October | 2019 | Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

From our walk

1. The digestive system from Austin Kleon, in which he explains why he does what he does in his newsletter and on his blog, in which he says something I feel like I could have written:

The longer I write this blog and the newsletter, the more I try to focus on what I genuinely love. The stuff that really nourishes and feeds me. I could probably grow a bigger “audience” with the most recent creativity tips and life hacks or whatever, but that’s not why I started doing this. I started doing this to find my people. The people who care about the same things that I do. In other words: You. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for being here, kind and gentle reader.

2. The limits of technique, wisdom from Seth Godin, in which he writes, “It’s possible that you no longer need to get better at your craft. That your craft is just fine. It’s possible that you need to be braver instead.” Oh snap…

3. Celebrating Genocide – Christopher Columbus’ Invasion of America. WHY can’t we be honest about who we really are? WHY do we continue to refuse to take responsibility for the things we’ve done? We would all be so much better off if we started telling the truth. Things will never change if we don’t. We will never ever ever “get over it.”

4. Photographer Spent Days Waiting For Museum Visitors To Match The Artworks They Observe, And it Was Worth It.

5. Adults Can Swim With Tiny Otters At This Animal Preserve, And The Photos Are Adorable.

6. Get Your Flu Shot Now, Doctors Advise, Especially If You’re Pregnant.

7. Cher Offers to Pay Legal Fees for Black Security Guard Fired for Telling Student to Stop Calling Him N-Word.

8. Watch: Pema Chödrön sits down for new Oprah interview; addresses Shambhala scandals.

9. Breakfast Burritos recipe on Smitten Kitchen. I’m making these this week. I want to try this one too, miso sweet potato and broccoli bowl.

10. Woman Broke The Plank World Record By Planking Over 4 Hours. I start to shake at 30 seconds, could maybe hold one two or three minutes on my best day, but FOUR HOURS?!

11. Standing Rock rancher runs nation’s largest native-owned buffalo herd.

12. The Whitewashing of “#WhitePeopleDoingYoga.” “My artwork was about appropriation. San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum tried to appropriate it.”

13. As A Black Man, Here’s How Yoga Helped Save My Life.

14. California Can Expect Blackouts For A Decade, Says PG&E CEO.

15. Summer Walker: Tiny Desk Concert. SO good.

16. Hear Prince’s Acoustic ‘I Feel For You’ Demo, Fresh From The Vault.

17. Five Indigenous Speculative Fiction Authors You Should Be Reading.

18. Fort Worth Officer Charged With Murder for Shooting Woman in Her Home. “Aaron Dean, who killed Atatiana Jefferson while she was home with her nephew, resigned hours before he was going to be fired.”

19. Elton John On Music, Addiction And Family: ‘I’m Proud Of Who I Am Now’.

20. The Bizarre and Racist History of the BMI. “Body Mass Index has been used in recent decades as a referendum on individual health. But it was never meant to be.”

21. Police arrest black family twice for ‘loitering’ in their own front yard. TWICE.

22. The ‘Wellness Influencer’ Lifestyle Can Be a Gateway to Disordered Eating. “The corner of the internet that chronicles meticulous diets and ‘clean eating’ regimens is still a petri dish for orthorexia.”

23. Khalid – Fast Car (Tracy Chapman cover) (video)

24. The Tricky Argument That Dieting Makes People Fatter on Dances with Fat.

25. Kalen Allen’s on a mission to represent queer kids fighting to be seen.

26. He Traded Single Life To Be Foster ‘Pop’ To More Than 50 Kids.

27. Highly Sensitive People Have a Special Bond With Animals. Have I told you lately I’m a hsp?

1. Morning walks. This week we heard an owl, saw some deer, ran into Ringo’s nemesis (don’t act surprised that he has one) and lots of garbage trucks. It’s so dark right now in the morning that the sun only starts to rise when we are on the way back home and I need my headlamp on for almost the full walk.

2. The color of the Colorado morning sky, particularly in winter and fall. Something about the moisture and cold makes it especially magic.

3. Practice. Still keeping me here. Sometimes Sam “helps” me meditate. It makes me so happy that he just wants to be with me.

4. Finally finding a new therapist. I have more to say about this, but for now I’m just grateful.

5. My tiny family. Kitchen counter love notes, cooking together, laughing together, watching Guy’s Grocery Games with Eric, reading in bed at night while Eric and the dogs are sleeping, the way Ringo and Sam come in and guard me while I take a shower, the summer red still in Sam’s coat, the way Ringo catches a frisbee, how both Sam and Ringo decide who they love and who they don’t like and that pretty much will never change, seeing Sam and Ringo playing in the backyard (it’s been at least a year since they have), being able to spend so much more time present with them.

Bonus joy: getting all the laundry done and folded and put away in one day, clean sheets, Broccoli Slaw, Sweet Onion Upside Down Broccoli Cornbread, taking a day off from the gym to work on finishing my Yoga for All teacher training and realizing as I work my way through it that I already know a lot more than I realized, planning something fun with Eric, aqua aerobics, sitting in the sauna on a cold day, my infrared heating pad, good TV, good books, good podcasts, a really soft sweatshirt my brother gave me, wool socks, down blankets and pillows, writing in the morning with my HappyLight, gold and red leaves, smelling a skunk but not running into it, teaching yoga.