Iris Marie Bloom

My mother has days when she sleeps more and more, moving in and out of a twilight state of consciousness, as she approaches the end of her physical life. She experiences, thankfully, not a great deal of pain, but intense discomfort and sometimes fear as her late-stage lung cancer progresses. Over the past two and …

Given the deep sense of well-being many of us experience in natural surroundings, I want to encourage us to begin to connect the dots between our mental health and thriving natural environments, delving into ecopsychology and pro-environmental behaviors. I fully expect that within the next few years, ecopsychology and positive psychology will become intertwined. Right …

Conversation on an Airplane “I’m planning on being a fireman.  But if my brother gets killed in Iraq, I’m going to enlist and go take vengeance over there.”  Thus spoke the young man in the seat next to me on a late night flight last month.  This recent high school graduate had already been wonderfully …

I recently interviewed two random humans on the subject of generosity, in the Atlanta airport when my flight was cancelled five times in a row due to thunderstorms. The first subject was thoughtful, humble, and humorous in her approach to my questions. My interview with her left me feeling rather elated about just how wonderful …

Like many of us, I have, all my life, struggled with time in one way or another.  I seem to alternate between embracing flat-out activity and finding deeper pools of energetic sustenance.  As a child, sensing the hyper-pressure around me, I began to actively resist.   A self-taught procrastinator, at 19 I wrote an editorial entitled …

Iris Marie Bloom, MAPP ’07, is a poet, peace and justice activist, massage therapist and safety/self-defense instructor. Iris is secretly happiest when she’s out sailing or just hangin’ out with loved ones, human and canine.             PPND articles by Iris are here.