1. It’s Friday. This has been a long week with a complicated and busy schedule and I am looking forward to letting go a little, cleaning up.
2. Practice. I flipped my calendar over to March (finally) and the quote was from Pema Chödrön, “The meditative space is like the big sky — spacious, vast enough to accommodate anything that arises.” Yoga, meditation, writing, and dog all simultaneously challenge and soothe me.
3. Blogging. I really do love it, and today I get to talk about it with a “Writing in the Arts and Humanities” class on campus. They’ve been posting questions for me on their class blog and I can’t wait to hear how I answer.
4. Sweet Sam and Ringo Blue. These two have been a handful this week, loud and rowdy and misbehaved. I confess I had a few moments of fantasizing about having no dogs, but I would never really go through with it. I love these dumb jerks way too much.
Ringo sassing Sam.
5. Eric. He walked the dogs for me yesterday morning because it was so cold (2 degrees). He leaves me love notes on the kitchen counter. At night, he stands in the kitchen wearing a blanket around his shoulders like a superhero cape. He drinks too much coffee when he’s busy and hates getting behind on his work. He cooks for me, (sometimes it’s pie). He laughs at the same dumb things I do.
Bonus joy: Tuesday lunches with one of my favorite people, tomato and split pea soup, toast, clean cold water, snow, long walks with the dogs, people who are really good at herding cats facilitating meetings, being able to offer some wisdom, going slow, being able to trust myself.
5. Wisdom from Jonathan Fields, “Build things that speak louder than you ever could.”
6. Audience growth, from Paul Jarvis, in which he shares this wisdom,
You may think that developing your own unique voice is easy, since, hell, it’s your voice. Sadly, this is not the case, especially in writing. Finding your voice takes work. It’s part internalization, part confidence, and part a damn lot of practice. I’m not sure developing your voice as a creator is something you can ever completely win at—you have to continually check in with yourself to see if it consistently aligns.
16. Wisdom from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, (thanks for sharing, Lise),
The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.
17. Wisdom from Louis C.K., (thanks to Meg Worden for sharing),
Self-love is a good thing but self-awareness is more important. You need to once in a while go “Uh, I’m kind of an asshole.”
19. How to Spot A Narcissist and Walk Away on MindBodyGreen. I worked for a narcissist for seven years and walking away was one of the best things I ever did for myself.
20. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön,
The main thing about this practice and about all practice is that you’re the only one who knows what is opening and what is closing down; you’re the only one who knows. There’s a slogan: “Of the two witnesses, hold the principal one.” What it’s saying is that one witness is everybody else giving you their feedback and opinions (which is worth listening to; there’s some truth in what people say), but the principal witness is yourself. You’re the only one who knows when you’re opening and when you’re closing. You’re the only one who knows when you’re using things to protect yourself and keep your ego together and when you’re opening and letting things fall apart, letting the world come as it is—working with it rather than struggling against it.
21. the bohemian life on SF Girl by Bay. I love this look, the wood and the greenery, the styles and the colors.
First you must free yourself from the idea of your voice. From the very sound of it. You must throw off the yoke of familiar language. The habits of rhythms and structures that are familiar. They are limitation. You have to expel even your greatest teachers. They too have become an obstacle to your freedom. But most of all you have to be honest. You have to be yourself. You have to be fearless — no, more than that — you have to be mindless of whatever might be the consequences of being so. Only by this way will you arrive at true revelation.
That our receiving may be like breathing: taking in, letting go.
That our holding may be like loving: taking care, setting free.
That our giving may be like leaving: singing thanks, moving on.
31. Maryland Sanitation Truck Driver Called Hero for Helping Homeless Families.
There are times in which you just have to do what you know to be right, what your intuition tells you, what you can clearly discern as the right course of action. Trust-trust-trust that you know what you’re doing. And let everything else go – every fear, every anticipated reaction, even every expected risk and certain cost. It’s all going to work out.
I’m sure of this because I am Abigail and you are my daughter, my lineage, my kin.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 