This is beautiful, sad, moving and hopeful.

http://www.ted.com/talks/brian_skerry_reveals_ocean_s_glory_and_horror.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2010-06-02&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email

A visually stunning documentary about our planet and the relationship we all have to each other. A message we have all heard, but need to hear until we start making changes for the better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU

Matthieu Ricard: Monk, author, photographer

Sometimes called the “happiest man in the world,” Matthieu Ricard is a Buddhist monk, author and photographer.

After training in biochemistry at the Institute Pasteur, Matthieu Ricard left science behind to move to the Himalayas and become a Buddhist monk — and to pursue happiness, both at a basic human level and as a subject of inquiry. Achieving happiness, he has come to believe, requires the same kind of effort and mind training that any other serious pursuit involves.

His deep and scientifically tinged reflections on happiness and Buddhism have turned into several books, including The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet. At the same time, he also makes sensitive and jaw-droppingly gorgeous photographs of his beloved Tibet and the spiritual hermitage where he lives and works on humanitarian projects.

His latest book on happiness is Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill; his latest book of photographs is Tibet: An Inner Journey.

“Matthieu Ricard, French translator and right-hand man for the Dalai Lama, has been the subject of intensive clinical tests at the University of Wisconsin, as a result of which he is frequently described as the happiest man in the world.”

Robert Chalmers, The Independent

TED Talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/matthieu_ricard_on_the_habits_of_happiness.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/wade_davis_on_the_worldwide_web_of_belief_and_ritual.html

Anthropologist Wade Davis muses on the worldwide web of belief and ritual that makes us human. He shares breathtaking photos and stories of the Elder Brothers, a group of Sierra Nevada indians whose spiritual practice holds the world in balance.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/wade_davis_on_endangered_cultures.html

Wade Davis: Anthropologist, ethnobotanist

A National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, Wade Davis travels the globe to live alongside indigenous people, and document their cultural practices in books, photographs, and film. He’s a passionate advocate for preserving what he’s dubbed the “ethnosphere.”

Anthropologist Wade Davis is perhaps the most articulate and influential western advocate for the world’s indigenous cultures. His stunning photographs and evocative stories capture the viewer’s imagination. As a speaker, he parlays that sense of wonder into passionate concern over the rate at which cultures and languages are disappearing — 50 percent of the world’s 6,000 languages, he says, are no longer taught to children. He argues, in the most beautiful terms, that language isn’t just a collection of vocabulary and grammatical rules. In fact, “Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind.”

Davis, a Harvard-educated ethnobotanist, believes humanity’s greatest legacy is the “ethnosphere,” the cultural counterpart to the biosphere, and “the sum total of all thoughts and dreams, myths, ideas, inspirations, intuitions brought into being by the human imaginationsince the dawn of consciousness.” He beautifully articulates the intellectual, emotional and moral reasons why it’s in everyone’s best interest to preserve the world’s cultures.

To this end, Davis serves on the councils of Ecotrust and other NGOs working to protect diversity. He also co-founded Cultures on the Edge, a quarterly online magazine designed to raise awareness of threatened communities. Perhaps his best-known work is The Serpent and the Rainbow, an international bestseller about zombification practices in Haiti. Wes Craven adapted the book into a 1988 film, which Davis denounced as a betrayal of the book’s spirit. His latest book is The Clouded Leopard: A Book of Travels.

“His work with indigenous cultures has given him a truly unique view of the world. He is able to slip off the map for awhile, to live with the voodoo priests in Haiti, the Penan in Borneo, or the Quechuen of Chinchero.”

CBC-TV