• Silver
    April 2021, Interview, VOLUME 6 / 01 Apr 2021

    Silver

    AN ART ESSAY MIRIAM HANID is an artist silversmith. In 2016, she was interviewed by ROSALIND PEARMAIN for Heartfulness Magazine about her art and her motivations. Five years later, they catch up again to find out more about Miriam’s journey, and where her art has taken her. Q: The last time we reflected on your work it was in 2016. Looking at your website, you have been so busy since then, continuing to create so many exquisite works of sheer beauty. How have you sustained this output? MH: Wow, time flies! Thank you, it’s always nice to receive good feedback about my work! Many factors come to mind about how I have sustained my output, but I would say the main ones are rest, motivation, and beauty. While these words may not seem to be closely linked, they all work together for me. It is extremely difficult to be motivated without proper rest. Working at an optimal level, the best possible, work seems more like play and the end of the day comes as a surprise. The work is so enjoyable, and one is completely absorbed in it. I believe that leads to great rest. As the days and months pass, when reflecting on my career so far, I often look back on the most productive times with much amazement. But I have found myself overlooking the times of non-doing – those necessary inner periods when I’m just resting, relaxing and absorbing all that is going on. I now know that these are the opportunities where inspirational seeds can poke their heads above the surface to see what the conditions are like for growth. If my motivation is replenished (more on that later), and I can nourish those seeds, I can catch many new ideas for silver pieces, textures, forms and…

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  • In tune with nature
    April 2021, It changes everything, VOLUME 6 / 01 Apr 2021

    In tune with nature

    MARGARET SCHENKMAN is a nature lover, who has also learnt to embrace her inner nature through meditation. Here she explores the path of bringing balance and harmony between the inner and the outer worlds, and thus going further along the path to being in tune with Nature. Growing up, I loved being outdoors – rolling in the grass, climbing trees, even playing in the mud. When I was six, my brothers and I tried to dig to China, and what a mess that created! When I was thirteen, my family moved to a small farm where we grew almost all of our food. I milked cows, raised sheep, and worked in the gardens. I spent hours outdoors, learning to recognize the different trees by their leaves as well as the flowers and insects that inhabited the farm. As years passed, I became an avid hiker, often hiking barefoot; I loved the feel of the Earth. One year I hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon barefoot, because the boots I had brought were new and rubbing blisters. All in all, I could have described myself as a nature lover. In my 30s, I was challenged by a debilitating health condition that brought my outdoors exploration to a sudden halt and opened up a spiritual journey through the practices of Heartfulness. This journey led to an inner exploration of Nature that was even more fascinating than the nature around me. Early in my spiritual journey, I found the Ten Principles of Heartful Living. The fourth principle is to “simplify life to be identical with Nature.” When I first started thinking about this principle years ago, I was truly puzzled. I needed to renovate my garage and wondered, “Does that mean I shouldn’t put in an automatic door opener?” I didn’t…

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  • Why I meditate
    April 2021, Thought in action, VOLUME 6 / 01 Apr 2021

    Why I meditate

    JUST THINKING AND FEELING DR. ICHAK ADIZES shares his passion for meditation, and explains why he meditates, how it benefits him in day-to-day life, and the importance of love, which arises from meditation. Physics tells us that when the Big Bang happened, time and space started, which means that what existed before the Big Bang had no time or space limits. It was infinite. Likewise, love has no time nor space limits. Love is what created everything. Imagine any act of creation: a musician writing music, a painter painting, or an entrepreneur starting a company. What makes them write music, paint, or start a company is love. They love what they are creating, or they would not do it. Behind all creations is love. Babies grow stronger with love and are underweight and sickly looking if denied love. All organic systems grow better with love: flowers and trees, not to mention dogs, cats, or horses. Notice how love gives you energy and hate leaves you exhausted? Notice how people in love look younger and people who hate look old? Look at a little baby. When it meets an unknown person, it’s either going to cry or it is going to smile. For few seconds, the baby is watching this foreign person and tries to decide, should I cry, or should I stretch my hands to that person to be hugged? How does a baby decide? It’s sensing: Is there love in the other person or not? Opening our hearts and spreading love, I believe, is essential if humanity is going to survive. Unless we open our hearts and engage love in our behavior, Nazi Germany will turn out not to have been a fluke of history but a preamble of what is to come: strength and brain with no heart….

