1. Embracing My Righteous Rage, a blog post from my friend Carrie announcing her new writing class, Righteous Rage. I love it when someone you love and admire lands on an idea that is so perfectly suited to their talents and interests, and is also so timely.
2. Wild Writing Teacher Training. This doesn’t start until January 2019, registration is open with special early bird pricing.
3. Yoga for All Training. It starts today, but you might still be able to sign up if you are interested. “Yoga For All is an online yoga certification that teaches you how to adapt yoga asana for plus-size yogis, seniors, and those with physical limitations so that you can reach more students and confidently teach more classes.”
4. Wisdom from Anna Guest-Jelley‘s recent newsletter, “The way you take your practices deeper isn’t by doing more, increasing complexity, or doubling down on yourself. Most of the time it looks like doing less. Listening more. Being guided from within more. Letting the practice come off the mat or the journal and into your life, too. Being open to what comes (and what doesn’t).”
5. A fist in search of a face, a good reminder from Seth Godin.
6. Good stuff from Lion’s Roar: She Who Hears the Cries of the World (“By putting others first, we loosen the bonds of our self-fixation, and in doing so, inch closer to our own liberation”) and Our Opportunity to Include All Genders in Buddhist Communities (“As a trans practitioner, Ray Buckner has struggled to find a sense of belonging in Buddhist spaces. They offer suggestions for how we can better support sangha members of all genders” – actually, I feel like the suggestions here could be applied to more spaces, that they apply to how we might be better humans supporting other humans of all genders).
7. Good stuff from Karen Walrond’s this was a good week list: The Art of Japanese Funeral Floral Arrangements, and Dressing for confidence and joy | Stasia Savasuk | TEDxPortsmouth (video), and Larkin Poe | Phil Collins Cover (“In The Air Tonight”) (video).
8. Wisdom from Francis Weller (by way of Erin Geesaman Rabke), “Grief is not always about tears. It’s also about outrage, when the soul is insulted. Rage is the voice of pain at having been violated. All of this is grief.” Also by way of Erin, this wisdom from James Hillman, “The sure sign of a soul awake is that it is outraged.”
9. The Problem That Has No Name. “For women, the national reckoning on sexual assault — and its backlash — isn’t just a political moment or a cultural shift. It’s an unraveling of the lies this country tells itself about women’s progress. It confirms feminists’ worst fears about men in power and how poorly they think of us.”
10. Hang it on the refrigerator from Austin Kleon, who has a new book coming out. His books are always some of my favorite on the subject of creativity and being an artist, and I could really use the inspiration and encouragement right now. More good stuff from Austin: When people show you who they are, believe them.
11. Abigail Rose Clarke talking with Staci Jordan Shelton in a Facebook live video “about the lies of white supremacy, the truth of our own power, and how we’ve collaborated on Dismantle over the past year.”
12. Weight Watchers has dropped ‘weight’ from its name. But that’s not enough. In related news from Dances with Fat, Weight Watchers By Any Other Name Would Still Be A Fraud.
13. 51 Ways to Make the World Less Hostile to Fat People.
14. The Body Positivity Movement Both Takes From And Erases Fat Black Women.
15. Republicans don’t care what you think. In related news, Brett Kavanaugh Sworn In As Newest Supreme Court Justice, and If Brett Kavanaugh makes it through, women’s anger will be unstoppable, and Trump Pushes Due Process For Some, ‘Lock’ Them Up For Others, and Republicans don’t care if Kavanaugh is guilty because they don’t think what he did was wrong.
16. If You’re Doing These 11 Things At Night, It Could Be A Sign Of High-Functioning Anxiety.
17. These smart glasses could be a game changer for hearing-impaired theatergoers.
18. A Young Activist’s Advice: Vote, Shave Your Head and Cry Whenever You Need To.
19. Bette Midler Claimed ‘Women Are The N-Word Of The World’ And Now We Have To Cancel ‘Hocus Pocus.’ So many ways to discuss the plight of women in the world, so many opportunities to be intersectional, to decenter our whiteness – pick just one, Bette, and stop this nonsense. In related news, Ain’t I a Woman? The Unbearable Whiteness of Allies.
