can spill over into the closet. Time for a reckoning.

The True Nature of Auras

Understand the energy behind an aura.

Windshield Time Can Be Sacred Time

Your sacred space can come with you on errands, during your commute, and even on long road trips.

4 Steps to Create Space to Breathe

Reclaim your space by taking these four distinct steps.

How to Encourage Contemplation With a Zen Garden

If you’d like to develop a Zen garden of your own, follow these suggestions.

5 Ways to Summerize Your Meals

Plus a recipe: Spring into Summer Salad with Berries, Peach and Rose

For Pain Relief, Join Hands

Reach out and touch your loved one, suggests a new study.

Invoking your natural sensuality

The greeks referred to mythical images as “gift of the gods.” See what you receive when you visualise these ancient symbols.

Keeping a Soul Print Journal

A unique approach to capturing special moments in your life.

A Garden for Enlightenment

The art of “synchronizing yourself to the natural flow of the energy that surrounds you”

The Beginner’s Mind of a Master Cook

Is there something sacred about the flavor I have in mind to make my lentils or vegetables taste that way?

Maria Shriver

More…

Ayurveda in the Garden

There is no better time to synchronize with the rhythms of our cosmos than in late spring…

From the Editor: May/June 2018

A note from our editor in chief, Stephen Kiesling.

Collaborative Painting or Drawing

In this episode, Flora Bowley shows how collaboration can bring together creativity and connection.

5 Simple Ways to Reduce Cancer Risk

4 in 10 cases of cancer can be prevented, say researchers.

Spring’s Wake Up Soup: Barley Asparagus Bowl

Soon your garden will be turning up asparagus, chard, basil, and spring onions—perfect ingredients for this delicious soup.

10 Ways to Simplify Your Next Trip

See the world without losing your mind or your way.

Setting Up Your Ayurvedic Kitchen

“Let food be your first medicine and the kitchen your first pharmacy.” —Taittiriya Upanishad

Forging a Healing Path

An adapted excerpt from Journey Through Trauma by Gretchen Schmelzer, PhD

​The Art of Dreaming — Becoming Aware of Your Inner Landscape

Adapted excerpt from Leopard Warrior by John Lockley.

Creative Practice: Visual Riffing

In this episode of Your Creative Spirit, Flora introduces the concept of visual riffing.

Rose Petal Truffles: A Gift of Love

Try this recipe for an afternoon boost of energy or a gift for one you love.

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, the Soul Worker

An interview with Sufi mystic Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee.

10 Ways to Use a Library for Creative Inspiration

Relax, rejuvenate, and nurture your imagination between the shelves.

Discovering the Magic of Fear

Become allies with your fears.

How to Create a Morning Routine that Inspires You

Set the tone for your day by developing a morning routine that engages your imagination.

Toolbox: A Moment for Paws

S&H offers these finds as a way to pamper, entertain, and commune with your four-legged friends.

Artists: March/April 2018

Summary of artists in the March/April 2018 issue.

10 Tiny Ways You Can Be Creative Every Day

Have 10 minutes? Here are ways to make time for creativity in your daily life.

Watercolor Egg Meditation

In the third episode of Your Creative Spirit, Flora Bowley shares a visualization practice utilizing watercolors.

You are Wise, Resourceful and Kind

Dathüns focus on how we can come into our heart, beyond the negative thoughts we may have about ourselves, and tune into what is really, fundamentally there.

5 Questions for Gretchen Rubin

Happiness expert Gretchen Rubin on her new book and what makes her happy.

Dogitation

More…

A Look at What Really Matters

Clarify your values and align them with how you live your life.

Train Your Brain to Not Overreact

Seven ways that each of us can take charge of our stress response, accessing a powerful tool to take charge of our health.

Toolbox: Expanded Giving

This season, let your gift giving be the ripple that expands into a global wave of good with these picks from S&H.

Write These 3 Letters to Heal Your Heart

Often considered a forgotten art, the act of letter writing can be transformative and healing—even without sending it.

5 Ways to Connect With Your Spirit Guide

We can turn to these guides for support and a little nudge when we need help finding the right direction in life.

Toolbox: Inner Alignment

vLet these picks from S&H be conduits for creating internal energetic structuring.

The Incredible Lightness of Packing

12 Expert Tips for a Carefree, Stress-free Journey

Toolbox: Sweeten Your Practice

Awaken your senses with these fine indulgences.

Travel Essentials

10 Smart Items for the Savvy Traveler

Toolbox: Creative Cuisine

Try these picks from S&H to transform your culinary creation

Holding Trauma With Love

For someone who has experienced trauma, the present moment may feel like the most dangerous place in the world.

