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

Roaring Creek, image by Eric

1. The poetics of spinach on Rita’s Notebook, in which Rita says, “I’m realizing that whether I am growing poems or spinach, there is a vital part of the process that requires me to leave things alone. There is a part that is beyond my control, that is determined by things I cannot put my hands on.”

2. Lori’s story – Gratitude Grows. “For more than a year, artist Lori Portka painted her gratitude through individual pieces of art for 100 people who have made a difference in her life.”

https://vimeo.com/121724954

3. Voices from Nepal: Earthquake survivors tell their stories, illustrated stories on Medium.

4. Wisdom from Brave Girls Club. I really needed to hear this.

Dear Lovely Girl,

Sometimes it’s tempting to bend and twist and stand on our toes to change enough for certain others to like us, for us to be able to ‘fit in’. Self betrayal doesn’t ever lead to happiness, however, and doing things that we know in our gut are not right for us, bending our values, those things just lead us down a really tricky path — a path that often leads us to places that are so far from where we wanted to end up that we just can’t figure out how we ever got there.

When we decide to put value in those who love us exactly as we are, life gets really sweet. Sometimes we have to wait to find those who like the real us, but it is always worth the wait.

Beautiful friend, you are wonderful in your purest, deepest, truest form. You don’t have to change to be loved. There are those who will love all that is real about you, and those are the real relationships that a meaningful life is made of.

You are worth waiting for.
You are so very very very loved.
xoxo

5. Shared on Rowdy Kittens’ Happy Links list: Building a Living Around Your Creative Soul: Cynthia Morris (a Good Life Project podcast) and Do More With Less, a film about hiking the Pacific Coast Trail that I’m sure Eric will want to watch with me.

6. You don’t have to work to become. You already are. Kylie Bellard on Medium.

7. “Practical” body image tip #1… from Isabel Foxen Duke.

8. Good stuff from Austin Kleon’s weekly newsletter this week: Terry Gross To Marc Maron: ‘Life Is Harder Than Radio’ and A Woman on the Margins: An interview with Vivian Gornick about the problem with writing programs, the memoir’s potential for dishonesty, and finding her way as a writer and Works in Progress: A very small sampling of the female artists now in their 70s, 80s and 90s we should have known about decades ago.

9. Good stuff from this week’s Positively Present Picks list: 9 Addictions 90% of Us Struggle With, and How Art Can Heal Anxiety, and 7 Thinking Patterns You Use to Distort Reality.

10. Good stuff from Susannah Conway’s Something for the Weekend list: What Do You Do When the Internet Hates You? and How To Meditate (Funny) – Ultra Spiritual Life episode 14 – with JP Sears.

11. Truthbomb #802 from Danielle LaPorte, “Try staying open when you want to shut down, it changes everything.”

12. Shared on Peaceful links from Peaceful Triumphs: Maria Popova — Cartographer of Meaning in a Digital Age, an On Being podcast with the creator of Brain Pickings.

13. Abandoned House In Detroit Brought Back To Life With 4,000 Flowers on Bored Panda.

14. money talks • stefanie renée and liz kalloch, by Sherry Belul.

15. Dog Chases Owner’s Ambulance After Suffering A Stroke. This video almost wrecked me, and yet I feel like I needed to share it. Don’t let the title throw you — it’s actually a PSA about being an organ donor.

16. Wisdom from Anne Lamott, “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”

17. As Memorial Day Nears, a Single Image That Continues to Haunt.

18. Wisdom from Geneen Roth,
thewayout

19. This man who was body-shamed by Internet trolls just got the dance party of his dreams.

20. The Last Viewing from Story Corps.

Lady Moon Meadow Trail, image by Eric

1. The bravest thing I’ve done this year from Marianne Elliott, the first post in a series on courage that I also wrote a post for, I showed up. I opened my heart. I stayed. Marianne’s next session of 30 Days of Courage: a guide to bravery in action starts April 20th and registration is open now.

2. 15 Things Stopping You from Moving Forward from Marc and Angel Hack Life.

3. our very special houseguest on Chookooloonks. For our next dog, I want to be able to say say, “She’s [or he’s] gentle, and sweet-natured, and incredibly calm, and so easy. She’s obedient and playful, and she’s taken to our family almost seamlessly.” You know how much I’ve loved my dogs, but so far, I’ve had “it’s been so hard but I know it will be worth it,” and someday I’d really like the other version.

4. 23 Best Movies On Netflix You Haven’t Yet Seen.

5. 30 Questions You Should Ask Your Best Friend and 30 MORE Questions to Ask Your Best Friend from Hello Giggles.

6. Three Eternal (So Far) Truths about Living and Writing from On Being.

7. Artist Paints Ocean Stones With Thousands Of Tiny Dots To Create Colorful Mandalas on Bored Panda.

8. the mabel magazine either / or question: part 2, in which you can read my responses.

9. I Gotcher Blog-Writin’ Advice Right Here from Terrible Minds.

10. Wisdom from David Whyte,

Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work, a future. To be courageous, is not necessarily to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those things we already feel deeply and then to live through the unending vulnerabilities of those consequences.

11. In memory of Anne Frank, some of her most beautiful quotes on Hello Giggles, which says this,

Anne Frank’s diary remains one of the most essential pieces of writing in existence — a 13-year-old girl’s account of the most horrifying genocide in modern history. But more than that, Anne’s diary was a beautifully-written autobiography of a brilliant young girl, full of hope, potential and bravery. This year marks the 70th anniversary of Anne’s final diary entry, and she continues to inspire us with her spirit and courage.

12. WALK THE MOON – Shut Up and Dance (Official Lyric Video). Dance break!!!

13. Heartbreaking and beautiful, we have a trailer for the Amy Winehouse documentary on Hello Giggles.

14. Teen Comes Out As Gay, His Father Reacts Angrily. Hey Dad, what would Jesus do?

15. What Would Beyonce Do?! funny stuff from comedienne Luisa Omielan.

16. Interview: Patrick Mulholland on the Broken Saviors Kickstarter.

17. Good stuff from Dances with Fat: Dealing With Oppression – That’s Not How I Would Have Done It! and Can Trader Joe’s Reduce Our Guilt Around Food?

18. Your past experiences are blinding you: How to take a step back and view the world without bias or judgement on Medium.

19. Good stuff from Rowdy Kittens’ Happy Links list: The Journal Diaries- Gert’s Hobonichi and On Our Next Big Adventure and The one thing you’re most likely to regret.

20. A Note from the Universe, “For every fork in the road, Jill, there are often two paths from which to choose: the one you ‘should’ take and the one you want to take. Take the second. Always take the second.”

21. On Chookooloonks this was a good week list: Dressing up strangers as dolls: cute or ‘creepy’? – BBC World Service and Novelist Katherine Center’s philosophy on writing the story you long to read.

22. No Kids for Me, Thanks on The New York Times.

23. I Am A Plus-Size Woman Who Wore a Low-Rise Bikini to the Beach and This is What Happened on Bustle.

24. Orthorexia Nervosa: When Righteous Eating Becomes An Obsession.

25. Creating a New Cultural Story, Jennifer Louden talks with Brigid Schulte, author of the NYT’s bestseller Overwhelmed: How to Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time, which I want to read.

26. Good stuff from Alexandra Franzen: How to Talk Yourself in to a Great Day at Work and Be done with what’s done. Let it burn. and Always one more time.

27. Knock Knock, It’s Tig Notaro | Official Trailer | Showtime Documentary.