Author Archives: jillsalahub

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About jillsalahub

Writer & Contemplative Practice Guide holding space for people cultivating a foundation of a stable mind, embodied compassion and wisdom. CYT 500

Something Good

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1. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön: “The innocent mistake that keeps us caught in our own particular style of ignorance, unkindness, and shut-downness is that we are never encouraged to see clearly what is, with gentleness. Instead, there’s a kind of basic misunderstanding that we should try to be better than we already are, that we should try to improve ourselves, that we should try to get away from painful things, and that if we could just learn how to get away from the painful things, then we would be happy. That is the innocent, naïve misunderstanding that we all share, which keeps us unhappy.”

2. 5 Ways To End the Endless Game of Catching Up from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.

3. Impossible Generosity: A Poem for my Daughter by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.

4. Realize Your True Nature on Lion’s Roar. “Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche presents practices for recognizing the true nature of mind — empty and open, luminous and aware.”

5. Good stuff from Seth Godin: Making Change Happen, The 500 Ways, and Foibles.

6. 10 Organizations You Can Support On Trans Day Of Visibility & Every Day.

7. 6 Ways to Help After the School Shooting in Nashville (Including, Not Giving Up). In related news, Republicans Want You to Forget Their Complicity in the Nashville Shooting, and I Hate Guns (an Instagram reel from Andrea Gibson), and Tennessee Republican responds to ‘hatred’ over remarks that nothing will ‘fix’ school shooting, and A therapist has advice for how to cope with repeated mass shootings: Lean into family, and This Is America: Where Everything’s Made Up and Lives Don’t Matter, and How Can We Be a Country That Does This to Our Children? on The New York Times. Guns are now the leading cause of death for children in the United States and the Nashville Covenant School shooting marked the country’s 130th mass shooting of 2023.

 8. A journal is a magic space to hang out from Austin Kleon.

9. COVID poetry: how a new genre is helping readers to comprehend the pandemic. 

10. The Dumpster Project.

11. Noa Goffer satisfies her materialistic urges by drawing her wish list instead.

12. What a Year Brings.

13. 30 Books Critics Think You Should Read Right Now.

14. All my art supplies cost me double from Danny Gregory. 

15. What makes me happy now, a series on The Guardian, “Writers consider what happiness means to them after the reckoning of the past few years.”

16. There Are 3 Different Types of Sensitivity. Which One (or Ones) Are You? All three over here.

17. My Marriage Was Never the Same After That. “In 2016, I wrote a poem that went viral. My home life got complicated,” an excerpt from Maggie Smith’s upcoming memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful.

18. On the confusion of diet culture, an Instagram reel from Alex Light. This is why those of us with human bodies need to trust ourselves first rather than listening to the Tower of Babel that is the wellness industry.

19. Judy Blume Forever, a new documentary on Amazon Prime, just in time for the release of Are You There God? It’s me, Margaret. In related news, Judy Blume: book banning now much worse in US than in 1980s.

20. Recipe I want to try: Bean and vegetable burritos. I’ve also accumulated a TON of Instagram reels with recipes, too many to try and share here, so much so that my feed of recommended videos is now mainly recipes and animals and cute kids and artists making their art, and I’m okay with that since those are the things I love the most.

21. Loveland’s High Plains Environmental Center Shows Native Landscapes Can Flourish Within An Urban Environment. In related news, The lessons of Earth Day live on.

22. 8 Valid Reasons Why Highly Sensitive Introverts Might Step Back From a Friend.

23. Heron, Returning, a poem by Christian Ward. I love herons, and poetry, so much.

24. Classical marble sculptures covered with traditional Far Eastern tattoos by Fabio Viale.

25. 11 Black Farmers And Black-Owned Farmlands To Inspire Your Green Thumb.

26. griefKit, “This griefKit has articles, essays, books, communities, mindful movement, music, podcasts, recipes, tools, and considerations to help you make it through whatever kind of grief you’re navigating. We see you and invite you to give yourself more grace. We hope something or (a few somethings) in here helps you feel a little less raggedy, find words for your experience, remember to find joy and be gentle with yourself in its absence.”

27. Fascinating organic-shaped copper wire sculptures by Sally Blake.

28. Meet Stumpy, the cherry blossom tree stealing hearts by striving through the thick and thin.

29. Stop overwatering your houseplants, and other things plant experts want you to know.

30. ‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’ Plunders $15.3 Million Opening Day. Eric and I went to see this last week and it was really good: the acting and the story were great and it was really funny — no need to know anything about D&D to enjoy the movie. Then yesterday, I watched This Is Where I Leave You on Netflix, and it was really good too, for all the same reasons.

31. 9 easy ways to make your life a little better. 

32. Pink Peonies Burst with Life in Hyperrealistic Oil Paintings by Maria Marta Morelli. *swoon*

P.S: Since I’m having major surgery on Wednesday, in all likelihood I’ll need next Monday off from posting this list, maybe the Monday after — who knows. Hopefully the 575 other lists I’ve made over the years have earned me some time off. 🙂

Gratitude

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1. Morning walks. We walked some unusual routes and times this week because of snow, cold, and then mud, but it was still so pretty out there. People who’ve had the surgery I’m getting on Wednesday all say that the three things that are most important for recovery are: drink lots of water, walk and walk and walk and walk some more, and “don’t trust your farts.” 

2. Snow. I know lots of people are ready for winter to be over but I really like the snow and even the cold — not the gray sky though, never that. On Monday we were supposed to wake up to maybe a few more inches, and instead we got NINE and everything was canceled — SNOW DAY!!! The only drawback was the ground cover meant that the robins had to come to our bird feeder and those dudes are messy! Poop on and in the feeder and the whole thing went from filled that morning to nothing left by the end of the day. Thankfully once the snow melted they left the seed alone for the little birds and went back to pulling worms and bugs out of the dirt.

3. Hanging out with friends. I got to spend two whole hours with Chloe’, went out to dinner with Chelsey and Jon, caught up with Mikalina, and made art with Janice. I am calling this week’s collage “Church of the Wild.”

4. My big “Christmas” cactus finally bloomed. My friend Susan, when I posted that it was late but lovely, suggested it was an “Easter” cactus. 🙂

5. My tiny family, tiny home, tiny life. I have been soaking it all in, knowing I’ll be away for a bit. Eric and I went to our first movie in an actual theater in three years! Every single day here with them is the best, my favorite.

Bonus joy: good books (just finished Cloud Cuckoo Land, so good!), listening to podcasts, watching good TV, naps, grocery shopping, soft sourdough sandwich bread, Squeezed Vitamin Water, knowing I have everything I need, canceled plans when I can’t “people,” other people’s dogs and kids, a new notebook, stickers, Dot’s Honey Mustard Pretzels, down blankets and pillows and coats, wool socks, finding replacement bulbs for my HappyLight which is over a decade old, peanut butter and banana, refried beans, sweet potatoes, raspberries, writing in the morning while I drink a mug of green tea, the pool, the hydromassage chair, sitting in the sauna with Eric, pay day, clean laundry, health insurance (although, universal healthcare would be even better), good neighbors, the river and the trees, all the early flowers starting to bloom, bird song, how cute Ringo can be when he’s being so bad, libraries, flannel sheets, reading in bed at night while Ringo and Eric sleep.

And then there’s you, kind and gentle reader. I don’t tell you often enough how grateful I am for you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. ❤