Category Archives: Cute Animals

Something Good

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This is going to be a long list, lots of good stuff, so let’s get started…

1. Brene’ Brown wrote a new book. Releases on September 9th, but available for pre-order now. (Something good just for me: I’m going to a two day workshop with her in Boulder this weekend.)


2. Rachel Cole reminds us of “The Importance of Crying in Public.” Thank goodness, because I’ve been doing a bit of that today. This post is heartbreaking, honest, and empowering.

3. Broken Open to Greatness: Transforming Tragedy into Triumph, guest post by Jennifer Boykin on Jonathan Field’s blog.

4. 25 Blogging Tips from Jeff Goins.

5. Master Mind Your $100 Startup, a group of great people having an interesting conversation.

6. Laura Simms video about the $100 Startup.

7. Geneen Roth talking with Eckhart Tolle, about “Changing Your Relationship With Money: Make the connection between what you want and what you need.”

8. Patti Digh gave a commencement speech at Gilford College, The Geography of Verbs.

9. How to Live Well from Leo Babauta of ZenHabits. This is so important. You should really read it.

10. Five Reasons You Should Laugh More from Positively Present, a good reminder, if you needed reasons.

11. I want to make these.

12. I’m going to learn to do this.

13. 35 Greatest Animal Photobomers of All Time. You’ve most likely already seen this one around the interwebs.


14. This a good question to ask yourself, “What are you holding on to that’s no longer serving you?” from Jenn at Roots of She.

15. These two posts from SF Girl by Bay make me happy: A Handmade Home and Tulpina, Unique Floral Design.

16. 10 Things I’ve Learned from Anne Lamott. I adore Anne Lamott. She said of this post, “This person really did an amazing job of distlling what I am hoping to convey in my work. I’d forgotten writing in Op Ins that we’d all thought that having a kid wd be more like having a cat. And mostly I think that if I have a message, it is that we can unlearn the stupid, perfectionistic, efficiency-and-achievement driven BS our parents instilled in us. we NEED to “waste” time and paper if we are going to become artists. We need to fail and flail more, and make more messes and mistakes, not less. Send money to the Sierra Club every few months and then feel free toOVER-print-out your drafts, so you can hold the paper in your hands, and scribble on it with pen or pencil, and hear the sound of it between your fingers. That is an ancient and sacred sound.”

17. Thinks Like Me from ZeFrank. It’s hard to not have a crush on this boy.

18. Things I’m Afraid to Tell You. This is a great collection of posts, and a brave writing prompt idea.

19. Ronna Detrick and Fabeku Fatunmise talking about “Bigness.” The way he describes it, bigness sounds an awful lot like basic goodness.

20. This quote from Jennifer Louden, which describes exactly my reason for writing (besides the fact that I love it), my reason for practicing, my reason for living:

…because I am here to practice being beloved. And to teach this practice. To help myself, and hopefully you, know, through every cell of our being, that we are beloved. To know that truth as the glue that holds us together. Then, by knowing ourselves beloved, we hold every creature beloved, too. And act accordingly.

21. Exploded flowers.

Gratitude Friday

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This post is a mashup of The Little Bliss List and Joy Jam, and as such is meant to celebrate: the little things that brought me hope and happiness this week, the sweet stuff of life, those small gifts that brought me joy this week. By sharing them, I not only make public my gratitude, but maybe also help you notice your own good stuff and send some positive energy out into the world.

1. Sunday’s hike. I wrote about it here, and am still riding on the high of that day, almost a week later. Something big softened and shifted for me that day, and I’m so grateful it did. It was magic. It was medicine.

2. The fresh start of Spring. Everything is coming out and alive again, and it’s early enough in the warm season that we can sit in the back yard in the evenings without having to fight the mosquitoes. A few nights ago, I sat on the back step in kind of a funk, until all three of my boys came out to play, ran around the yard, chasing each other and wrestling and rolling in the grass, and my whole mood lifted, and my heart felt so light, both full and open. It was magic. It was medicine.

3. My 6:30 am yoga class. I’ve been going for over four years now, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning, and even though people have come and gone (and then come back again), there is a pretty consistent group of people. If I am in a bad mood, they always cheer me up. If I am struggling, they always manage to help me shift things, soften me up. This morning in shavasana, with Deva Premal singing and our teacher moving around the room adjusting our shoulders, all of us relaxed and wrapped up in blankets, resting together after practice like naptime in preschool, my heart swelled with love and thanks. It was magic. It was medicine.

4. Video by Susannah Conway in my Blogging from the Heart class. She only makes a few during the course of the class, but it’s so nice to see her face, her smile, hear her voice (she has the most divine accent) and her laugh. She’s smart and funny and kind. This week’s video had me in tears, not because of the subject matter, but because of her–the way she reminds me to love myself, to trust my worth, to have faith in my dreams. It was magic. It was medicine.

5. The Universe says “yes,” again. I was having a rough morning, one of those mornings when the nasty voices of doubt and self-criticism swirl around my head like a nest of yellow-jackets. Then I turned on my computer and saw that one of my very favorite people, someone whose work, her life and her self, her way of being in the world, inspires me and encourages me, had subscribed to follow my blog. I was both humbled and excited, and it truly felt like a reminder from the Universe that yes, I am doing what I need to, what I should, what I have to, yes, this is the right way, keep going. It was magic. It was medicine.

6. “Contemplative Arts Teacher.” Practicing in the Shambhala tradition, contemplative art is not a new concept to me. And, similarly, the idea that there are teachers for each specific tradition isn’t a surprise. However, this past week, I stumbled across a website (can’t even remember how or where now) where the author described herself as a Contemplative Arts Teacher. It felt a little like it did when I was in the 2nd grade and realized that the books I loved reading so much where written by “authors,” people whose job it was to write. I became aware of this new possibility, and felt a longing, deep and true, felt like something I had always wanted without being fully conscious of it had been revealed and named. Gobsmaked. It was magic. It was medicine.

7. Another reminder that while everything is impermanent, and reality can be messy and hard, everything is also beautiful and brilliant. As Pema Chödrön so perfectly says, things “come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”

I watched Rocky go last Friday, felt his heart stop, which brought me right back to having to let Obi go, and then losing Kelly, but in that grief is also so much love, so much grace. And yesterday, I watched this video, of Honey the Great Dane and her kitty best friend Lemon, born on the same day and raised together. The end of the story is so sad, with Lemon contracting a mysterious virus and passing at age five, but what is so wonderful is watching them interact and be friends, playing and lounging, being together so happily. It reminded me that while our time together is so short and loss hurts, there is so much love and joy, too. It was magic. It was medicine.