Book Review: The Secret Life of the Mind

How Your Brain Thinks, Feels, and Decides

The Swim of Awakening with Brené Brown

In the absence of data, we will always make up stories. It’s how we are hardwired. In fact, the need to make up a story, especially when we are hurt, is part of our most primitive survival wiring. But these stories are typically not true.

Toolbox: A Green Sweep

Consider making these swaps found by S&H for a cleaner, more eco-friendly home.

Ingratitude Is Way Too Easy

Are you often accused of being a complainer? Whiner? Pessimist? An ingrate too intent on inspecting your own alleged flaws to celebrate a candy-colored sunset or your health?

Pour on the Olive Oil

Olive oil may be just the cure you're looking for.

The Why, How, How Much, When, and Where of Eating

Excerpted from The Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook

Combat Climate Change 3 Times a Day

Your eating choices can make a significant impact in fighting our climate crisis.

Oryoki: The Practice of “Just Enough”

Gesshin Claire Greenwood shares how a Zen ritual can help us find balance in life.

You Say Potato, I Say Pogrom

Garden City, Idaho looks pretty picturesque. Not so pretty: A candidate for the area’s city council has been spouting anti-Semitic ramblings.

Unlock Your Creativity

Our senses offer a direct route to tapping our creative well.

A Ritual For Welcoming Moon Season

Fall is the perfect season to release that which no longer serves us. Try this moon ritual to help you let go and move on.

Anti-Inflammation Meal: Vibrant Malay Salad

The bounty of ingredients in this quick-to-make salad are available in most supermarkets.

Ten Ways to Ease Inflammation

Turn the inflammation dial down with these nutrition and lifestyle tips.

Science & Spirit: Healing Light

Let the light shine! That’s the message researchers are finding about the powers of light to treat medical, mental-health, and cosmetic issues. There are even new ways to use light imagery to battle autoimmune diseases. For all the illuminating news, read on.

Signs of Your Times: Create Meaning Using Banners and More

“Whether it be a banner, crest, logo, Totem, gargoyle, flag, shield or sign, all are symbols representing something powerful – distinguishing something from the ordinary.”

The Inner Work of Racial Justice

Racism and the harm that it brings persist, despite the best intentions of many of us. This book teaches how to use mindfulness to achieve greater racial awareness.

The Thirst for Spirituality and the Rise of Witches

Julie Peters explains why witchcraft appeals to so many people—and how witches can borrow respectfully from other traditions.

Nighthawks Oceania

A noodle bar in Japan inspires the author to think of Edward Hopper's classic painting Nighthawks.

Featured Artist: Jennifer Davis

S&H editor Ben Nussbaum talked with Minneapolis-based artist Jennifer Davis about pink, whimsy, flow, and more.

100+ Books We Love

Dive in to our special section on 100+ books we love.

The Shirt off My Back

Would you give the shirt off your back? This practice has brought the author joy and challenges.

Chasing Numbers, Chasing Wellness

It's easy to get wrapped up in numbers, but the desire for the perfect score can become an addiction. Your imperfect self, meanwhile, is waiting for validation.

4 Energy-Amplifying Crystals for the Full Moon

Amethyst, Labradorite, Rainbow Moonstone, and White Moonstone are powerful crystals for a full moon.

poem: Be Recorder

"I leave behind dignity / so the angel inside me / stays behind me too"

You are not a Pen, You are not a Body

“Indian spiritual tradition teaches that it is only our ignorance that makes us identify with our physical form, that temporary vehicle created out of matter which changes and perishes, rather than with our divine unchangeable content which is our true identify.”

Changing the World with Fishing Nets and Wedding Veils

"I sliced one bag open, and the veil fell into my hands. One net; a huge promise. Even then, I wondered: could this net save a life?"

Science & Spirit: Matcha for Anxiety, Cultured Meats, and Soy Is Redeemed

This week, the focus is the latest news in nutrition. Discover how matcha tea helps with anxiety; why “clean meat” is a label you’re likely to soon see; and how soy has gotten a thumbs-up for heart health claims. Want the details? Here we go!

Podcast: Pouria Montazeri

Rabbi Rami explores the mystical teachings of Rumi with Pouria Montazeri. A native Farsi speaker, Pouria has a deep understanding of Rumi's language and culture. Drawing from Sufism, Advaita Vedanta, and other spiritual and contemplative practices, he conducts courses to guide people to the map of their hearts.

Restoring the Soul Connection Through an Inner Pilgrimage

A prophetic dream helped this author come to new understandings of Parkinson's, imagination, and healing.

The Truth About Herbal "Tea"

How do herbal teas differ from tisanes? Are they really even tea?

Hot Springs Havens

Soothing getaways for soaking

10 Best for Natural Hair Care

Scalp-soothing, hair-hydrating serums, masks and more.

Save on This, Splurge on That

With so many products to choose from, it’s hard to know what’s worth the extra money. Skincare experts weigh in on when to save and where to splurge.

4 Healing Beauty Rituals for Summer

The heart of conscious beauty is your relationship to your ingredients and the ritualistic care with which you engage them.

10 Best Sun-Care Products

Natural options from aloe vera to zinc

Sense and Sensuality

Excerpted from The Write Prescription: Telling Your Story to Move With and Beyond Illness by Judith Hannan

The Sensory Experience of Tasting Tea

Every single specialty tea that we drink deserves a slow, measured, attentive evaluation and enjoyment.

The Science of Intuition

Researchers have figured out a way to measure the “Sixth Sense.”

The Black Jaguar and Humanity’s Evolution

Excerpted from Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh by Matthew Fox

How to Work with Your Totem Animal

An excerpt from Totem Animals, Plain & Simple by Celia M. Gunn

Book Review: Psychology and the Near Death Experience

Hill blends in first-hand, anonymous near death experience accounts as well as personal stories and empirical evidence.

16 Affirmations For Loving Your Body

What if we were to practice radical self-acceptance?

Finding Refuge From Anxiety

One author offers her thoughts on taking a 5-week, $500 vacation from anxiety.

How To Heal From A Disaster

An M.D. faces the toughest test of a spiritual practice—healing herself from a terrible fall.

Is Your Heart Chakra Open to Love?

We are all psychic, and it is through the heart chakra that we can access this information. ~ Servet Hasan

5 Ways to Use Art for Reconnecting to Yourself

Here are five art-inspired techniques anyone can try.

The Observer

Excerpt from The Missing Element: Inspiring Compassion for Human Condition

7 Spices Loaded With Serious Flavor—And Incredible Health Benefits

Put down the salt and start cooking with these spices—your blood pressure, waistline, and tastebuds will thank you.

A Weekend in a Hammock

I hate to say it was perfect, because I’m sure it wasn’t…

What Your Nails Can Tell You About Your Health

Anything going on inside your body will eventually appear on the outside—and your fingernails are a prime place for these changes to manifest.

How Happy Brains Respond to Negative Things

New research provides a whole new understanding of the brain's amygdala—and suggests that happy people take the bad with the good.

Loving Yourself Free: Eating Disorders and Ayurvedic Treatment Tips

Here are a few different ways to approach treatment of eating disorders using Ayurveda.

Making Mealtime Better for Dementia Sufferers

Creating a family atmosphere, playing music help people eat better.

Care of the Soul: The Veggie Soul

When I studied medieval philosophy in college, I learned that a human being has a rational, animal, and vegetable soul. At the time, it was all a matter of definitions and categori…

5 Benefits of Pumpkin

From eye health to mood, here are five health benefits of pumpkin to love.

Trusting Love — One Tiny, Miraculous Moment at a Time

Some of our deepest wounds are from ones we loved. It’s time to take heart (and take some advice), it’s safe to start trusting love again. Here’s how.

Training Your Brain with Tea

To improve brain health, look no further than a cup of tea.

How I Finally Awakened from My Past Lives

Sometimes an unnecessary burden can be very useful

Fall in Love with the World Share-A-Mony

Sponsored Content from Celebrant Foundation & Institute

7 Affirmations for the 7 Chakras

7 affirmations for balancing the 7 chakras not only affect your body but also your reality.

September’s Moons: Peaceful Moon and Mega Harvest Blood Moon

A new moon finds its way between the sun and the Earth and when it blocks out the sun, the solar eclipse takes place.

Feeing Sad Changes How You See

“The blues are because you’re getting fat and maybe it’s been raining too long; you’re just sad, that’s all,” says Holly Golightly in the movie “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” She compar…

Best Retreats for the Spiritual Seeker

Natural quiet comes in many forms: the quiet of the solitary mountain walk, the meditation cushion, the yoga platform, the beach, the candlelit dinner, the massage table, or perhap…

Your Assignment: Complete the Story

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

The Week I Burned My Ego

A life-changing adventure on what’s called Path of Love

Free Will Under Fire

Our decisions may be determined before we’re conscious of them

Rites of Autumn Equinox

Sponsored Content from the Celebrant Foundation & Institute

8 Ways to Start Your Day With Intention

Beep. Beep. Beep. Grab coffee. Dash out door. Adrenaline blaring, mind already awhirl, we launch ourselves out like cannonballs—scattershot, hurling, into the world. Now, is that a…

Tea for What Ails You

How to use herbal teas to treat common health maladies and get back on the path to wellness. (An S&H classic)

Feel Full for Hours

We've rounded up seven surprisingly filling foods that can satiate you for hours.

