1. Poetry: In Harsh Times and Sacred Pause from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, At Strawberry Creek and Only Slightly Under Water and Tiny Little Joys and The Kids Are Not Alright from Julie Barton, and A Defense of Joy by Mario Benedetti translated and shared by Maria Popova.
2. Live in the Whole of Time, with Joy Harjo: Hope Portal, Session 6.
3. Don’t Let Anyone Keep you Small, “how old wounds can keep us from writing our story” on Writing At Red Lights.
4. What do we do when our government says that it hates us and doesn’t care if we die? “Just two things (in a million different ways)” by Garrett Bucks on The White Pages.
5. Why write (or draw or build or play or think) if a robot can do it for you? “I like you more than I like the machines, and I’d like to keep it that way,” also from Garrett Bucks on The White Pages.
6. WTF?! Conversation With Author Omkari Williams on The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz. (video) “Though she has an affinity for supporting activists who identify as introverted or highly sensitive, as she does, she welcomes all people into the world of micro activism, a sustainable path to change-making based upon honoring the inherent dignity of all people.”
7. You Will Never Be Completely At Home Again. “Some things I’ve learned about how to create a life” from Amanda Sandlin.
8. The Colorful History of Tarot Is as Mesmerizing as the Decks Themselves.
“The original meaning behind the cards, first created 500 years ago, still remains elusive. But that didn’t stop our reporter from traveling to Milan in an effort to find out” on Smithsonian Magazine.
9. Thumbs up: good or passive aggressive? How emojis became the most confusing kind of online language.
10. A Failed Experiment, “A morning to myself & revenge bedtime procrastination” on The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad. This line in particular got me: “I still forget, more often than I’d like to admit to you (maybe even less to myself), that my value does not lie in my output.”
11. In the Wake of the Big Beautiful Bill. “On being dealt a devastating blow by Trump, but not being beaten” by Frederick Joseph.
12. Going for Bronze from Danny Gregory. Because this, “I used to think my worth came from making great things. But I’ve slowly come to believe that my worth comes from making things, period. The judgment comes later—if it comes at all.”
13. Pep Talk (Ok, not really) from Maggie Smith. “I have seen plenty of terrible this week. So have you. I have seen cruelty and greed beyond comprehension. I have also seen and felt love, gratitude, generosity—and I hope you have, too. We need the beauty if we’re going to keep fighting the terror, and we have to keep fighting. What choice do we have?”
14. Journaler’s Routine. “Part one of a new summer series” on The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad, “in this summer series, I’ll be asking writers and artists from The Book of Alchemy to share their journaler’s routine. Today we begin with mine.”
15. Acting because you don’t have to from The Imperfectionist. “So you don’t need to choose between peace of mind and the thrill of pursuing ambitious goals. You just need to understand those goals less as vehicles to get you to a future place of sanity and good feeling, and more as things that unfold from an existing place of sanity and good feeling.”
16. The Key to Longevity Is Boring on The New York Times. (gift link)
17. the fundamental tangle of joy and pain*, “The Summer the Roses Died” by Elissa Altman’
18. NPR staffers pick their favorite fiction reads of 2025 so far.
19. If you want to move forward, there are four people you need to forgive. (Facebook reel)
20. And finally, this collection of random things I saved to my phone this week.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 