News — Contributor Excerpt

Code Literacy: A 21st Century Requirement

Douglas Rushkoff, one of the leading cutting-edge thinkers of our time, recently published an article in Edutopia about the importance of making sure we -- and even more importantly, our children -- have a true understanding of how to negotiate this new digital world.  The article begins:

Ask kids what Facebook is for, and they'll tell you it's there to help them make friends. And, on the surface anyway, that's what it looks like. Of course, anyone who has poked a bit deeper or thought a bit longer about it understands that people programming Facebook aren't sitting around wondering how to foster more enduring relationships for little Johnny, Janey and their friends, but rather how to monetize their social graphs -- the trail of data the site is busy accumulating about Johnny and Janey every second of the day and night.>>

Click here to read the full article

Douglas Rushkoff on BetterListen.com

Lesson 13 from Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Letting Everything Become Your Teacher"

Lesson 13 - How Judgmental We Are
 

Mindfulness is cultivated by assuming the stance of an impartial witness to your own experience. To do this requires that you become aware of the constant stream of judging and reacting to inner and outer experiences that we are all normally caught up in, and learn to step back from it. When we begin practicing paying attention to the activity of our own mind, it is common to discover and to be surprised by the fact that we are constantly generating judgments about our experience.

The habit of categorizing and judging our experience locks us into mechanical reactions.

Reprinted from LETTING EVERYTHING BECOME YOUR TEACHER: 100 Lessons in Mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn © 2009 by Jon Kabat-Zinn.  Reprinted by arrangement with the Random House Publishing Group.

Jon Kabat-Zinn Titles on BetterListen!

Jon Kabat-Zinn Bio and Links

Letting Everything Become Your Teacher

More Runic Wisdom and Free Rune Reading!

Ralph H. Blum’s The Book of Runes -- one of the most popular sources of oracular wisdom -- is now available as an e-book, smartphone app and interactive web application through BetterListen!
 
Events or, more likely, aspects of character can interfere with the growth of new life. You may feel dismay at failing to take right action. And yet rather than dismay, what is called for here is diligence. . . You may be required to cultivate the soil once again, yet through correct preparation, growth is assured.
—The Book of Runes, Rune 16, Berkana, Growth Reversed

Did you know that the symbol on Harry Potter's forehead is a Rune? Check it out!

Want a free Rune reading?  Click here.

The Book of Runes

Little Book of Runic Wisdom

Runic Wisdom of the Day and Free Rune Reading!

One of the most popular sources of oracular wisdom, Ralph H. Blum’s The Book of Runes, is now available as an e-book, smartphone app and interactive web application. Runic wisdom can be found in surprising places -- from runes themselves to fortune cookies!  Today we offer two excerpts from Blum's book Little Book of Runic Wisdom.

When the heart of relationship is full,
nourishment is everywhere, even in
the smallest things, for God is always
found in the details.
-- an interpretation of Rune 13, Perserverance, from The Relationship Runes: A Compass for the Heart by Ralph H. Blum