Name: Debbie Millman: Fail Safe by brainpicker in Brainpicker
Duration: 8 min 17 s
Description: An inspiring commencement address delivered to the graduating class at San Jose State University. Transcript and discussion: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/15/debbie-millman-look-both-ways-fail-safe/

Brainpicker

"When words bring you closer to the prisoner in his cell, to the patient who is dying on his bed alone, to the starving child, then it's a prayer."

Elie Wiesel, the beloved writer known for his memoir of the Holocaust, "Night," speaks of the power of prayer and forgiveness in the wake of profound suffering. Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise.

Evil, Forgiveness, and Prayer | Elie Wiesel [Becoming Wise]

Poem text and context: https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/05/02/rosanne-cash-adrienne-rich-marie-curie/

Recorded at "The Universe in Verse," April 24, 2017: https://www.brainpickings.org/the-universe-in-verse/

Photograph of Rosanne Cash by Molly Walsh / Academy of American Poets

POEM TEXT / CONTEXT

Rosanne Cash Reads "Power" by Adrienne Rich

Exploring difficult emotions and experiences may be the key to loosening their hold over us. Try this 10-minute mindfulness practice from Patricia Rockman, MD.

Tame Feelings of Shame with this 10-Minute Practice

Short 3 stage breathing space with Josephine Lynch.   A gentle practice that can be easily incorporated into the every day.

Josephine Lynch Breathing Space (6 Mins)

Anxiety engenders feelings of isolation—when we don't feel at ease, how do we find peace? This meditation explores making amends for the times we've hurt ourselves, others, or those who have hurt us.

A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook for Anxiety

Reconciliation Meditation (20 min)

Poem text and context: https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/04/16/zadie-smith-reads-frank-ohara/

Zadie Smith reads "Animals" by Frank O'Hara

Sydney Mindfulness Training

Awareness of Breath (5 mns) – Rita Young

Background and context: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/03/18/tolstoy-reading-rare-1909-recording/

The fascinating story of A Calendar of Wisdom, with selected highlights: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/03/15/a-calendar-of-wisdom-tolstoy/

Leo Tolstoy reads from "A Calendar of Wisdom," 1909

3 Practices to Tap into the Wisdom of Your Body

Story: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/02/18/sophie-blackall-debbie-millman-interview/

Excerpt from Design Matters with Debbie Millman: https://soundcloud.com/designmatters/design-matters-with-debbie-133

Subscribe to Design Matters on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Sophie Blackall on Design Matters with Debbie Millman: The Whale at Coney Island

Full conversation and context: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/06/wendy-macnaughton-caroline-paul-design-matters/

Excerpt from https://soundcloud.com/designmatters/carolinepaulandwendymacnaughton

True love, depression, and purpose

Recorded by Sonja Laukkanen. 'Gavia arctica calls'

Heisanharju, Jaala, FINLAND

2013 SVA Commencement Address. 

Transcript, highlights, and discussion: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/13/greil-marcus-sva-commencement-address/

Greil Marcus on the artificial divide between "high" and "low" art

An inspiring commencement address delivered to the graduating class at San Jose State University. Transcript and discussion: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/15/debbie-millman-look-both-ways-fail-safe/

MORE

Debbie Millman: Fail Safe

In 1968, Dr. Bernie Krause was leading a booming music career. A prodigiously talented musician and early master of the electronic synthesizer, Krause was busy working with artists like the Doors and the Beach Boys and performing iconic effects for blockbuster films. Then Warner Brothers commissioned him to create an album incorporating the sounds of wild habitats, so he headed into Muir Woods with his recording equipment. What he heard changed his life and triggered a fifty-year odyssey.

Then and there, Krause decided that he wanted spend the rest of his life recording and archiving the music of wild animals and wild places. He quit Hollywood and began traveling the world. The soundscapes he recorded were full of epiphanies about the origin of our own culture and music, about the profound connectedness of creatures, and about the unseen tolls of human activity. Previous wildlife recordings isolated the calls of individual creatures, but Krause recorded habitats as a whole. He soon proposed a new theory of ecosystem functioning: that each species produces unique acoustic signatures, partitioning and occupying sonic niches such that the singing of all of the creatures in a healthy ecosystem can be heard, organized like players in an orchestra. 

Today, Krause’s astonishing archive contains sounds made by more than 15,000 species. It is, as The New Yorker aptly put it, “an auditory Library of Alexandria for everything non-human." Fifty percent of the recorded habitats no longer exist due to habitat destruction, climate change, and human din. We spoke with Krause about the beauty of and perils facing wild music, the extraordinary science of soundscape ecology, and how sound impacts the welfare of animals. The music in this episode is from Wild Sanctuary (www.wildsanctuary.com).

Debbie Millman: Fail Safe

brainpicker

Related tracks