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Why do we send flowers? To make up for what is intangible? Those feelings we can’t hold in our hands and present as a gift to our loved ones? And why is it that the placeholders we choose — the dozen red roses, the fragrant white lilies, the long-stemmed French tulips — are so fleeting? Hold on to them for too long and you end up with a mess of petals, pollen and foul-smelling water. After my boyfriend’s death, I went about trying to find closure. I wrote letters and set them on fire. I went to a therapist, then another. I went to yoga and tried meditation. I moved to Colorado, then Oregon. I went so many places and carried him along with me to each of them. I have done so much holding. There’s a picture I took of him just days before I left for college, two months before ... [Read more] Seed questions for reflection: How do you relate to the notion that the fleeting nature of life is what makes it precious? Can you share a personal story of a time you found life valuable precisely because of its fleeting nature? What helps you appreciate impermanence? |
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How do we use the tools of today to bridge emergent phenomena of possibility with very ancient values? One of those ways is through AI, or artificial intelligence. AI can be an "innerscope" - and perhaps even lead us to an "interscope" to cultivate greater connection and compassion. During a Closing Celebration call for the recent Global Interfaith Compassion Challenge, the ServiceSpace Interfaith Bot was unveiled. The Interfaith Bot contains a corpus of 77,000 sacred documents! Tapan Parikh and Tulika Verma share more, including examples of questions they asked the bot and the surprising yet beautiful responses they received. Watch the clip here.
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Sharon Salzburg: A Memorable Interfaith Space + A Meditation Sharon Salzburg, renowned meditation teacher, reflects on her memorable experiences with interfaith spaces during last month's Interfaith Compassion Challenge orientation call. She shared one stunning moment, saying "suddenly we were a community in a very different way...open to and with such heartfelt testimony, from everybody, on all sides." Watch her wonderfully rich talk here:
Then tune in to a meditation guided by Sharon, and to hear her response to the question: How do you balance the conviction of your path with the curiosity of something foreign to you? |
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Enjoy a recent KindSpring Community Roundup :) DrJoe: Sent Another Package To My Friend In Ukraine :) |
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Yuka Saionji: Story From A Hiroshima Pilgrimage On a reunion call during the recent Interfaith Compassion Challenge, Yuka Saionji Matsuura joined us to share stories of hope and forgiveness from her pilgrimage to Hiroshima. Yuka is the Deputy Chairperson of Byakko Shinko Kai, a spiritual organization dedicated to world peace and raising the consciousness of humanity During her deeply moving talk, she shared, "We believe everyone is a divine spark, and to see it from that perspective, doing something so against your divine spark, doing something so apart from the truth of who you are, causes so much pain and so much struggle." Watch her full remarks here:
You can also watch a brief video about the Symphony of Peace Prayers and watch as Yuka leads a peace prayer from her tradition. |
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Living into All the Honey: Embracing Grief and Joy "How the churning of opposite feelings weaves through us like an insistant breeze leads us wordlessly deeper back into ourselves ..." In a moving video, poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer reads from her new collection of poetry All the Honey. Watch below. |
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Inner Green Deal Podcast: Transforming Act of Giving
Tamsin: "... acts of surprise kindness are happening all the time. They just don't get the airplay. But they are out there." Nipun: "To me, this is the solution to it. What should I do? Do a small act of kindness. And it sounds so small, but it challenges your whole existence ... and I think if you try it, it opens up a whole new field." Listen to the full conversation here. |
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Why do we do it? Why do we nag and criticize ourselves? Why do we launch scud missiles of negative words and thoughts against our self-images? Perfectionism is one reason. We expect ourselves to be perfect, and when we aren’t, we shame ourselves. We dig trenches of negativity that tell us we’re bad. Flawed. Broken. We commit treason against our inherent goodness. Driving ourselves to achieve, to be good, and to become better is a good thing. It allows us to set and reach goals, to pursue our dreams, and to make the world a better place. But that drive can become imbalanced when ... [Read more] Seed questions for reflection: How do we relate to the notion that affirming and accepting ourselves purposely lowers the unattainable bar of perfectionism? Can you share a personal story of a time you were able to love yourself unconditionally? What helps you accept the good, messy and teachable parts of you? |
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At Forum Alpbach at the end of August, Nipun shared stories of a sparrow -- and offered heart pins to the crowd. One among them was Jojo. When he was asked by his club to share his experience at Alpbach, he invited students from around the world to come together in this beautiful way!
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Rachelle recently joined us for an Awakin Call where she led us through a meditation, shared some of her music, and so much more. You can watch the call here - and catch a special performance she shared during a recent Interfaith Compassion Pod call. |
The Inner Green Deal podcast is a commercial free offering that features guests in conversation about the human dimension of sustainability. On a recent episode, podcast host Tamsin and ServiceSpace founder Nipun Mehta talk about the transformative act of kindness.
