Self-Care Tips from Slow Animals and Helpful Droids

Meditate with (rev) Sarah Bowen and her favorite creatures at sacredsendoffs.com/ meditations.

Billy Collins

“Read. Just Read,” advises Billy Collins. “The best teachers are not lecturing behind some seminar table, but are instead sitting quietly on the bookshelves of your home.”

A Better Friend

Victor Parachin dives into the Buddha’s advice for being a better friend.

RESTORING RELATIONSHIPS to Ourselves, to One Another, and to the Earth

AN INTERVIEW WITH FARIHA RÓISÍN

READING AS A SPIRITUAL EXERCISE

GRACE JI-SUN KIM encourages us to see reading in a new light.

FOCUSING ON WHAT MATTERS MOMENT BY MOMENT

The Summer 2002 issue of S&H included this still-timely article

LOGGING INTO Online Wellness

LEARNING CAN IMPROVE OUR QUALITY OF LIFE—AND THE EFFECT IS TWOFOLD FOR COURSES ON WELLNESS AND SELF-BETTERMENT.

HOW TO LAMENT

JENNIE MCLAURIN, MD, MPH, gives instructions to guide a rediscovery of this age-old tradition.

Seeing Is Empathy

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

5 Care Tips: Pineal Gland

The pineal gland, which is about the size of a grain of rice, is located in the center of the brain (although technically it is not part of the brain). Its main function is to receive signals from the environment about the amount and quality of light so that it knows how much melatonin to produce to help us wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night. Melatonin is involved in much more than sleep, however. It plays a role in sexual development and is a strong antioxidant, among other functions.

NO WRONG ANSWERS

CONFUSED ABOUT ORACLE CARDS? ORACLE EXPERTS EXPLAIN WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT.

Follow your curiosity, find your purpose

My mother’s death at one hundred years old rocked my world.

Walk With Wonder

Welcome wellness through new practices for the mind and body.

What's Strong With Me?

The Soul of Therapy

Your Anxiety Isn't All in Your Head

Ellen Vora, MD, is a psychiatrist, a yoga instructor, an acupuncturist, and a witch—and she’s on a mission to radically change the way we approach mental illness. Her groundbreaking new book is The Anatomy of Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming the Body’s Fear Response.

The Shamanic Bones of Zen

"Revealing the Ancestral Spirit and Mystical Heart of a Sacred Tradition"

Lessons From an Underwater Monastery

“IF YOU LEAVE this earth before me, I’m becoming a monk,” I once told my husband, staring over the impossibly high-cliffed walls of Greece’s Meteora monasteries.

Jess Polanshek

S&H editor Ben Nussbaum spoke with artist Jess Polanshek about drawing porcupines, working at an art supply store, and embracing layers. Look for her work throughout the issue.

Hedonism and Spirituality

ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE FOR THE SPIRITUAL TRAVELER

NEW HOME, OLD TRADITION

KATE MADDEN YEE describes her spiritual journey, which took her back

JULIA CAMERON

“WE ARE NOT CREATED to be thwarted. Rather, we were made for full flowering,” creativity doyenne Julia Cameron writes in her new book, Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Path to Creative Connection. And Cameron’s career is testament to this: Beginning with The Artist’s Way, the creative unblocking primer she published in 1992 (it’s sold more than four million copies since), Cameron has not only nurtured her own creative life over decades, but she’s also sparked that of countless others through the use of down-to-earth tools such as daily writing and weekly Artist Dates—practices that, in her case, have led to more than 40 books of nonfiction, fiction, and memoir; four poetry collections; seven plays; and a feature film.

Taking It Home

"Hang on to the positive effects of your retreat"

The Grieving Brain

The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss

The Art & Practice of Spiritual Herbalism

Transform, Heal, and Remember with the Power of Plants and Ancestral Medicine

It's Time for Shedding

The Chinese Zodiac suggests that while snake people may be seductive and slightly dangerous, at the same time they are intelligent, wise, and the most intuitive of all personalities.

How to Embody Kindness

Lessons from a lifetime of spiritual adventure

Surviving Widowhood

GUEST COLUMNIST LESLIE GRAY STREETER

I feel healthy! I feel happy! I feel terrific!

THE HEART OF HAPPINESS

Root & Ritual

Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self

HOW TO PREPARE FOR YOUR RETREAT

I was fortunate enough to sail to perhaps the original, and certainly the most famous, ancient healing retreat—the Temple of Asclepius at Epidaurus, on the Argolid Peninsula in Greece.