Through the suggestion of one of our Northern Spirit Radio board members, Janine Thull, I decided to attend a presentation last week here in Eau Claire by the Blue Zones Project crew, and my eyes were opened. I''ll let their Vice President, Business Development, Margaret Brown, spell it out, but what I think I learned about was a thoughtful and brilliant mechanism to help us live longer and better, to help grow a community into well-being and health.

The podcast, SmallTownBigGays, (also available on YouTube) is produced weekly by Travis Gorell and Chance Smith, originating from Eau Claire, WI, and sharing the reality, the strengths, and the beauty of queer folks in places most often ignored or discounted. Travis also performs regularly in drag around the Chippewa Valley as Khloe Wold as one of many Dolls of the Valley.

Exploration of how spiritually-root service can transform the paths of young volunteers. There's riches in the experience with the Peace Corps, Americorps & VISTA, Teach for America, & many more, but today we visit with several folks with QVS (Quaker Voluntary Service).

How does climate change affect us psychologically? When faced with  extreme weather affects how is our mental health threatened? What can we do to protect ourselves and our family from the mental health risks that come with extreme weather? How can climate advocates avoid being overwhelmed by the work? How de we address the anxiety, the anger, and the despair? You will hear answers to these questions and much more.

Ruah Swennerfelt has lots of experience in the Transition Town movement, locally, regionally, religiously, nationally, and internationally, and has now written of much of it in

What led Prairie Cutting (now Sister Confianza del Señor) & Beth Blodgett (now Sister Alegria del Señor) to leave the USA & create the Methodist-Quaker Amigas del Señor Monastery in Honduras? One key motivation was a calling to lead a life of poverty, explained in an article in Western Friend called Overcoming Need.

On a rapidly changing planet we are already seeing risks to public health. Natasha DeJarnett from the American Public Health Association sits down with Peterson Toscano to outline some of these risks, but also the community building opportunity.

In Incident at the Bruce Mine Shaft, Stephen Ivancic uses historical fiction to highlight the real life issues around workers, unions, and opportunistic capitalists. Set in the iron mines of Northern Minnesota in the 1920s and focusing on the Finnish workers, some communist, some not, Stephen helps us to understand the dynamics of individualism, community, and power.

While there are many sources of info on urgent environmental threats and of technological methods of dealing with those threats, few books tackle the major underlying question of how can we make a sustainable life actually be sustainable for the individual. In A Sustainable Life, Douglas Gwyn examines the essential inner work and the myriad complexities of initiating and supporting the choices of living sustainably, mostly using Quaker experience & insights as guideposts to the process.