December | 2021 | Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

1. Truth: There’s a lot more to writing a book than just the writing. It won’t go the way you planned, expected, or hoped. It will absolutely test your patience, your ability to stay with something even though it seems like you aren’t getting anywhere. One part of the not writing for me right now is the realization that other aspects of my experience need tended, nourished, supported, and honored, and it won’t work to ask them to wait. Life keeps coming at you and has to be attended to and things will absolutely get in the way, require you to redirect your effort. A simple example for me right now is I sprained a ligament in one of my fingers and have to wear a splint for the next six weeks, which means that finger doesn’t bend and is making typing very slow and messy.

2. Truth: The last three years have been A LOT. I retired, I was (am) burnt out, menopause, COVID-19, losing my teaching gigs because of the necessary and reasonable restrictions and precautions of living in a global pandemic, losing my sangha, the death cult that is the USA and all the various ways it manifests, the climate crisis, losing Sam and Angela, ETC. Like I said in a text to my mom the other day, “life is tough, and there is no easy way out.” And yet, I am very lucky, privileged to have a core group of smart and funny people who REALLY love me, access to healthcare and medication and vaccines, a nutritionist (HAES), a therapist, multiple practices that help me to be soft enough to stay open and strong enough to stay, good books and podcasts, a supportive gym community, movement practices that bring me joy and make me feel good, ETC.

3. Truth: Being human is hard; don’t give up. It seems to be that simple, and that impossible. There’s no denying how difficult this is, how much grief and suffering exists, how much harm we do even when we are trying so hard not to, AND it is also so beautiful to be alive, to love, to experience a sunrise or cuddle a dog or plant a garden or make someone laugh. As Andrew Boyd says in this book Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the The Universe, “You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.” Not easy.

One wish: May whatever support you need to keep going find its way to you, quickly and without effort, and linger as long as you need it.

1. Andrea Gibson embodies LOVE. For example: A Stranger Asks If She Can Pray For Me and The Worst Lines I’ve Ever Written (video).

2. Good stuff from Lion’s Roar: How to Make a Spectacular Mistake, (“You’re going to make one anyway, says Anita Feng. So why not go big? You might end up with something more beautiful than perfection”), and 10 Tips for a Mindful Home, (“Karen Maezen Miller offers 10 simple tips for keeping a mindful home. How simple? Well, as Karen says, ‘If you can do the first one, the next nine take care of themselves'”).

3. Social Media Rx from J Clement Wall’s most recent newsletter.

4. The Secret Gratitude List, “New Yorkers reveal what they’re privately thankful for this Thanksgiving.”

5. Single All The Way | Official Trailer | Netflix. (video) I very much recommend this sweet, funny Christmas love story. Elf is also now streaming on Netflix.

6. Recipe I want to try: Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins. Our local Whole Foods used to make a lemon poppy seed scone that was SO good, and this looks like it may be similar, only in muffin form.

7. Remembering the Sand Creek Massacre. “Studying American history means confronting dark, shameful chapters. The Sand Creek Massacre is one such event. Learn more about the circumstances leading up to that tragic day and the aftermath here.”

8. Food Insecurity on Native Reservations Is Part of a History of Discrimination.

9. In Denver, Suicide Among Black Men is Soaring. “Halim Ali is helping young Black men in Denver address the trauma and anger that can turn into violence and suicide.”

10. One person has crowdsourced the very best life advice from over 20 million people online.

11. Meet an Ecologist Who Works for God (and Against Lawns) on The New York Times. “A Long Island couple say fighting climate change and protecting biodiversity starts at home. Or rather, right outside their suburban house.” The picture of their yard next to their neighbors lawn is really amazing, and one so clearly looks better than the other, IMHO.

12. These Wonderful Winter Snow Drawings Will Leave You In Awe.

13. The life and tragic death of John Eyers – a fitness fanatic who refused the vaccine. “He did triathlons, bodybuilding and mountain climbing and became skeptical of the Covid jab. Then, at 42, he contracted the virus.”

14. What’s It Like To Write A Book? by Ijeoma Oluo.

15. How ‘The 1619 Project’ underscores connection between slavery and modern America. (video)

16. Dozens of online Indigenous gift ideas. “The holiday season is here, and here’s a collection to help make the busy season that much easier while at the same time supporting Indigenous creators.”

17. How Watching British Reality TV Helped Me Finish My Novel. “Kirthana Ramisetti on Adapting to a New Set of Working Conditions in the Pandemic.”

18. The 50 Best Albums of 2021. “If the year presently coming to a close was a dance, it’d be a hesitant shuffle, tentative steps toward — or heyyyy, maybe away from? — an uncertain future. So maybe that’s why, when we sat down together to discuss which albums we loved the most over the course of 2021, NPR Music’s staff and contributors found ourselves drawn to albums by artists making breakthroughs, moving forward with clarity, without balking at the obstacles falling in their way.” They also compiled a list of the 100 Best Songs of 2021. And for both lists, they made playlists on various music streaming services so you can listen.