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Beliefnet is gathering stories from readers on different ways they welcomed babies into this world (from anointing the baby with holy oil to hosting a Jewish bris or baby-naming to Muslim head-shaving ceremonies). The editors also hope to learn how people commemorate a baby’s arrival in non-religious ways. Parents could show their baby a first…

NPR’s “All Things Considered” aired a piece yesterday about an artist named Lisa Bufano who dances without fingers or feet. That’s right, when Bufano was 21, a staph bacteria infection cut off blood flow to her extremities, and doctors had to amputate them. So now she performs as she is, who she is, and she’s…

ReligiousTolerance.org has good information on how Tuesday’s Spring Equinox is celebrated as a sacred time around the globe. And here are wonderful images of the stones at Cairn T, the ancient Irish burial mound that is aligned like a clock with the Spring Equinox, and built so that the sun near and on March 21st…

The greatest anthem to springtime wasn’t written with spring in mind. Here’s what modern dancer Martha Graham wrote about how Aaron Copeland’s ballet score for her most famous ballet (a story of pioneering newlyweds in Pennsylvania) came to be called “Appalachian Spring.” When Aaron first presented me with the music, its title was “Ballet for…

Café Emunah, the first-ever Kabbalistic lifestyle lounge and tea bar is opening this month in Ft. Lauderdale with a “biblically inspired” menu. I quote from the press release: Café Emunah’s modern “organic chic” aesthetic presents diners with environmentally sensitive décor consisting of evocative art, natural woods, large open windows, frosted glass, muted metals, recycled plastics,…

Thanks J. Esmerelda Durbin for this clarifying post regarding the absence of the feminine form near and around sacred obelisks: “…I was led by my teachers to believe that every obelisk has a reflecting pool (of water), either at its base, or nearby, into which the image of the obelisk reflects. This pool of water…

Denise Roy, author of “My Monastery is a Minivan,” has written a new book called “Momfulness: Mothering with Mindfulness, Compassion, and Grace.” And boy, is it good. It’s the best book on parenting I’ve read since Jon Kabat-Zinn’s “Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting” seven years ago. I cracked open my copy of…

Here’s an excerpt from Denise Roy’s wonderfully helpful new book “Momfulness: Mothering with Mindfulness, Compassion, and Grace.” Try this practice when you’re running late with your family, or just feeling stressed, she says. 1. First, take a slow, deep breath–for you. 2. Become aware of your thoughts, your feelings, and your physical sensations. 3. Pay…

I love deceased British singer Nick Drake as much as anybody. The melancholic, lean, long-haired man in jeans and a rumpled sports coat–who either took an overdose of his anti-depressant by mistake in 1974, or killed himself because his albums weren’t selling well–is someone whose haunting music and life story rips open my chest wall,…

Don’t miss Wendy Schuman’s interview with folk legend/civil rights leader Pete Seeger, focusing mainly on his spiritual beliefs. “I feel most spiritual when I’m out in the woods. I feel part of nature. Or looking up at the stars,” Seeger says. “[I used to say] I was an atheist. Now I say, it’s all according…
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