When our friends and loved ones face a crisis, we often don't know what to say. Do we say anything at all? What if we say the wrong thing? Nearly everyone who has faced a hard time has heard things that weren't so helpful. But worse yet is silence, saying nothing. Emily McDowell faced such a time and, as a graphic designer, she chose to respond by doing what she loved- creating cards that say what is most helpful in bad times. Her empathy cards not only helped people reach out; by sharing she also helped people in similar circumstances feel heard and seen! Her tremendous success with the cards inevitably led to a book, There Is No Good Card for This: What To Say and Do When Life Is Scary, Awful, and Unfair to People You Love.

What does a poet do when she suffers the loss of her father? She writes. Exploring the depths of her relationship with her dad, Naomi Shihab Nye writes with the beauty of love, loss and continuing relationship. Her father wanted them to write a book together, and though this didn't quite happen before his death, he jumps off of every page. His particular viewpoint as an immigrant informs her outlook too and so we are offered a rare poetic view of our culture and the danger of imposing our politics on other peoples. Personal and political, Transfer is most deeply a love poem to the father who raised her, schooled her and loved her. She gives us inspiration towards our own expression of the losses in our lives, making something exquisitely beautiful out of pain and loss. In this hour, we will talk about the loss and what it was like to write about her father after his death.

Naomi Shihab Nye lives in old downtown San Antonio, Texas, a block from the sleepy river. She has written or edited 30 previous books including Red Suitcase, Fuel, and You and Yours with BOA Editions, Ltd. Her collection 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East was a finalist for the National Book Award, and her collection Honeybee was awarded an Arab-American Book Award. Her poetry anthologies include Time You Let Me In, What Have You Lost?, and This Same Sky. She is also the author of the novels Habibi and Going. Her book of short-short fiction from Greenwillow books is called There is No Distance Now. She is the two-time winner of the Jane Addams Book Award for Peace & Justice, and four-time winner of the Pushcart Prize, as well as the recipient of several fellowships, including a Lannan Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress. She is currently serving on the Board of Chancellors for the Academy of American Poets.

How has modern life disconnected us from our wisdom? Anita Sanchez shares the prophecies of indigenous elders who see a path towards reconnection and understanding.Join us to learn how to embody these principles; the power to forgive the unforgivable, the power to heal, the power of unity and the power of hope. These four gifts applied to our problems of living can change the way we operate as a society. They can even change boardrooms and businesses, bringing human understanding back to our fundamental human experience. And perhaps most important, they can heal our broken hearts.

Anita Sanchez, PhD is a transformational leadership consultant, speaker, coach and author of the international bestselling book, "The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times," available in paperback Nov. 13, 2018 from Simon & Schuster. She bridges indigenous teachings with the latest science to inspire and equip women and men to enjoy meaningful, empowered lives and careers. With four decades of experience coaching and training executives and their teams in dozens of Fortune 500 companies, governmental groups and non-governmental agencies, Anita is an established leader in global organizational change initiatives. She is a member of the Transformational Leadership Council with luminaries such as Jack Canfield, Marianne Williamson and John Gray, as well as the Association of Transformational Leaders, the Evolutionary Business Council, and serves on the Boards of the Bioneers organization and the Pachamama Alliance. Anita resides in the mountains outside of Boulder, CO with her husband and youngest son. For more information and to download the free song that is based on the book, visit www.FourSacredGifts.com.