from a morning walk

1. NASA is live streaming the eclipse here. In related news, from The New York Times, How to Watch a Solar Eclipse, and Annie Dillard’s Classic Essay: ‘Total Eclipse.’

2. Friends honor artist’s last wishes with water ballet in a Seattle kiddie pool. (video)

3. Charlottesville: Race and Terror – VICE News Tonight on HBO. (video) I’ve only been able to watch the first few minutes, but it seems worth it to keep trying.

4. “This Isn’t Us” from Chuck Wendig on Terrible Minds. “We are at our best not when we say this isn’t us, but rather, this is us, but we don’t want it to be. We are at our best when we are truthful to ourselves and our children as to how we got here and to the cost we made others pay — and the cost we continue to make them pay today.”

Also from Chuck, Last Chance To Get Off The Ride. “If you’re a person out there who supported this president and who supported the political party to which he supposedly belongs, here’s your chance to get off the ride. Well, first, fuck you, because you should’ve known better.”

5. Ep. 154 [Raise Your Hand and Say Yes]: Laurie Wagner on Telling the Truth. Laurie says of writing, “You never get so good at it that you get beyond it.” Laurie has a new offering, 27 Wild Days, a great introduction to the Wild Writing practice and Laurie’s teaching. She’s beyond brilliant. You should totally check it out.

6. Because there’s no ignoring this and we need to keep trying: Ten Ways to Fight Hate: A Community Response Guide, and 6 Things White People Can Do To Reach Friends and Family Members to End Racism, and on racism, discrimination & bigotry, and I Studied the Alt-Right So You Don’t Have To, and Read the transcript of Donald Trump’s jaw-dropping press conference, and People Are Making Memes Showing Iconic Moments When There Was Violence “On Both Sides,” and A Flowchart For People Who Get Defensive When Talking About Racism, and White supremacy may be rearing its ugly head right now, but it’s nothing new (video), and Here are the words and phrases the “alt-right” uses to sanitize its racism and white supremacy (video), and 7 Unmistakable Signs Your Allyship Is Performative, and 17 Books On Race Every White Person Needs To Read, and For Our White Friends Desiring to Be Allies, and The White People Who Need “Proof of Racism,” and What Trump gets wrong about Confederate statues, in one chart, and Charlottesville’s Ongoing Fight Against White Supremacy (video), and Everything We Do Matters, But Two Things Are Critical, and The Sugarcoated Language Of White Fragility, and Racism Scale: Where Do You Fall?, and Crowdsourced Actions: things you can do re: Charlottesville, and So You Want To Fight White Supremacy, and On Fragility.

7. I need to talk to spiritual white women about white supremacy (Part One), wisdom from Layla Saad. “If it seems like I’m being judgemental, I am. That’s the very least white supremacy, racial hatred and domestic terrorism deserve.” And this,

…without meaning to, a lot of times nice, well-meaning white women can contribute in a big way to the problems we see because they don’t speak up, or they want to keep things polite, or they think the best thing they can do is just focus on being a loving person rather than ‘getting involved in politics’. This white silence, white privilege and white shame leads to a lot of white complicity in white supremacy.

8. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön, “Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That’s the ground, that’s what we study, that’s what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest.”

9. 4 Questions Introverts Who Are Feeling Drained Should Ask Themselves. These seem liked they’d be useful contemplations for just about anyone.

10. Violence Turned Inward, wisdom from Rachel Cole.

When we aren’t connected to our innate enoughness and our place in the family of humans our pursuit of enoughness and belonging too often turns violent. For some white men, this violence turns outward. For too many women, again, especially white women, the violence turns inward, toward the self. Through perfectionism, loathing of the body, suppression of hungers, silencing of voice, denial of pleasure, dismissal of intuition, resistance to rest, and constant comparison to others, we are violent to ourselves.”

11. Black pastors release video, announce NFL boycott in support of Colin Kaepernick. In related news, Colin Kaepernick receives support from both inside and outside the NFL, and Will ‘BlackOut’ Be the Movement to Shut Down the NFL?.

12. 4 Signs You’re Culturally Appropriating Buddhism – And Why It’s Important Not to.

13. Tina Fey did this thing, (video), and the discussion happening around it is fascinating. Here’s just some of it: Tina Fey’s Response to Charlottesville Is White Privilege Personified, and The Outrage Over Tina Fey’s “Sheetcaking” Bit Is a Waste of Collective Energy, and Not Everyone Found Tina Fey’s “Sheetcaking” Funny, And Here’s Why, and The Brilliance of Tina Fey’s Cake Satire, Explained, and this twitter thread from Leslie Mac of Safety Pin Box. In related news, Late Night Hosts React To Charlottesville, Virginia. (video)

14. Lizzo is a singer-songwriter using her voice as an instrument of change. (video)

15. Free Yourself of Your Harshest Critic, and Plow Ahead on The New York Times.

16. Arts council members call for Trump to step down in their resignation letter.

17. Living In Between Fat and Thin. “In a society where size means everything, we are constantly negotiating to fit in.”

18. Recipes I want to try: Cashew Thai Quinoa Salad with Peanut Ginger Sauce and 2-Ingredient Sorbet 4 Ways.

19. Reusable food wrap from etee. “Say Goodbye to plastic wrap, sandwich bags & bulky storage containers. Preserve your food and protect your family – naturally – with these reusable food wraps.”

