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

1. Poetry: The Tetons Were Made By A Woman and Watch Watching and What The Glaciers Told Me and Rest Day and Summer ’87 by Julie Barton, Everyone Is Welcome Here and Deep Listening from James Crews, Ever Changing by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, and On Longing on bimblings by Josie George.

2. In the Bardo with My Mother, “On grief both personal and public” by Elissa Altman. *sigh*

3. Wisdom from Patti Digh: The gentlest of metrics and Healing is violent.

4. Halloween: A Chance to Dance with your Shadow by Gretchen Schmelzer. “The shadow was this sign that there was something else, something beautiful if I could find it…I need to see my shadow, befriend it, and by doing so, find my own beauty.”

5. 10 Things: Friends, Friends, Friendly Friends. “Each of the activities below can help you take a budding friendship to the next level, ensure your closest friends feel seen and prioritized, and generally encourage joy and community during a time when we need it more than ever.”

6. Papier-Mâché Masks Crafted by Liz Sexton Bring Animals to Human Scale.

7. There is something very wrong with the president.

8. This Is How We Rise: Feeding Each Other, One Shelf at a Time. “20 heart-led ways to help your community — even if you’re stretched thin on time or money.”

9. Good stuff from The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz: Dear Hateful White Christians, and How to Stay Alive When You Don’t Feel Like You Want To, and No, America is Not Cooked, and Looking for Hope? Try here, and The Demolition of the East Wing, and America, and Now That The Government Has Turned Tyrannical, What Happened to All the Second Amendment Conservatives?

10. Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards 2025 Finalists. In related news, Natural History Museum Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

11. This Eerie 19-Year-Old Time-Travel Sci-Fi Series Is the Perfect Weekend Binge.

12. What the world teaches us from Seth Godin.

13. Here is a very specific thing you can do right now that will meet the moment quite nicely from Garrett Bucks on The White Pages.

So this is where we are at. Millions of humanity-loving bodies have been set in motion, but that’s not enough to quiet a million middle-of-the-night doubts. There is a very real chance that you have encountered somebody (perhaps from a distance, perhaps up close) whose voice and actions have filled you to bursting with joy and hope. And there is an equally likely chance that person is, quite frequently, exhausted and annoyed and wondering how long they can keep it up.

…

My greatest fear is not what the despots will do to us. It’s that we’ll give up. And that would be a tragedy, but it’s not irrational. The strongmen may have a predictable set of tools (brute force, austerity, propaganda), but they’re willing to use them with impunity. Their only plan is to break our spirits. And so, the work of the moment is simple. If you see anybody engaged in efforts that you value right now— hope-giving work, base building work, community care work— we need to shower them in gratitude and support.

14. brave enough to talk about sex from Brit (and Olivia) on Play is the Opposite of Survival Mode.

15. 1140’s Guide to Dystopian Literature.

16. Good stuff from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less: 8 Weird Ideas That Actually Help Calm Anxiety (When Nothing Else Works) and 10 Decluttering Rules That Make Letting Go So Much Easier.

17. On my own from Hugh Hollowell. *sigh* I miss my dad.

18. 50 Simple Ways to Make a Difference in Your Community.

19. This comic, the only thing I saved to my phone this week, (since I’m no longer on social media, which is interestingly the topic of the comic).

1. Morning walks. It was time to get Ringo’s coat out again. The mornings are much darker and the temperatures are colder, with some gold still lingering in the trees. We didn’t even get a walk on Monday morning because it was too windy, 30 mile an hour winds all day long. I had a bunch of early appointments and obligations this week, so the rest of our walks were in the full dark, where I had my headlamp on almost the whole way, so I didn’t take many pictures. The one above, Eric took on their walk this morning.

2. Practice. Yoga at Red Sage this week included some of my favorite people and one of my favorite dogs. Sometimes during class along with a few moans, groans, and complaints, a couple of jokes that typically require a break for us to laugh it out and get ourselves back together, they’ll say things like “I really need to do yoga more than once a week” or “I really needed this” and I love that. Almost the whole group was there to write on Friday morning, even me who thought I wouldn’t make it back from my early doctor’s appointment in time to join. It is a really magical practice and a group of amazing women. I’m so lucky. I’m restarting my eight week MBSR program because as well as I did the first week, the second was a mess and I didn’t meditate enough or do the full body scan every day, but luckily I can always start over, begin again.

3. Being able to choose. This week included making some big choices for my health, two new things to try and two things to let go. As for the letting go, one morning, in a fit of passion or rage or something else altogether, I deactivated my Facebook and Instagram accounts. It’s been a few weird days since then but I’m certain it was the right thing and I’m sure I’ll write more about that later, as well as the two other new things I’m going to try.

4. Health care professionals and their support staff. In particular this week, the ones who take care of me and the ones I love.

5. My tiny family, small house, little life. I love it here.

Bonus joy: finding a new recipe for peanut sauce, getting at least half the house tidied up, gummies, napping with Ringo, sitting out in the backyard in the sun with Ringo and Eric, libraries and librarians, poetry and poets, good TV, eBooks from the library on my Kindle, preordering books that haven’t been printed yet, other people’s dogs and kids, shade from a tree, a hot cup of coffee, a warm mug of green tea, the chance to start over, texting with my brother and Chloe’, finding ways to keep in touch that aren’t social media, book club and dinner after, clean sheets, a warm shower, my weighted blanket and weather cool enough to finally use it again, my Shakti mat (which Eric has been using as much as me lately), my sleep mask, my infrared heating pad, an “emergency” massage, grocery shopping, how Eric always loads my yoga gear into my car for me on the mornings I teach, how Ringo follows Eric out thinking he’s “helping,” cooking (when I want to be cooking, sometimes I DO NOT have the patience for it), slippers, down blankets and pillows, therapy, the other day when Eric forgot his phone and I rushed out to catch him before he drove away and when I came back towards the house the front door was open and Ringo was just standing there in the doorway watching (rather than running out and away, which he’s only done once to go after a cat I didn’t see when I opened the door), how being home with him more often I understand better what he needs from me, weekends when Eric doesn’t work, making each other laugh, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.