Brain Scans & Relationship Insights How many relationships do you know of that you would regard as high functioning and responsible for bringing out the best in each person? Neuroscientist Bianca Acevedo and her colleagues took brain scans of people in long-term relationships and discovered that only 10% were fulfilling…

In the Hopi language, the word koyaanisqatsi means “life out of balance”. Over four decades ago Godfrey Reggio created a non-narrative film based on this idea, depicting different aspects of the relationship between humans, nature and technology. It could be said that while our culture champions individuation as a principle…

Depth psychology and much of our self-help and personal development systems take a western approach to self-discovery, but this is only half the equation. Imagine how poorer the world would be without the Sufi poet Rumi, Confucius, Thích Nhất Hạnh and other epoch changing thinkers such as Indian philosopher Krishnamurti…

During the 1850s, Henry David Thoreau became the pioneer of western silence retreats publishing the account of his experience in his memoir, Walden. As the pressures of modern life and the reach of technology grows, many of us feel overwhelmed by the bombardment of calls, texts, emails and social media…

Zodiac signs originated in the collective conscious over 2 000 years ago. The ancient Babylonians recognised there were around 12 new moons over the course of a year. And so they divided the path of the Sun into 12 constellations. Shamans’ talk of how the plants speak to them, teaching…

Thomas Hobbes (1588- 1679) was among the growing trend of mechanical materialists who believed that nothing but tangible things were real. But with the advent of quantum mechanics, reducing the ineffable to manageable, bedrock beliefs has proved elusive. Many scientists asking questions about the meaning of quantum theory were issued…

The foot of the male diving beetle is unremarkable to the naked eye. But shown through an electron microscope at a magnification of 100x you see something infinitely more complex and beautiful. Technology has improved enormously from 1665, when Robert Hooke first revealed the hidden world of small things through…

The right book for the right person is not enough. It needs to be the right book, for the right person at the right time. — Johnny Uzan Many of us have had the experience of magnetising the perfect book to help us with something we are going through or…

Our Australian Writers Centre offers retreats in Blue Mountains, NSW on the outskirts of Sydney. Henry Thoreau once said, “ It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious…