Let me know if any of these scenes sound familiar: blaring alarm clock, dragging your body out of bed, shuffling to the shower with slumped shoulders, casting a forlorn glance back to your bed, begrudgingly working to your kitchen for breakfast. For many of us, this is the beginning of many (if not every) day of our lives. But why? Every day is another to experience a life filled with the most beautiful and wondrous things we’ve ever known. We get to experience everything from the wondrous power of the natural world to the small simple pleasures of our daily lives, to the smile of a stranger and the songs of birds. Oddly enough, we human beings find it very easy to take these things for granted. That’s why this week we’re continuing our With a Purpose series to talk about developing a gratitude practice.

First of all, a gratitude practice is so much more than simply saying "thank you" more often. People with a strong sense of gratitude have been shown to have a...

               Last week we talked about how Walking with Purpose can be a great way to get in touch with yourself and the world around you, while getting some fantastic health benefits at the same time. We hope you’ve had the opportunity to get out for a walk at least once since then. If not, go now! Unless, of course, you’re one of our brothers or sisters who doesn’t have the opportunity to get out and walk today. Maybe you’re trapped in by the weather, maybe you’re feeling ill. Sometimes taking a walk just isn’t a feasible option. So what can you do to stay in touch when getting out and about just isn’t an option? Today, instead of going outward into the world with a walk, we invite you to practice connecting inwardly with writing.

               The physical, mental, and psychological health benefits...

              With so many wonderful new technologies and means of transportation, I feel the simple of value of walking is often overlooked. At the tap of a button and for just a few dollars we can summon a car from a stranger to come take us wherever we need to go! That’s not to mention buses, driving our own cars, trains, or even bikes. So much of our culture depends on getting where we need to be now, why bother walking anywhere?

               First we can break down the scientific benefits of walking. Human beings evolved for thousands of years to be a hunting and gathering people. Evolution resulted in many of our physical structures developing to benefit our walking and running, because for much of our history human beings had to travel long distances to find food, shelter, and hospitable conditions. Our leg bones are elongated, our spines are curved, and our leg...

Language is not something we often give much thought to, but when we think about the critical role it plays in our lives, this is a bit surprising. Every interaction we have with one another relies on some form of communication or another, and often this communication takes the form of language. If you’ve ever attended one of our courses, you’ve probably been introduced to some of our reference material which is in the Lakota Sioux language.  It isn’t often we are introduced to new languages, so when we host events and courses one of the most common questions I am asked is about the native tongue for so many of the teachings we draw from. It certainly is a fascinating topic, though it’s struggling to endure into modern times and thus I thought it’d be good to spur on any interest in it that I can.

The Lakota language which I was taught in is actually one of three dialects of the Sioux language, along with the Nakota and the Dakota. Today, the...