All the women below tended their garden called Curiosity, allowing them to press through walls that might have obstructed them and help shape the world we know today:

• Hypatia of Alexandria (c. 360–415 CE), philosopher and mathematician in ancient Egypt, defied norms to become a celebrated scholar.
• Ada Lovelace (1815–1852), envisioned computer programming before computers even existed.
• Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797), wrote fiercely on women’s rights in a time when they had few.
• Marie Curie (1867–1934), won two Nobel Prizes for discovering radioactive elements.
• Amelia Earhart (1897–1937), broke the sky’s glass ceiling in aviation.
• Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960), captured the rhythms of Black life and culture with anthropological precision.
• Rachel Carson (1907–1964), helped birth the environmental movement with Silent Spring.
• Frida Kahlo (1907–1954), painted her pain and identity into revolutionary art.
• Margaret Mead (1901–1978), traveled across the world to challenge gender and cultural assumptions.
• Jane Goodall (b. 1934), transformed our understanding of primates and empathy itself.

Without curiosity, we would never advance as a species.

What am I curious about? What are you curious about? Are you done—retired, ready to rest in your lawn chair—or is there another discovery you might make about your life, the world, or the betterment of others through poetry, teaching, art, music, storytelling, traveling, and so many more adventures of the mind, the body, and the soul?

I am one of those women—those human beings. I’ve never stayed in one place too long without first a change in mind and heart, then a physical change. We are meant to grow, to expand, to evolve. We are meant to give our hearts to the world in our own unique way.

Ernest Holmes wrote that Spirit will not allow us to stay in one place too long before we are nudged—sometimes shoved—into our next expression. If we stayed still for too long, we’d become rigid. Maybe that’s what arthritis is about—giving in to the rigidity of life, forsaking exploration, refusing to learn something new.

Have you ever wondered why many of us stoop as we get older? We look at the ground when we should be looking at the stars.

Tending the garden of curiosity is a moral obligation. Whether it’s digging into research, questioning assumptions, or living into the unknown, I am curious. Ernest Holmes—our beloved founder—was fondly known as “The Eternal Question” because he never stopped wondering.

I am here right now, questioning. I am willing to look beyond the rules and discover new answers to old questions—answers we assumed were settled.

When I was an actress, my favorite part was researching the characters I played. I wanted to know their time period, their wounds, their motivations. I wanted to understand how they thought. Even when I played a villain, I asked, What pain shaped this person? That practice made me profoundly compassionate—even toward what others might call evil. Because I believe no one is beyond understanding.

Tending the garden of curiosity means waking up each day in wonder. Noticing the beauty and the atrocities. I remember one day jogging in Los Angeles when I saw a woman using a park bench as a toilet. She didn’t stop when she saw me. I cried. Her life had become that. Every time I pass someone who is homefree now, I remember: we are all closer than we think.

Curiosity leads me to ask: How can I contribute to a world in need? Not everything, but something. What is mine to do? A donation, a phone call, a story, chicken soup, a song, a hand held with love?

Did you know that neuroscience says we replay yesterday’s thoughts like a tape loop? Most people don’t ask new questions—they just push play. But Science of Mind teaches us otherwise: “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

So I ask you:

• Who are you today, and who will you be tomorrow?
• Can you bring curiosity to a stale belief?
• Can you think again—differently—about an old problem?

The garden is waiting. Water it.

With Curiosity, Dr. Rita Andriello-Feren, Author, Co-Spiritual Director, CSL Kaua’i and the Institute of Magnificence