A Room of One’s Own

Many of us have an inner artist we want to nourish, but not the budget for a painter’s studio or writer’s retreat. Here’s how to carve out a sacred space for creativity.

Best Retreats for the Multi-Generational Family

“In the old days, the elders knew the stories of their sons—because they lived together,” writes Sam Keen his in beautiful new joint memoir Prodigal Father, Wayward Son: A Roadmap …

The Importance of Home

Our homes say a lot about who we are. The importance of home signals what we think is important in life.

The Ultimate Guide to Caffeine: Black Tea vs. Coffee

We decided to investigate the health properties of both coffee and black tea to see how they compare in aspects beyond simply caffeine count and taste.

Meditation Candles Light the Way for Prayer and Spiritual Beauty

Rich in spiritual history, meditation candles are the perfect way to turn your home into a beautiful sanctuary.

Building Altars For Personal Transformation

Building an altar with an intention for transformation is powerful. The altar keeps your focus on your intentions.

Apple Cider Vinegar: The Benefits and How to Use It

Using apple cider vinegar instead of chemical-laden cleaning, beauty, and health products is a way to boost your own mind-body-spirit wellness.

5 Tips To Wake Up Your Brain And Enjoy Life

You sleep all night, only to wake up in the morning feeling fuzzy and groggy. What will help wake up your brain so that you can enjoy life every day? Two main ingredients: blood an…

How Awe Makes Us Generous

What do the Grand Canyon, Sistine Chapel, and gazing at distant stars all have in common?They can awaken a deep appreciation for the world around us and inspire a profound sense of…

The Heart of Tantra

Tantra is rooted in a quest for justice as much as spirituality and sexuality.

Dance Ecstasy

The Art and Science of Dancing into Nirvana

Into the Heart of Kabbalah

In my year with a rabbi, I learned that kabbalah is about wrestling with the complex and paradoxical nature of life. It’s confusing, but in essence, it’s about making the mundane holy.

Why Your Memory Is Less Accurate Than You Think It Is

New research underscores just how unreliable—and malleable—our memories really are

Pumpkin Power

You don’t have to wait for Halloween to enjoy the newest protein in town.

Finding Inner Peace, At Summer Camp

Pass the s’mores—and make them vegan! A new brand of sleep-away camp caters to wellness-seeking adults.

Soothe: Set Up Your Inner Sanctum

Have you ever noticed that when you walk into a spa, you feel the tension begin to melt away before you even have a treatment? You're likely being cloaked in a preplanned double wh…

3 Ways to Heal Ourselves With Art

A philosopher and a historian suggest a completely different way of experiencing art—one that could help us heal, cope with challenges, and transform our lives.

Mandala Art: Drawing Your Way to Wholeness

“The mandala is an archetypal image whose occurrence is attested throughout the ages. It signifies the wholeness of the Self.” —Carl G. Jung, Memories, Dreams and ReflectionsHave y…

Marie Howe: Holding the Silence

The acclaimed poet reflects on prayer, desperation, and letting go of what can’t be said.

5-Day Ayurveda Primer (Day Five)

Natural Healing Wisdom from the Chopra Center

Miraculous Millet

Drought tolerant, pest resistant, and homegrown—could millet be the next great sustainable grain?

Witnessing Nature's Story Without Words

I wonder if the information coming in through my eyes, ears, and nose is small compared to the story entering directly through my cells.

5 Ways to Rewire Your Thoughts on the Aging Process

Why resent aging when you can celebrate the triumph of still being here?

Centering Around the Chaos

When you have small children, the morning centering routine has to come early. Real early.

Would You Choose to Incarnate as You?

Lightworkers, according to Lightworker.com “believe that we are spirits playing a game in a human body and as such we have difficulty remembering who we are and why we are here”; s…

HoopYogini

A combination of hatha yoga, mindfulness meditation and playful fun.

Courageous Conversations: An Interview with David Whyte

Author David Whyte on words, spirituality, and his idea of a "conversation."

The Value of Mental Pictures

How One Woman Fights PTSD With Guided Imagery

An Oasis in the Food Desert

While it seems you can’t walk down the street these days without running into a community garden, many low-income neighborhoods still lack access to healthy and affordable food. Th…

The Joy of Spring

Modern living causes us to overlook the obvious. Here’s how not to let that happen.