20. Maxine Waters Blasts GOP Rep Who Told Her to ‘Stop Talking About Discrimination. (video) This to me seems like the best example of how our government “works.”
22. Why “I’m not racist” is only half the story. (video) “If you’re not racist, why is racism still America’s biggest problem? While the idea that racism isn’t voluntary creates some cognitive dissonance in the minds of many who consider themselves allies, it’s this exact defensiveness that white America needs to deal with in order to move the country forward.”
23. Not A Single Black Woman Can’t Relate To This Video Of A Strange White Lady Touching This Woman’s Braids. *Spoiler alert*: that title is sarcasm.
24. The Cruelty Is the Point. “President Trump and his supporters find community by rejoicing in the suffering of those they hate and fear.” In related news, ‘I can’t understand it and I’m embarrassed that the President of the United States would do that to this woman.’ — Kamala Harris just clapped back at President Trump for mocking Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony, (video).
25. He decided to learn how to knit instead of clean the house. (video) *tee-hee*
26. The performance of change and why it fails: A note to my white sisters. “Despite the surface changes we have made as a society, we are indeed here again because very little has changed in terms of the structures that keep privileged white men in charge.”
27. A Dunkin’ employee was fired after pouring a pitcher of water onto a homeless man who was resting in the store. (video) I hope the guy who did this never finds himself on the other side of the same situation. And if he does, I hope he’s treated with kindness – not because he deserves it, but because we all do.
28. Two hispanic women were approached and verbally assaulted by a racist white lady for speaking Spanish in store. (video) “Another white woman who saw and heard this happening immediately stepped in to defend them.”
29. Recipe I want to try: apple pie cookies from Smitten Kitchen.
30. This Photographer Photographs Farm Animal Like No One Else.
31. The Story Of The Worst Mass Execution In American History.
32. Border Patrol Agent’s Gender-Reveal Party Sparked Arizona Fire, Lawyer Says on The New York Times.
34. White Social Studies Teacher Fired For Teaching a Racist Slavery Lesson Wants to Sue for Reverse Racism. Reminder: reverse racism isn’t a real thing because racism = bias + power, and as a white person, you are in the ultimate position of power, male or female, so racism against you is just bias, no more harmful than if someone prefers vanilla ice cream over chocolate and you don’t.
35. During a press conference, President Trump tells ABC News’ Cecilia Vega, “I know you’re not thinking. You never do.” (video) It’s becoming more and more clear to me that my primary issue with him is he reminds me of every bully I’ve ever dealt with, every abusive boyfriend or boss or family member, and IT IS UNACCEPTABLE for a person in a position of such power and authority to be so blatantly abusive to people. And let’s face it, his policies and the way they sustain white supremacy and the patriarchy aren’t just his alone, (just look at the collection of dude bros behind him in this video). There are many, many people who are happy to have their egos, their power, their positions, their wealth and their comfort protected, even if it means other people suffer.
36. Black Women Are Love. “This brand is about debiasing our culture of all the negative beliefs it holds about black women.”
37. My dog can jump over anything. Except… (video) 🙂
38. Indianapolis Woman Opening Yoga Studio, Providing Access To All. (video)
39. When Asked About Pith Helmet, FLOTUS Responds: ‘Focus On What I Do, Not What I Wear.’ You’ve got to do something worth talking about first, and what you wear is often tone deaf and representative of how little you care or think of people and their suffering – stop doing that and we’ll find something else to talk about.
40. Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father on The New York Times. “The president has long sold himself as a self-made billionaire, but a Times investigation found that he received at least $413 million in today’s dollars from his father’s real estate empire, much of it through tax dodges in the 1990s.”
41. 5 Tools for Surviving Your Anger Under a Trump Presidency. This post is from early last year, but it’s worth revisiting.
42. Blissfully unaware reporter mistakes mountain lion for a dog. (video) This is terrifying, but she has absolutely no clue!
43. This hospital in Idaho does a “Walk of Respect” for organ donors. (video). I’m not crying, you’re crying.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 