20. Why We Need To Talk About Racism, Prejudice And Dog Rescue. P.S. the image they use for this article looks like baby Ringo.

21. The memorial service for Heather Heyer, the woman killed Saturday after the white supremacist rally, held in Charlottesville, VA. (video) Here’s another video of the same.

22. Jamila Woods – Holy (Official Video). #blackgirlmagic

23. Video footage of rare all-white moose in Sweden.

24. Waking Up Is a Prerequisite to Reckoning, wisdom from Jena Schwartz. “The past isn’t the past when it’s present in our everyday lives, in ways many white Americans continue to diminish, downplay, and downright deny.”

From one of our morning walks this week.

1. Wisdom from Lodro Rinzler, “Moments of sadness or despair are truly THE moments when an open heart matters most.”

2. With that in mind: White Supremacy is White America’s Legacy and Our Responsibility to Defeat, and My fellow white Americans, and What We Need White Allies To Do About The White Supremacists In Virginia, and SPLC releases campus guide to countering ‘alt-right,’ and Maybe Now Isn’t the Time, Guys, and White supremacists can march on my hometown, but they can’t win, and this wisdom from Rod Owens,

It seems like if we are really interested in ending white supremacy, white people should focus more on loving themselves instead of trying to love me [a black man]. The violence emerges from the ways self shame and apathy are bypassed in attempts to use love towards me as an argument trying to convince me that you are not “that kind of white person”. As long as you can not face yourself and love even those ugly parts, you are indeed that kind of white person and I will be left with the work of trying to love what you can not bear to witness.

And finally, from Laura Simms,

White people: Being a good person is your everyday life is not enough.

If you’ve been bowing your head and wringing your hands about the grotesquery in Charlottesville, then you’re going to have to give some things up for it to change.

Give up your silence. You may not know someone who would take to the streets with torches and swastikas, but you probably someone who assumes the the worst about people of color, thinks there’s no problem with police brutality in this country, and clutches her purse when a black man walks by. When you see that, call it out and shut it down unequivocally and unapologetically.

Give up your comfort. You will have to be willing to be unpopular. You may lose relationships, business, and status within your in-group. If your in-group won’t publicly denounce white supremacy, then think about what you’re choosing to belong to and why you’re so afraid to let it go.

Give up your ignorance. If you are not regularly, actively listening to the opinions and concerns of people of color, you are willfully remaining ignorant. No black friends in your life or on your Facebook feed? Think about why that is and then go find some voices of color to listen to.

Give up your defensiveness. Sit down. Shut your mouth. Listen. Be willing to accept an experience and world view that is different from your own.

Give up your money. Send it to organizations that fight institutionalized racism.

Give up your Confederate flag. If you can’t express your identity without a symbol that demoralizes a marganilized group of people, you need a stronger sense of self. If you want to celebrate your heritage, bake a cobbler, go fishing, or make a family tree. The Museum of Southern Horrors is the only place that flag belongs.

Each and every day, with your action or inaction, you either enable or disable racism in this country. Please be thoughtful in your choices, take responsibility for what power you do have, and step out of your daily routine in order to make a difference.

3. Elle Simone Discusses Her Unexpected Transition from Food Stylist to TV Personality. “She went from making food look beautiful behind the scenes to embracing her inner nerd in front of the camera.” America’s Test Kitchen isn’t as good without Christopher Kimball, BUT there is now Elle, and she is amazing.

4. 83,500 Vintage Sewing Patterns Put Into Online Database From Vogue, McCall’s, Butterick, And Simplicity.

5. Help Cheryl fight lung cancer. She started her treatments this week, and says she’s feeling pretty good so far. Her daughter and my friend Chelsey was able to fly out to be with her for a bit, so that’s helping too.

6. Weight Loss Advice I Have Received Since Hunger’s Release from Roxane Gay. A great quote Preston D. Mitchum posted on Facebook this week sums up my response to that noise, “People swear they are giving genuine health advice on weight loss when they’re simply fatphobic and intellectually dishonest.” In related news, a review of her book, Unruly and Unerring, which starts with, “Roxane Gay is a writer of extreme empathy. Her fiction and essays elicit as much shared understanding as they give. Her new memoir, Hunger, is the story of being a physical woman in a physical world that has been shaped for so long by men. And I suspect that every woman who reads Hunger will recognize herself in it.”

