‘In our minds we have a vision; it’s in our hearts that we make it happen’
Dreams & Teams Course Books – Youth Sports Trust, UK

‘To inspire the desire to lead, to create one team, one dream, one world’ is a quote on the cover of the Dreams & Teams Young Leader’s Learning Log Book. So, this has got to be a special programme and it is.

As I sit here in the make shift Dreams & Teams secretariat at the Chipasula Secondary School in Lillongwe, Malawi, there are nineteen enthusiastic Young Leaders setting up for their maiden sports and arts festival for sixty young children from two local primary schools.   Read more...

This is one of those words, which our mom taught us, before we went to school and learned it in our ‘Rapid English Reader’ book. Say sorry when you make a mistake. Say sorry even when you have not made a mistake because in some way it was your fault that the other person was hurt.

It seeped into the subconscious so deeply that often I found myself saying sorry to tables and chairs and doors if I dashed against it while walking carelessly. “Ouch! Sorry.”   Read more...

U. S. President John F. Kennedy called Dag Hammarskjöld “the greatest statesman of our century.” Mr. Hammarskjöld was the second Secretary-General of the United Nations. Not only was he a Swedish diplomat, but he was also a Christian mystic. His diary, Markings, is a wonderful taste of one man’s spiritual journey.

I don’t know where I read this quote attributed to him, but I believe it with every cell of my being.

“Unless there is a spiritual renaissance, this world will know no peace.”   Read more...

Steve and I met on a subway. He was sitting across from me and looked just like my childhood playmate grown up. So when he got off, I followed him and started a conversation. It turned out Steve and I were kindred spirits: both loving to travel, both open to adventures, both consciously trying to learn and grow, both wandering souls, if you will.

Despite our twenty-year age difference, we got along well, so I did some wheeling and dealing to get him a part-time job at my college. That way we could meet several times a week and talk to our hearts’ content. Of course, our friendship deepened.   Read more...

I know you’ve heard of it…the little magic pill you can pop to help accelerate fat loss, speed up your metabolism, block carbohydrates from entering your blood stream and trick your mind into thinking that you already ate.  It’s not sold on street corners like the illicit drugs of the urban ghetto though.  No, this little pill is readily and legally available to all – even hawked in magazines that you find on popular retail shelves.  It’s promoted on television by health experts, celebrities and even some doctors. And your best friend’s cousin’s hairdresser even heard about it on Oprah last week.  It’s sold in bright-colored little boxes and marketed under various brand names.  It comes in different forms – sometimes blended in a shake, crushed into a nutrition bar or soaked into a frozen meal, but at the end of the day one aspect of this little pill is consistent.  It always represents a pipe dream.   Read more...

Oh my, oh my, I cannot begin to tell you how delighted I am to introduce to you (unless you already know her!) the stellar, brilliant, inspiring, ever-deepening work of urban shaman Queen Mama Donna Henes. What appears below is excerpted from her Queen’s Chronicles newsletter. Her latest book, The Queen of Myself, is a daily inspiration to me. Find more or sign up for The Queen’s Chroniclesat her website.

Donna’s paean to one of my favorite peace sheroes made my heart sing. So to begin the school year, I invite you to swim in Donna’s wondrous prose on the subject of Peace Pilgrim. It is followed by a prayer for peace penned by Ellen Bass that had me weeping by its triumphant end.   Read more...

There comes a time in life, when we must walk away from some of the unfinished things in our lives. When we must renew our license to dream as it does reach an expiry date after getting relegated or thwarted repeatedly. It also helps to know this fact that every dream has a ‘past its sell-by date’. Knowing this helps us to discard the old and make room for new dreams, and look at the horizon with a bright new hope.   Read more...

It has been awhile since I sent in a blog to Ode. A combination of travel and busy with family on holidays was one reason. The other was that I have been trying to write an article based on thermodynamics, entropy, self regulating systems and the mind inspired by my engineering education of the past and my current inquiry into mind and matter. The article essentially bogged me down. I was obsessed by the topic for some time that I could not think of anything different to write. I have finally come to terms with it, left it aside for now and writing again.

The travel at the end of June has to be blamed on the Ode magazine as I got hooked on the Shambhala Summer Institute on Authentic Leadership in Action in Halifax, Canada. So, I did not worry about how I could afford the $3,000 fee and $2,000 airfare from Colombo to Halifax and back, I just jumped in. It was made more affordable to me by the good Shambhala folk through their scholarship programme and this was one of the best decisions I made this year.   Read more...

Try this experiment for a week - or even just a day: Fix your plate as you normally would, but before you eat, take the time to determine how many servings of food you are taking in. You may be surprised to find out that you are ingesting 3-4x the recommended servings.

Most Americans don't know what an actual serving looks like because we're so used to receiving and eating such large portions. If you find that you're "supersizing" at every meal, you should gradually reduce your serving sizes and chances are that you will be satisfied with less food.   Read more...

Eating alien babies. Dorothy liked the Chinese restaurant very much. The buzzing conversations, the carefully contrived atmosphere of oriental chic. Plus, there’s that waiter that looks like Christian Bale. But she always thought that doing dim sum was like eating alien babies. Cute little monsters that sliver down your throat.

‘My life is effectively over.’ Millie fishes for martian shrimp and is having somewhat of a quarterlife crisis. ‘Today I had a job interview. I think they googled me and found the party pictures my ex-boyfriend posted on facebook, because they had this disgusted look on their faces. It could have been arrogance, I’m not sure. There was this woman, I swear, with the characteristics of a sweatshop manager. She asked me what music I liked to listen to and I just panicked.’   Read more...