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While some developers rightly focus on how to make websites accessible, this article focuses on the why. Why does the Drupal community hold accessibility in such high esteem? The Drupal community strives to provide a diverse and inclusive space, so building accessible websites clearly supports those goals. This article explores the stated reasons for Drupal's continued commitment to accessibility beyond the obvious truth that making websites accessible is the right thing to do.

people doing yoga

George Boole reportedly said, "A real mathematician ... must be something more than a mere mathematician, he must be also something of a poet." It seems to me that something similar could be said about being a yoga teacher in 2020, and that a successful teacher must be more than a mere yoga teacher. Yoga isn't "just exercise" anymore than it is "mere mathematics." But what else more "must" a yoga teacher be?

Cover of Ajahn Sumedho Intuitive Awareness

Over the past few decades, Ajahn Sumedho has said much about "intuitive awareness." Most often the Pāli word sampajaƱƱa is translated as "clear comprehension," but Ajahn Sumedho prefers to foreground the notion of "intuitive awareness" as a way to extend and elaborate how we understand this important meditation concept.

Yesterday, I spent much of the day working on a deck project in my backyard. Activities such as housework and home improvement projects offer good opportunities to watch the mind. On meditation retreats, these activities get labels such as "working meditation" or "yogi jobs." The common wisdom seems to hold that we should perform these activities in silence, paying full attention to the task at hand. Over the past few years, I have been investigating the validity of this claim.

As the global pandemic continues to spread — causing widespread sickness and death, restricting in-person human contact, creating additional responsibilities at home or financial hardships, or any of the countless other changes to daily life that have resulted in feelings such as fear, anger, boredom, or uncertainty — this virus has forced some of us to reassess our values and our place in the world. While the majority of us who participate in the Drupal community remain focused squarely on technical issues, others might find now is an especially good time to take a closer look at Drupal's Values and Principles.

As each of us negotiates a world where COVID-19 dominates the headlines and our everyday interactions, this article considers how some of the lessons that the Drupal community—perhaps an idealized Drupal community—has learned might shape our understanding of these times that feel so extraordinary. Drupal does not have a monopoly on any of these concepts, but in stressful times, similes and metaphors can help us interrogate our underlying assumptions and the communities that we have each constructed.