7. Natura Insects: The Delicate Floral Compositions Of Raku Inoue.

8. Making Yoga More Inclusive: Language Do’s and Don’ts for Teachers.

9. None of us know what will happen, wisdom from Austin Kleon.

10. F*ck You Billabong. Seriously, f*ck you. “Here women, this is what we think of you. Welcome to our site.”

11. What if All I Want is A Mediocre Life? Krista O’Reilly-Davi-Digui is resharing some of her older posts, and this is one of my favorites.

12. Four Castaways Make a Family, from the Modern Love series on The New York Times.

13. JAY-Z – Moonlight. (video)

14. A Garden Tour with Rachel Nafis on Soule Mama. Seriously, a garden is so much better than a lawn.

15. Redefining Wellness. “Therapist, blogger, and podcaster Davia Roberts is prioritizing self- and mental health-care for all women.” In related news, her website, Redefine Enough.

16. “It’s Not a Diet It’s a Lifestyle Change” is Bullshit by Dances With Fat.

17. You Aren’t Lazy — You’re Just Terrified: On Paralysis And Perfectionism.

18. Most Women You Know Are Angry — and That’s All Right. “If you stand up for yourself, if you assert your right to self-respect and bodily autonomy, if you raise your voice above a whisper, if you leave the house without a sweet smile slathered across your face, some people will inevitably call you shrill, a scold, a nag, bitter, a bitch. And that’s all right. Bitches, in the fragrant words of Tina Fey, get stuff done.”

19. Silly puppies. (video)

20. This Grad Student Makes Nearly $30K A Year Blogging.

21. 10 Books I Wish My White Teachers Had Read. A great list, even if you aren’t a teacher.

22. Ava DuVernay and Victoria Mahoney to Adapt Octavia E. Butler’s Dawn for Television. This is a powerful trio.

23. We Are Broke in Our Busyness.

24. Post-Strayed.

People say ambition comes from the heart, but I’m not convinced. Ambition follows your body and your body follows your ambition. That’s what people hate about Cheryl Strayed and Hillary Clinton. Ditto for the swarms of PCT hikers. It’s not jealousy of success so much as the near-outrage we feel toward anyone who knows, even for a short time, exactly what she wants, and turns herself, as they say, body-and-soul to the task.

25. This Is Why Eating Healthy Is Hard, from Funny or Die.

26. Work With Me. Justine is a marvelous mom, a beautiful friend, an amazing writer, and now a wise and compassionate coach. If you are in the market, you should totally check her out.

27. 100 Great Works of Dystopian Fiction.

28. Recipes I want to try: Hummus 4 Ways, and Creamy Vegan Coconut Chickpea Curry, and Taco Norteños with Bacon-Fat Flour Tortillas.

29. 1 in 3 Native American women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. (video)

30. Kids react to Queen. (video)

31. He was ready to return to a life of crime. Dave’s Killer Bread offered an alternative. We eat this bread, which is really good, but I love even more what they do for their employees.

32. Giant dog and regular sized cat cuddle, and that doesn’t even come close to describing how cute this is. (video)

33. The Body Positive Movement Needs More Than Robbie Tripp’s Faux-Allyship. In related news, The viral “curvy wife” guy regrets those racist, transphobic tweets: “We’re obviously embarrassed.”

34. Befriending Becky: On The Imperative Of Intersectional Solidarity.

35. A Wide Wake: On My Brother’s Passing, Jayme Stone reflects on the recent death of his brother, author, yoga and meditation teacher Michael Stone. “Michael left so much in his wake: a beautiful family, a potent body of work, a sangha of seekers around the world who have been moved by his teaching, and an astoundingly deep life. It is a wide wake. Let us stay wide awake.”

36. In Victory for Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Court Finds That Approval of Dakota Access Pipeline Violated the Law.

37. Don’t Ask What the World Needs from Amy McCracken.

38. We Should Call HSPs What They Really Are: Intuitive Warriors.

39. Wisdom from Naomi Shulman, “Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than ‘politics.’ They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away. You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.”

40. #EndWhiteSilence, an open source (i.e. download it and use it, for free) graphic from Elizabeth Beier.

41. Loving Kindness Meditation for Victims of Racism and Hatred from Susan Piver. (video)

I could NOT put this book down! So good.

1. So many good books. This summer, everything I’ve read has been so good: Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me: a Memoir by Sherman Alexie, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby, The Chronology of Water: A Memoir by Lidia Yuknavitch, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, Kindred by Octavia Butler, 3,096 Days in Captivity by Natascha Kampusch, and Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History by Camille T. Dungy.

