Back-to-School Kit

Greetings, Friends. Back-to-school might as well be a holiday. Like Christmas, it invites families to consume heavily. Like Rosh Hashanah, it is a season of anticipation. And like Valentine’s day, it can evoke strong and opposite emotions. There are as many ways to feel about the first day of school as there are students, teachers, and parents preparing for it.

Whether this time of year feels like a party or a funeral, a new adventure or just another requirement, it is a time of great transition. We may get dragged along by the calendar, gripped by exigencies, and hurried on by the often unnatural pace of academic life.

We've found or designed some spiritual practices to help students, parents, and teachers alike cultivate presence, stillness, and meaning.

Barbie



This summer blockbuster is a playful, sassy, funny, and robust comedy filled with complicated characters, rousing songs, creative and very colorful costumes and sets, philosophical jaunts, and rowdy satirical commentaries on feminism, patriarchy, and pop culture. When Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) and her male admirer Ken (Ryan Gosling) leave their happy existence in Barbieland to find out what is going on in the Real World, they discover that life itself can be a quest. "All of the larger-than-life questions about our presence here on earth and what gifts we have to offer are spiritual questions," writes Lauren Artress. See what Barbie, her Barbie sisters, and all the Kens, plus a few humans, discover along the way. 

Discover More!

• We're Moving! With our team all working virtually, we are downsizing our Center to a space that will just hold our spirituality library and archives. So we're having a 50% off sale on our inventory of the Spiritual Literacy DVDs. Read more about this unique series based on the Alphabet of Spiritual Literacy and get special prices starting here.
• Folktales for a Better World. Tales from seven countries, drawn from a variety of narrated and published sources, adapted to illustrate kindness and peace for children ages five to eight.
• Thoreau's Religion. A book that places Henry David Thoreau, too often seen as only a writer about nature and simple living, squarely in the service of social justice.
• August 26: National Dog Day. Quotes, teaching stories, and book recommendations to honor these animals and the shelters and humane organizations that work for their welfare.
• Healing Trauma by Peter Levine. A classic how-to guide for using Somatic Experiencing® exercises to release the effects of past trauma from the body.
• Process Musings Blog: Beauty in the Darkness. Reflections from our regular columnist Patricia Adams Farmer on the spiritual lessons she is learning from advanced glaucoma.
• Being Truly Alive. Short & Sweet Spirituality blog offering advice from religious, spiritual, literacy, and other sources.

Resources for Your Spiritual Journey to Carry You Forward

A Pearl of Wisdom

Life is an unanswered question, but let's still believe in the dignity and importance of the question.

— Tennessee Williams

A Proverb to Ponder

No revenge is more honorable than one not taken.

— Spanish Proverb

A Short Prayer

Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers,

but to be fearless in facing them.

— Rabindranath Tagore