June | 2025 | Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

1. Poetry: If She Could and After the War and Middle Aged Woman Cries Alone In Her House from Julie Barton, The Cure for it All (Part ll) from Julia Fehrenbacher, Small Pleasures and The Closed Door from James Crews, and The state[s] of the world: What a poem can and cannot do from Pádraig Ó Tuama in which he shares My Poem Will Not Save You by Dunya Mikhail, How to Be a Stone: Three Poems for Trusting Time from and one by Maria Popova, The Green Lion Devouring the Sun: alchemy, poetry, and a couple prompts from Alix Klingenberg, Do Not Ask Your Children to Strive by William Martin shared by Patti Digh, and reparenting the devil by christopher sexton.

2. Rest in Peace Bill Moyer: Remembering acclaimed public TV journalist Bill Moyers and Passage: Remembering Bill Moyers. (videos)

3. Inside the Scrappy Network of Volunteers Protecting Their Neighbors From ICE. “On the ground with the Fuerza rapid response team in Waltham, Massachusetts.”

4. Walking into the forest from Patti Digh. “There was no single moment that marked this transition for me—no gong, no grand epiphany. Rather, it arrived like the changing of light in late afternoon. A slow golden slanting, subtle but unmistakable. I began to crave quiet. I stopped needing to be seen. I felt the first, delicious pull toward the inward path.”

5. Another Sacred Ordinary List from Erin Geesaman Rabke.

6. The View From the Titanic: America Has Met the Iceberg on The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz. When I think of the Titanic, the tragedy and chaos that happened after it crashed, I can’t help but think of the musicians. “According to survivor accounts, after the Titanic struck the iceberg, the ship’s musicians gathered with their instruments and began to play as passengers were evacuated. They performed a range of music — waltzes, hymns, even ragtime — all in an effort to keep people calm as lifeboats were loaded.” All eight of them died, so this was their final act of humanity.

7. ‘Most Peaceful Country’ Report Lists Ukraine, Russia Last: See Who Is First. I don’t typically consider a change in location the solution to most things, but I’m not gonna lie, I have daydreams about getting the heck out of here.

8. How Much Energy Does Your AI Prompt Use? I Went to a Data Center to Find Out. “From your laptop to a loud GPU cluster, AI prompts are a mysterious energy drain. Our columnist attempted to trace their journey—and their impact.”

9. What Happens in the Body When Your Heart Is Broken — And How to Heal It.

10. Grieve and Love, with Joanna Macy: Hope Portal, Session 5.

11. More people buying electric cars and heat pumps than ever before. We have one electric car and one hybrid, and are considering a heat pump.

12. Processing grief: how photography is helping Gazan refugees rebuild their lives.

13. where there once were roses: On the Killing Fields of Narcissism from Elissa Altman. Also from Elissa, writing the book that gave me back my life: On Giving Myself Permission to Create.

14. How Do We Build and Sustain Momentum? from Jami Attenberg on Craft Talk.

15. 52 Things To Declutter Now from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less. Also from Courtney, The Life-Changing Benefits of Simplicity I Did Not Expect.

16. The poetics of home: Toward an architecture of belonging from Patti Digh.

17. Chin Hair, Laundry, Your Opinion: Women in Menopause Don’t Care on The New York Times. (gift link) “The ‘We Do Not Care’ club, founded by influencer Melani Sanders, celebrates women who have stopped trying to please everyone.”

18. “Double down and be good, despite it all.” (Facebook reel)

19. Three Kids, Three Pasts: Tennessee Hill on Using Multiple POVs to Explore Shared Memory. “The Author of ‘Girls with Long Shadows’ Digs into Divergent Recollections.”

20. If I were as wealthy as Jeff Bezos, “I wouldn’t need a wedding, but a conscience, a compass” from Patti Digh. Yes, this, and Amen.

21. MAL À La TÊTE by Ella Harrigan.

22. Who are you? (yes, you). “Uncovering our true selves” from Meg Josephson.

23. Diary Of A Heatwave, “How I’m surviving the week.” A cartoon from Connie Sun.

24. Anna Guest-Jelley is celebrating 15 years of Curvy Yoga by starting What The Body Knows.

25. How Leaning into Solitude and Softness Isn’t Selfish, It’s Necessary. “Radical Pleasure columnist Athena Dixon on the pleasure of quiet Sundays to reset herself for the week ahead.”

26. Returning to Childhood Hobbies.

27. A Small But Vital Thing, Taken from Chuck Wendig on Terrible Minds.

28. Buddhism’s “Five Remembrances” Are Wake-Up Calls for Us All on Lion’s Roar. “Perfectly clear, compassionate, and concise, the ‘Five Remembrances’ are Buddhism at its very best. Koun Franz explains.”

29. Asked to flag ‘negative’ National Park content, visitors gave their own 2 cents instead. Resist.

30. Here are the nonfiction books NPR staffers have loved so far this year. You know how I love a good book list.

31. And finally, this random collection of things I saved on my phone this week.

https://britchida.substack.com/p/im-not-lonely-new-art

1. Morning walks. I feel so lucky that we live near so many good places to walk. I’ve been braving the mosquitoes near the river and ponds because they haven’t gotten too bad yet. With all the rain we’ve had this year there are lots more wildflowers. Since it’s already warm at 5 am, we don’t see as much wildlife, mostly bunnies and birds. Even though I didn’t get a good picture of it, this week I saw a blue grosbeak for the first time. AND there were two elk wandering around in Old Town — visited the main drag, the library, The Lincoln Center, and City Park, which is where Eric and Ringo saw them on their afternoon walk.

2. Practice. Writing with my Friday morning sangha, yoga at Red Sage, working on “The Book,” writing in the morning in front of my happy light, meditating in my practice room. It all keeps me from going completely off the rails.

3. Texting. In terms of keeping in regular touch with people, it’s a highly sensitive introverts dream. I tried to explain to my aunts this summer that “phone calls are for emergencies” and they thought I was crazy, think it’s easier to “just pick up the phone.” They are also a generation that thinks “just stopping by” without scheduling that ahead of time is totally acceptable.

4. A quiet, small life. Some people would think my day to day life is boring but it is a perfect size and pace for me.

5. My tiny family, small house, little life. As I’ve said a hundred times, I love it here, with them.

He can tell when I’m getting ready to go somewhere and waits for a cookie and for me to close the door so he can take a nap

Bonus joy: sending each other selfies, afternoon storms, libraries and librarians and all the books, poets and poetry, other people’s dogs and gardens and kids, a picture of Hendrix playing in the water under the setting sun that reminded me of the particular joy of every summer when I was a kid, groceries, clean sheets, a big glass of cold clean water, cancelled plans, online appointment scheduling, our whole house fan and a/c, down blankets and pillows, weird dreams — especially the ones I can remember and tell Eric about, ice cream, cake, peanut butter balls and cups, onion buns, getting in the pool, the hydromassage chair, sitting in the sauna with Eric, naps, ordering things online so I don’t have to go shopping in person where there are people, prescriptions, tortilla chips, streaming content, listening to podcasts, Teddy Swims, GoldFord, book club, getting books from the library for my Kindle, when things are easy, a supportive partner, when he brings home flowers after he stops at the store for groceries, how he cleans my bathroom, when he “naps down/rests down” with Ringo before they go on an afternoon walk, reading in bed at night on my Kindle while they both sleep.