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

1. A Photo Essay: Castle Crags on Rowdy Kitten, a beautiful act of remembering.

2. patterns + running + 10 hours of tv from Jessica Swift, a good reminder about the creative process, about balancing your effort with ease.

3. Obesity epidemic? Try hunger crisis. from Nourishing the Soul, which ends with “if we can recognize what it is we are truly hungry for, we might just be able to satiate ourselves.” Word. If you want more on this, you can always look to Rachel Cole, the Hunger Goddess.

4. On determining your worth from Susan Piver.

5. The Habits Of Supremely Happy People on Huffington Post.

6. your daily rock : cut yourself some slack and your daily rock : we are in this together.

7. Blessedly Imperfect on Painted Path.

8. Things to remember on Superhero Life.

9. And I Know It’s Hard on Museful Things by Ken Robert.

10. I’m a F*cking Unicorn. (Or 10 Things to Do When You Get Fired for the First Time.) from Elephant Journal. I feel like I should start reading #6 to myself every morning and see what happens.

11. What, You Don’t Need Me? from Jonathan Fields. We should all aspire to this, no matter what sort of work, parenting, living we do.

12. Stop Juicing: It’s not healthy, it’s not virtuous, and it makes you seem like a jerk on Slate.

13. Good stuff from Seth Godin, The sound of confidence and #BlackFriday = media trap.

14. Program helps low-income elderly and disabled keep their pets on Today@CSU. This seems like a win-win situation, students away from home missing their own dogs or unable to have their own dog while in school and people with dogs who need help caring for them.

15. Things for My Stuff by Jason Good, one of the funniest boy bloggers around.

16. Florida State University AcaBelles – Royals (opb. Lorde).

17. Ward Miles – First Year, a dad films premature son’s miraculous first year. Of course the subject matter pulls at your heart strings, but I’m really sharing this because it’s a beautifully made film.

18. Kid President’s 20 Things We Should Say More Often. Seriously people, Kid President is one of the best things e v e r.

19. Good stuff from Buzzfeed: 38 Best DIY Food Gifts, and 29 Adorably Tiny Versions Of Normal-Sized Things, and 23 Signs You’re A Morning Person, and What It’s Like Being A New TA.

20. Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend, a really great TED Talk.

21. From Susannah Conway’s Something for the Weekend list: Shaved Brussel Sprout Slaw with Pink Grapefruit and a Maple Cider Vinaigrette (recipe), and Winter Recipes – salted caramel candies + kale chips + a sweet potato salad, and The Art of Getting Started Assignments, and Why Creative People Sometimes Make No Sense, and Our American Revolution.

22. The journey has to feel the way you want the destination to feel from Danielle LaPorte, in which she says,

You can’t contract your way to freedom.
You can’t punish your way to joy.
You can’t fight your way to inner peace.
The journey has to feel the way you want the destination to feel.

Oh, snap.

23. From Rowdy Kitten’s Happy Links list, My Uniform Life (in Five Easy Steps) and Blue Deer Forest Web Hosting and Blogging Services.

24. Everything I know about rest, I learned the hard way from Marianne Elliott.

25. The Necessary Art of Subtraction on Zen Habits.

26. From Positively Present Picks list, Essential Thanksgiving from The New York Times.

27. Good stuff from MindBodyGreen: 10 Signs You’ve Found Your Calling and Yum! Holiday Stuffins That Will Knock Your Socks Off (recipe).

Letterpress from Impress Studio

28. Kat McNally is hosting Reverb13 (I have two prompts in the series) and has a new website.

29. The New Black Friday with Sherry Richert Belul.

30. The True Meaning of Non-Attachment and How It Sets You Free from Always Well Within.

31. “Boredom is Rage Spread Thin.” Paul Tillich from Jeff Oaks.

32. 64 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Grief.

Letterpress from Impress Studio

33. Wisdom from Lao Tzu,

In pursuit of knowledge,
every day something is acquired.
In pursuit of wisdom,
every day something is dropped.

34. This Dog Can Stack Anything On His Head. You’ll Die Laughing At What His Owner Has Tried. A dog in a hoodie gets me every time.

35. The Art of Cleanup: Ursus Wehrli Playfully Deconstructs and Reorders the Chaos of Life on Brain Pickings.

36. 7 Reasons to Stop Proving Yourself to Everyone Else from Marc and Angel Hack Life.

P.S. Spirit Road, Take Us Home: 100 Animal Card Readings to Usher in the New Year! a great offering from Rachael Maddox that I forgot to tell you about!

