Image | The predominantly Kurdish town of Kobani is devastated after months under siege by Islamist forces and airstrikes by a United States-led coalition. Photo by Bulent Kilic.

by William Ury and Thomas Hübl, Spring | Summer 2017

Ury: Many years ago, I was facilitating (very quietly and confidentially) a conversation between Turkish and Kurdish leaders about a war that had been going on for decades. Thousands of villages had been devastated by this conflict. It was hard for some of the people to even sit in the same room together. A retired Turkish admiral stood up and said, “As a member of the Turkish Armed Forces, I want to acknowledge and apologize for all the suffering that innocent villagers have experienced as a result of the war and the actions of the armed forces.” There was an intense moment of silence.

Image | “In their eyes is knowledge, borne through the generations of their ancestors who have walked through the earth’s deep time.”

by Eleanor O’Hanlon, Spring | Summer, 2017

These bonds between male elephants can be astonishingly tactile and affectionate. In Namibia a few years ago, I saw two young male desert elephants break off a bout of sparring to make a ritual greeting to a much larger and older male. They caressed his forehead, his jaw, and the top of his head with their trunks, then leaned into him to lay their trunks across his shoulders.

It was one of the most tender and devoted greetings I have ever witnessed among wild creatures.

by Mark Phillips, Spring | Summer, 2017

The first time I wept for the Earth I was alone in the woods in late summer after a long run. It was, I believe, the combination of runner’s high, a sense of connection to the beautiful natural setting, and the culmination of several months’ personal awakening to the gravity of our ecological crises. I just stood there with my hands on my knees, crying in shock. It was a rare and surprising moment for me. The last time I had cried was at my grandmother’s funeral. But this time the grief felt immeasurably vast and deep, beyond anything I had ever experienced.

by Claudia Welss and Deepak Chopra, Spring | Summer 2017

Welss: Would you please address what visionary quantum pioneer Wolfgang Pauli meant when he said, “The science of the future reality will neither be psychic nor physical, but somehow both and somehow neither.” And, if it fits with your response, please say more about what you mean when you say in the book that the universe is actually a mirror of the human nervous system.

Chopra: I’m saying that as a preliminary to something much more important…

by Gabriele Castagnoli and Sesto Giovanni Castagnoli

In February 2016, we started out on a pilgrimage—one with no time limit. Beforehand, we had given away all our possessions except the contents of our two rucksacks. The wish to do so came up when we were planning our first pilgrimage from October to December 2015 from our home in Switzerland to the World Climate Conference in Paris.

Image | Holding action, Occupy Boston; Nick is sitting in the center.

by Nicholas Joyce, Spring | Summer 2017

When I say ‘activism,’ it almost certainly brings a particular picture to mind. Perhaps it’s people peacefully assembled with picket signs; maybe it’s masked members of a protest movement throwing rocks at cops; or maybe it’s making a monthly donation to an organization that does wonderful work. How many of you think of a monk meditating on a mountaintop? How about a group of people engaged in collective inquiry to uncover hidden or limiting beliefs?