2. Make Light, an new podcast from Karen Walrond.

3. Radical Black Care is the Revolution. “Our care and preservation is not a break or distraction from the revolution; it is the damned revolution. Full stop.”

4. David Sedaris Q&A. “The writer and comedian talks House of Cards, abstract expressionism, and the cartoon character Jonny Quest.”

5. Should White People Feel Racial “Guilt”? (video) “The real question we should be asking is: do people of color even *want* you to feel guilty in the first place? And what does white guilt actually accomplish?”

6. Is Whole Foods the End of Black Harlem? (video)

7. This is why it’s so important for parents to support their trans kids. (video)

8. A Nebraska community is using renewable energy to resist the Keystone XL pipeline. (video)

9. Recipes I want to try: Crispy Black Bean Sweet Potato Baked Burritos, and Avocado Chicken Salad Recipe, and Baked Falafel, and 12 Delicious Weeknight Dinners That Don’t Have Dairy (who cares about dairy, these look good).

10. E. Jean Carroll is the longest running advice columnist in history—and possibly one of the most interesting women in the world. (video)

11. Brooklyn Wolfrey, a young Inuk girl from Rigolet, drums at the Labrador land protectors camp across from Muskrat Falls on Tuesday evening. It might be slightly embarrassing how many times I’ve watched this video.

12. The NAACP issues its first-ever travel advisory. For MISSOURI! (video)

13. Ava DuVernay on Queen Sugar and Her Hollywood Journey. Seriously, I have the biggest girl crush on her.

14. NYT Magazine Story Identifies the ‘Wellness’ Movement For Exactly What It Is: Dieting. I also recommend the original article, Losing It in the Anti-Dieting Age, “The agonies of being overweight — or running a diet company — in a culture that likes to pretend it only cares about health, not size.”

15. Stop Saying Affirmative Action Disadvantages White Students.

16. Procter & Gamble Release an Ad About ‘the Talk,’ and White People Respond With the Wettest, Saltiest, Stupidest White Tears Ever.

17. Celebrity Diet Culture: Just Stop Already. In related news, ‘Clean eating is ugly, malevolent and damaging’, says eating disorder specialist, and Samantha Irby Has Some Diet Advice for You: Stay Fat.

18. Facebook’s Complicity in the Silencing of Black Women.

19. 5 Reasons Why Sharing a David Wolfe Meme Makes You an Asshole.

20. ‘Unlikely Hiker’ Jenny Bruso Blasts Open the Idea of Who Belongs in the Wilderness.

21. Functional Training – Ultra Spiritual Life. (video) *teehee*

22. Raising money for Leslie for Black Women Being Convening. “Leslie and the Safety Pin Box team want to plan a dope convening to support Black women and femme organizers. Help her start a budget for the community improvement work. Leslie will use the money to create workshops for community organizing with Black women/femme grassroots organizers.”

23. Stop Being an Ally. (video)

24. Dove’s Powerful Short Film Skewers Stereotypes About Female Beauty.

25. When you compare it to what guys wear to the beach, women’s swimwear starts to look pretty ridiculous. (video) “You know what’s sexy? Joy.”

26. Here’s The Animated Gay Love Story We’ve Been Waiting For.

27. 9 Not so Little Things that are Holding You Back (+ how to say goodbye) from Be More With Less.

28. The 12 Stages of Burnout.

29. A list of great writing prompts from Jena Schwartz.

30. We can be scared together, wisdom from Alexandra Franzen. “This is me, reaching through the Internet tunnels to hold your hand and say, ‘If you’re scared of criticism, negativity, bullying, angry customers demanding refunds, all that stuff, it’s OK. I’m scared, too. We can be scared together.'” In her latest newsletter, Alexandra also recommended this podcast, Terrible, Thanks for Asking.

31. A Tour Through the Many Doorways of India.

32. On beating yourself up, wisdom from Seth Godin.

33. I am disappointed but unsurprised by the news that an anti-diversity, sexist, manifesto is making the rounds at Google. And if you skip reading this one, I don’t want you to miss the cartoon from xkcd that’s included, Free Speech. Also, in related news, So, about this Googler’s manifesto, a really great rebuttal to the original manifesto.

34. Ambulance Dada. (video) “India’s Karimul Haque, also known as #AmbulanceDada, has saved 4,000 lives with his motorcycle.”

35. Brandless. (video) “Did you know there is an online store that sells organic vegan products for $3.00 named Brandless.com?”

36. Fancying a ‘curvy’ woman doesn’t make you a hero, so stop acting like one. In related news, 8 Hilarious “Curvy Wife” Responses To Make Your Monday.

37. #Flint: An Update and a Reminder That It Has Been 1,196 Days Since the Mich. City Had Clean Drinking Water.