1. Loving Your Perfect Self, Before Improving It and Comfort Foods Gone Awry from Eat 2 Love.

2. Good stuff from MindBodyGreen: 30 Things To Do Before You Die, and Gluten-Free Maple Granola (a recipe), and 5 Tips To Ditch Needless Pressures & Let Feeling Good Be Your Guide, and It’s Monday! Make These Gluten-Free Autumn Cookies! (I don’t care that these are supposed to be “good for you,” they look delicious), and Gluten-Free & Dairy-Free Mint Chocolate Superfood Snack Balls (same goes here), and 13 Small Choices That Can Change Your Life In Great Ways, and 21 Bad Habits To Avoid If You Want To Be Happy.

3. Family stories: The ones we claim, and the ones that claim us from Christina Rosalie, in which she says,

More than ever I can feel the way certain embers in my ribcage flare up with the unavoidable heat of this: to write is everything. And increasingly, the only thing. Over and over again I find my way to this truth, even as discovering what it truly means for my everyday life is still an act in progress.

Word.

4. 20 Funny Sidewalk Signs from Pleated Jeans.

5. Cinnamon Roasted Sweet Potato recipe from The Healthy Chef.

6. 19 Adorable Ways To Decorate A Light Switch Cover from BuzzFeed DIY.

7. Perfect Day from Jeff Oaks.

8. Actually, you’re the guru. Notes on resonance and respect. from Danielle LaPorte.

9. Are You Buying The Healthiest Frozen Veggie Burger? on Food Babe, which led me to Think Twice Before Buying This Type of Burger.

10. Feed Your Roots With Roots from Meg Worden.

11. Good stuff from Elephant Journal: 10 Tips for Teaching a Larger-Bodied Yogi, and The Power of Self-Worth, and What’s the Most Important Question We Ask?

12. Everyday Objects Turned Into Imaginative Illustrations by Javier Pérez on Bored Panda.

13. The 24 Most Hipster Things That Have Ever Happened from BuzzFeed.

14. Me, the overly sensitive child, by Anne Lamott on Salon, in which she says something that made me have to stop reading and weep,

As far as I can recall, none of the adults in my life ever once remembered to say, “Some people have a thick skin and you don’t. Your heart is really open and that is going to cause pain, but that is an appropriate response to this world. The cost is high, but the blessing of being compassionate is beyond your wildest dreams. However, you’re not going to feel that a lot in seventh grade. Just hang on.”

15. Unchaining Creativity: Thirty Ways to Say I Love You on Scoutie Girl.

16. Should is a Warning Sign from Shauna Niequist.

17. Present Tense: Allie Brosh, Donald Glover, And Hurting Right Now.

18. The 19 Most Relatable Tweets From Mindy Kaling on BuzzFeed. There is just nothing more glorious and valuable than a funny woman.

19. Wisdom from Elizabeth Gilbert on Facebook.

20. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön,

The third noble truth says that the cessation of suffering is letting go of holding on to ourselves. By “cessation” we mean the cessation of hell as opposed to just weather, the cessation of this resistance, this resentment, this feeeling of being completely trapped and caught, trying to maintain huge ME at any cost. The teachings about recognizing egolessness sound quite abstract, but the path quality of that, the magic instruction that we have all received, the golden key is that part of the meditation technique where you recognize what’s happening with you and you say to yourself, “Thinking.” Then you let go of all the talking and the fabrication and discussion, and you’re left just sitting with the weather—the quality and the energy of the weather itself. Maybe you still have that quaky feeling or that churning feeling or that exploding feeling or that calm feeling or that dull feeling, as if you’d just been buried in the earth. You’re left with that. That’s the key: come to know that.

21. On Owning It from Seth Godin.

22. Wisdom from Norman Fischer,

To simply be present with our lives at the depth that meditation practice can take us to is a profound accomplishment. To inhabit our lives in this way is to meet and become the Buddha, to be touched by and to touch the divine. Cutting through our entanglements without denying them, we reach the ultimate, not by an act of transcendence, but simply by living with full awareness.

23. Meditation For Those Of Us Who Can’t Sit Still from Get to the Good.

24. 105 Action Steps to Make You Bold, Brave and Successful from The Bold Life.

25. Wisdom from Martha Beck,

You are never required to do more than you can do in peace. Right now, take a breath, return to peace, and refuse to leave.

26. 12 Simple Strategies to Create Space Each Day from Becoming Minimalist.

27. Does Life End at 35?

28. 38,445 Miles by Rachel Cole.