Share Begun in 1958, National Library Week is sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and observed in libraries across the country each April. All types of libraries — school, public, academic, and special — participate. Libraries are not only free repositories of books but are also rich suppliers of online resources, workshops, lectures, business centers, and community outreach programs. Library programs are designed to encourage community members to meet and discuss civic issues, work together using new technologies like 3D printi...

Share In ancient cultures, April Fool's Day, which comes close to the first day of spring, marked the beginning of a new year. Then in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII ordered the use of the Gregorian calendar that made January 1 New Year's Day. Some people, however, didn't know about the new schedule, or perhaps they just didn't think it made any sense. They continued to celebrate on April 1 and were called "fools" for doing so. This is the origin of our annual day of pranks and practical jokes. All the world's religions have holy fools, clowns, or tri...

The latest mindfulness books range from exploring the transformational power of self-care to benefits of practicing mindfulness for pain relief. Here are the Mindful editors’ favorite new titles.  9 Mindfulness Books to Add to Your Reading List 1) Permission to Speak How to Change What Power Sounds Like, Starting with You Samara Bay • Crown “To speak with the full wingspan of your voice requires some technical know-how as well as a certain flex of the permission muscle,” writes Samara Bay in this book that delivers plenty of each, and more besi...

Sleep is a critical component of overall well-being. It doesn’t just heal your body; it heals your mind. Mindfulness for sleep can help you get a good night’s rest which can change how you interact with the world by elevating your mood and improving your concentration. In our fast-paced world, increased feelings of stress and anxiety can prevent people from tapping into the healing power of sleep. In fact, an estimated 30% of Americans are regularly sleep deprived. With regular sleep deprivation, your attention span, mood, and memory suffer, ac...

Share Cesar Chavez (1927-1999) remains far and away the most important Latino leader in U.S. history. He started off as a field hand and rose to national prominence by taking on the money and power of California's agricultural industry. He was no saint and there were missteps along the way, but no one can doubt Chavez's integrity and zeal. That's the portrait of Chavez painted in Miriam Pawel's impressive biography The Crusades of Cesar Chavez. She emphasizes this Mexican-American leader's character qualities. Chavez was a single-minded man who...

Share Mother Maria Skobtsova was born in Riga, Latvia in 1891 and died on March 31, 1945 in the gas chamber at Ravensbruck. She was arrested by the Gestapo in Paris for rescuing Jews and working with the Resistance. During the last days of her life, she traded bread for thread and embroidered an icon of the Mother of God carrying a crucified Christ in her arms. Before becoming an Orthodox nun in 1932, Elizaveta Pilenko was a promising poet, a gifted amateur painter, and a theological student in St. Petersburg. Following the death of one of her ...

“Try walking a mile in someone else’s shoes.”  This age-old advice encourages us to consider and understand another person’s perspective and experience. Having been in someone else’s shoes can trigger a rush of empathy and may prompt us to take action by offering compassion or advice to someone in need. We often feel we can better support a loved one through hardship when we have also been through similar challenges. In the scientific literature, the ability to accurately assess how others are thinking or feeling is called “accurate interperson...

By Virginia Rodriguez There are countable moments that are happily memorable for me. I had to think for a long time to write about just one happy memory. I knew I had multiple special moments in my life, but sometimes it's very difficult to focus on the good things; I often feel overwhelmed by anxiety and fear. I try my best to keep my mind and heart on the things and moments that make me truly happy. But there was a time when I felt really depressed and anxious. I couldn't enjoy time with my family and friends, I couldn't feel fully happy, not...

Share Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh was born in Zundert, Netherlands on March 30, 1853. Little is known about his childhood except that he was a quiet child who showed no extraordinary promise. At sixteen he began working for an art firm in which his Uncle Vincent was a partner. He was transferred from the Hague to London to Paris, where he became increasingly dissatisfied with his job. In early 1876, he was dismissed. His interests soon took a strong religious turn. He wanted to become a minister, like his father. He spent ...

For so long, I thought I was my mind. The thoughts in my head controlled everything.  My fear, my anxiety, my stress, these were all part of me and they made up who I am. Growing up, this was all I knew. In order to survive, I convinced myself that my constant thinking was my edge. My worrying, my productivity of always DOING—I thought this is what made me successful. Being a child of two immigrants moving to the US for the American Dream, my early achievements were celebrated and as time went on, expected. Of course, being a first-generation A...