The Island of Vitality

A place to get right and write

10% Happier

Excerpted from 10% Happier by Dan Harris

Connecting with Your Irish Ancestors

Whether they are real—and you are Irish—or not

Humanity in Animals

The Evolution of Empathy, Altruism, and Even the Soul

Putting the ‘Om’ in Classroom

San Francisco’s Visitacion Valley Middle School is an unlikely beacon of hope. Shootings and murders are common enough in the California city’s southern neighborhoods that the loca…

Mindfulness as an Attitude

How to make mindfulness easy and incorporate it into your life without it feeling like a chore.

The Practice of Becoming Intimate with Self and Other

An Interview with Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara

10 Days on a Grain Brain Diet

One woman reports healthy appetite shifts and a clearer head after trying the low-carb, low-sugar regimen.

Words vs. Pictures vs. Sounds

Which is your best learning mode?

Fresh Paint

Sponsored Content from Balboa Press

The Map is Not the Place

An excerpt from Step into Nature by Patrice Vecchione

The Wisdom of Houseplants

Spring reminds us of the cycles of life and spirit.

Top Five Foods to Feed Your Brain

Tips on fueling your mind from Dr. Drew Ramsey MD, superfood guru and author of 50 Shades of Kale

Wake up from Unworthiness

An Interview with Tara Brach

6 Secrets of Happy Relationships

Before the battles begin, we start out believing that being with this person will make us happy. Ironically, that’s the critical mistake…

The Secret of Future Calm

As the pace of life gets faster and faster, here’s how to avoid the shock.

Transcending Depression Without a Script

Antidepressants leveled out the highs and lows. So I found ways to supercharge them—to fully experience the agony and the ecstasy. And that feels better…

How to Honor the Elders in Your Family

Sponsored Content from Celebrant Foundation & Institute

Best Foods To Fight Memory Loss

Which are the best foods to fight memory loss? Take this handy list on your next grocery shopping excursion.

5 Questions for Emma Seppälä

Researcher (and new S&H columnist) Emma Seppala, unpacks the latest studies on happiness and offers a new way forward in her new book The Happiness Track: How to Apply the Scie…

79 Quotes on Inner and Outer Peace

“We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.” —Martin Luther King Jr.

7 Surprising Health Benefits of Silver

Silver has numerous health benefits, including a property that suffocates bacteria.

4 Intuition Meditation Scripts to Access Higher Self

Follow these four intuition meditation scripts to enhance your intuition and clairvoyance.

My Practice: Child Painting Prodigy Explains how She Channels Paintings

Akiane grew up in a non-religious household, but by the age of four started having visions and vivid impressions from invisible realms. She began using any medium available, from c…

Paradise in a Pill?

On a bleak winter night in the suburbs, eight Tibetan monks wearing sandals and maroon robes shuffled out across the ecru-colored stage of the local recital hall. They paused for a…

Jennifer Rothschild: Finding Light in the Darkness

Rather than limit Jennifer, blindness opened the door to a tapestry of achievements.

Sahar Paz: Find Your Voice

“Don’t let my shero cape become my veil.”

Care of the Soul: The Spiritual Imagination

What is the role of imagination in matters of ultimate concern? This is one of the top issues in the spiritual life and certainly in religion: many religious and even spiritual peo…

United We Stand Ceremony

Sponsored Content from The Celebrant Foundation & Institute

How to Break the Spell of Fear

When you take control, you break fear’s spell. The concept is simple, but is difficult to accomplish because fear is the ultimate enabler. I saw that clearly when I went blind.

Fall Health And The 5 Elements: How Ayurveda Helps

Did you know that the seasons are governed by the five elements? As we enter fall, we are shifting from fire-dominated summer to wind-dominated autumn.

You Are Wired for Joy

Excerpts from Joyful Living by Amy Leigh Mercree

To Shed Your Extra Cushioning, Shed Your Extra Cushioning

Once only the rich had shoes and chairs and excess fat

Our Winter Search for Meaning

What we did when Amazon Prime became our god

Silent Night: Journaling Under the Moon

As another year comes to a close and we look forward to new beginnings, this is the perfect time to reflect on what is working in our lives and what is not.

Solstice: The Wheel of Life

Sponsored Content from The Celebrant Foundation & Institute

The Christmas Bird

Excerpt from Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver

In Praise of the Micro Moment: 20 Boosts for the New Year

At the New Year you’re likely to see a lot of stories about making a resolution, and how to make it stick. You may be making some grandiose proclamations yourself—only to see…