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  • Our bond with trees
    April 2021, Focus, VOLUME 6 / 01 Apr 2021

    Our bond with trees

    PETER WOHLLEBEN is a forester in the best sense of the word. He is the author of a number of books, including The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World, which was a New York Times bestseller. His latest book, The Heartbeat of Trees: Embracing Our Ancient Bonds with Forests and Nature, will be released in June 2021. Here, he is interviewed by ELIZABETH DENLEY about his work with forests and what inspires him about the natural world. Q: Hello Peter. PW: Hi, good to see you. Q: Having read your books, today I would like to learn about you: What has inspired you to follow this path of being in tune with nature, with trees in particular, and where did it all start? PW: Where did it start? I really don’t know, because I grew up for the first few years in Bonn, the former capital of Germany, and when I was five we moved to a little town outside of Bonn, where there was nature. My brother and two sisters are not very interested in nature, so I am the green sheep of the family. When I was eight, I collected money for the WWF, I was interested in the songs of whales, I had bugs and spiders in glass jars in my room, and all kinds of stuff like that. I was always very interested in nature, but not especially in trees. I became interested in trees after school, when I thought about studying biology. I heard that the German Forest Commission was searching for students, and thought, “Okay, a forester is something like a tree-keeper; perhaps that’s the perfect way to connect with nature,” and it turned out to be the wrong way. A forester is more…

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  • Nature warrior
    April 2021, Focus, VOLUME 6 / 01 Apr 2021

    Nature warrior

    BACHI SINGH BISHT is a Nature Warrior from the north of India. Here, he shares his wisdom with RAJESH MENON about how we can live in tune with the natural world, and what is our role in caring for and conserving nature. Q: Tell us about how your passion for nature and conservation arose. Did it start from childhood? RM: My mother told me that we used to live in a hut under a Gutel tree (Trewia Nudiflora). That’s where I was born. I was brought up in a village surrounded by thick jungle. Until the 10th Standard, I went to a school located at the edge of the jungle near an ancient canal. I feel these natural surroundings had a great impact on me during my childhood. This is how my love for nature arose. Q: Tell us about the work you do now? RM: I became a nature guide, or “Nature Warrior” as my friends call me, in the early ’90s. I have managed wildlife lodges across Uttarakhand, Central India, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, sharing my knowledge of birds, wildlife, and the conservation of nature with others. Whenever opportunity presents itself, I am called by wildlife training institutes and environmental education institutes (both government and private) as a resource person, trainer, motivator, subject expert, and as a Yoga instructor based on nature therapy. Right now, I work as a freelance Nature Warrior and provide services wherever my inner self takes me in preserving nature. Q: How do you advise that we educate our children about caring for the planet and relating to all living species? RM: Using our five senses properly, sincerely and honestly. The most important is to use our moral and civic sense properly to avoid much of the nonsense going on around the world toward nature….

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  • The art of removing and creating habits – part 4
    April 2021, Be inspired, VOLUME 6 / 01 Apr 2021

    The art of removing and creating habits – part 4

    Last month, DAAJI explored the yogic wisdom around creating the habit of truth and authenticity, by studying the second Yama, known as satya. This month, he focuses on the third Yama – asteya, meaning to remove the habit of stealing and taking anything that is not ours. GENEROSITY & NOT STEALING Previously, we have explored ahimsa, the removal of all forms of violence, forcefulness and imposition in our character, and satya, the removal of the programs of falsity that prevent us from being authentic and truthful. This month we explore the third Yama, asteya, the removal of the habit of stealing from our lifestyle. Initially, this seems so simple and straightforward – most of us would say, “I don’t steal” – but when we go into this Yama in depth, we realize that it impacts many aspects of our life. What does it mean to steal from others? Stealing is taking something without permission or legal or moral right. The obvious examples of stealing are the theft of another person’s property, their possessions, or their intellectual property, but there are so many ways we steal from each other and from our environment. For example, our current environmental crisis, including climate change and the mass extinction of species, is a result of us not following this third Yama; we treat our planet Earth as a resource to be pillaged without restraint. A little study highlights the fact that non-stealing is an important principle in all cultural traditions and religions. For example: In the Jewish and Christian traditions, three of the ten commandments relate to asteya: Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s spouse. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods. Of the five precepts of Taoism, the second is: No stealing. Lao Tzu said, “The precept against stealing…

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Silver

Silver

in April 2021, Interview, VOLUME 6

AN ART ESSAY MIRIAM HANID is an artist silversmith. In 2016, she was interviewed by ROSALIND PEARMAIN for Heartfulness Magazine about her art and her motivations. Five years later, they...

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Collectors' edition 2019

Yogic Psychology

In this wonderful collection, Daaji explores Yogic Psychology in the light of modern-day science and psychology, and shares some simple yogic practices and approaches that support mental health and joyful living. Daaji is a changemaker for the unification of all spiritual paths and seeking hearts.
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