Share Tony-award winning performer Pearl Mae Bailey was born on this day in 1918 in Newport News, Virginia. As a young woman she became a Vaudeville dance and then a singer, touring Pennsylvania mining towns; then, during World War II, she entertained troops overseas through the United Service Organizations (USO). In 1958, Bailey joined the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), a performing rights organization. She made many records, with popular songs including "A Five Pound Box of Money"; "I'm Gonna Keep On Doin' "; ...

Before you begin your meditation, find a quiet space to walk. It could be outdoors, or in a hallway, or even a large room, walking back and forth. Walking meditation can be a formal practice, like watching the breath. Or it can be informal, bringing awareness to this everyday activity, whenever you need to travel from point A to point B. Walking meditation gives us an opportunity to gather our awareness which so often becomes distracted or even stuck when the mind is left to its own devices. Whether moving between floors of a building, on a cit...

Share Albert Einstein was right. The power of the atom has changed everything. Ever since the United States chose to use atom bombs against two Japanese cities in August 1945, the world has been held hostage to these deadly weapons. Not to be left out of the arms race, other nations are determined to develop their own nuclear capabilities. Since the Eisenhower administration's "Atoms for Peace" program, alternative options for nuclear technology have been promoted, but the sunny prospect of using the atom to create safe, cheap, and clean energy...

Share What do we do when our prayers run dry? For Sparrow, who has always begun the day with grateful prayers, it's a torment to discover one day that "his words get tangled and knotted in his beak like old yarn and straw." Wise little bird that he is, he goes to seek help from friends. None of the friends have verbal prayers to give him, and herein like the charm of this book. Rather, each prays by doing what they do best: Turtle by collecting and sharing berries, Mouse by painting, Buck by dancing. As they let Sparrow help — for instance, by ...

Share “Scientists have determined that even a centering pause of between just six and ten seconds throughout the day is very effective at resetting and calming our body and mind. As with intentional contemplative practices of long duration, even seconds-long pauses in our daily life have a significant and beneficial effect on developing our ability to pause before overreacting during stressful situations that come up later in the day. “By pausing to bring your awareness completely into the present moment, in those few seconds you are free from ...

Share This creative book brings East and West, ancient practices, and modern science together in its view of Jesus and contemplative living. What emerges in Caroline Oakes' writing is Jesus as a wisdom teacher, grounded in ancient contemplative practices that 21st-century brain science tells us are transforming for us. Chapter 3, “The Jesus Formula: The Centering Pause Practice,” looks at the life and teachings of Jesus in the gospels to show how he lived and taught “from a contemplative center.” But Oakes’ work really starts ticking in chapter...

Most people struggle when they first start breathing meditation. Here are some of the most common difficulties that arise and ways of working with them. What if the breath is difficult for me to find or it’s not neutral?  Most people discover that breathing is a good, reliable neutral anchor for them to use in meditation, but a few people find that paying attention to their breathing can make them uncomfortable, even anxious. Others worry that they start to control their breathing when they focus on it (more on this later). If you prefer not to...

Share Meister Eckhart (1260-1329) was a Dominican priest and theologian who exerts a hold on many contemporary spiritual writers. Long ago, he made the startling declaration that God and human beings are already bonded together, already in intimate contact. The only obstacle is our consciousness and the dreadful construction of dualism that constricts our ongoing divinization. This mystical understanding got him in trouble with the Catholic church, and in 1326, he was accused of heresy. He responded but the bull of Pope John XXII issued on Marc...

Share Walt Whitman, all-American poet, died on March 26, 1892, but his bold voice still speaks to us. He called himself "a caresser of life," and so he was. Whitman sang praises to the body at a time when the prevailing sentiment was against any mention of the flesh in poetry or prose. He was a lover of nature in all its wild profusion but also a devotee of the drama and the dynamism of the city. Ralph Waldo Emerson called Whitman's long poem Leaves of Grass "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed." Part...

Share Tennessee Williams was born on March 26, 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi. Always a sensitive child, he suffered his first nervous breakdown when he was thirteen. At seventeen, Williams won his first writing prize for an essay "Can a Good Wife Be a Good Sport?" During the Depression, he dusted shoes for $65 dollars a month. Always the jokester, Williams admitted later, "I went from shoe biz to show biz." Tennessee Williams wrote twenty-four plays and won two Pulitzer Prizes. Some of his most famous and controversial plays include The Glass ...