1. Poetry: Half a Century and The Chase and Praising Paradox and I Accept and She Can’t Write from Julie Barton, Lesson from the Wildflowers from Julia Fehrenbacher, Then I Stood There a Long Time by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer shared by Patti Digh, How Should You Live Your Life: Marie Howe’s Spare, Stunning Poem “The Maples,” and I Want to Sing by Gretchen Schmelzer.

2. How to Draw A Horse (Poorly, But Sincerely), “In which I realize drawing horses is not actually about horses” by Brad Montague.

3. When the ground moves from Patti Digh. “By the time you’re in it, there’s nothing you can do except ride it out.” Also from Patti, Wonder is a liberation practice.

4. What I Know About Accountability, “My two strategies” from Jami Attenberg.

5. How To Be Happy: My 10 Secrets to Feeling Happier from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less. Also from Courtney, 12 Self-Care Practices that are a Little Unconventional.

6. Settle. Calm. Soothe. “Instructions from my higher self when distraction brought me low.”

7. The Art of Storytelling, “Bil Lepp on bringing in humor and our common humanity,” which previews this episode of Emerging Form podcast and shares a few other good things.

8. How to balance DOING and BEING from Meg Josephson.

9. Navigating Caregiving When You Need Care Yourself, “Clinging to shoulds only leads to suffering” from Elizabeth Kleinfeld.

10. Don’t let the news overwhelm you — use this tool to stay engaged. “How do we observe what’s happening without being crushed by its weight?”

11. Mystery Meets Formula, “A glimpse into my writing process” from Jena Schwartz.

12. Honoring Mental Health Awareness Month. “This May, Orion Honors Mental Health Awareness Month by amplifying the voices of those who have shared their experiences with us. What follows is a sample of 12 stories to read, learn from, and perhaps even find solace within.”

13. How gardening can help you live better for longer. “Research shows gardening preserves cognitive function, helping you live well for longer. Now, dementia patients are reaping the benefits with ‘care farms’ prescriptions.”

14. Could a ‘digital diet’ help me fix my bad phone habits? “Smartphone Nation by Dr Kaitlyn Regehr vows to help us take control. But can her methods beat the algorithms?”

15. The Creative Cauldron: Collect, Collage, Compost from Alix Klingenberg.

16. American Schools Have Been Feeding Children for More Than 100 Years. Here’s How the School Lunch Has Changed. “A new exhibition in Philadelphia explores how nutritional science, technological advances and political debates shaped the foods on schoolchildren’s trays.”

17. WTF with Marc Maron: Bridget Everett. (podcast) “When Bridget Everett was growing up in Kansas, the question ‘How are you feeling?’ was not often asked. That’s part of the reason why Bridget embraced singing and making music as her primary way to connect with people. She tells Marc how this led to the development of her live cabaret shows which got her noticed by Michael Patrick King, Amy Schumer, and eventually HBO. They also talk about how Bridget’s acclaimed and beloved show Somebody Somewhere taught her how to face grief and live with it.”

18. 50 ways to be ridiculously generous and feel ridiculously good from Alexandra Franzen.

19. 30 Things I’ve Learned from 30 Years of Teaching Yoga.

20. Gregory Euclide Explores the Anthropocene in Verdant Mixed-Media Collages.

21. And finally, these random things I saved to my phone this week.

1. Poetry. These from Julie Barton: In Media Res, You Know You’re Already OK, Right?, Dream Time, The Writers I Know, and Poem for My Dead Dog. This one from Marie Howe, who was recently awarded the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her collection New and Selected Poems. The Pulitzer Prize committee honored the work as “a collection drawn from decades of work that mines the day-to-day modern experience for evidence of our shared loneliness, mortality, and holiness.”: The Meadow. And this one from Maya Stein, Fast Forward: A poem from the future, about which she says, “This is a stitched poem I composed using lines written by the 40+ students who entered the 2025 Belfast (Maine) Free Library Youth Poetry Contest. I had the honor of serving as the contest judge and emceed yesterday’s reception for the participants and awardees, where I shared this poem with the students and their families. ‘Fast Forward: Poems from the Future’ was the theme of the contest.”

2. Good stuff from Patti Digh: The Day I Forgot How to Play and The Man Underground and Is that line a boundary, or a horizon?

3. Random thoughts about my longest love affair from Danny Gregory. **Spoiler alert**: it’s books. He loves books. Me too. 

4. Protecting democracy is not enough: five things Americans must fight for. It seems to me that no matter who you supported in the last election, these are five things we can all agree on.

5. Questions Without Answers, a new book from Sarah Manguso (Author) and Liana Finck (Illustrator). “Why does a ghost wander? Are bubbles in drinks their thoughts? Do dogs have chins? Where does the dark go when the light comes on? How will it feel on the last day I’m a child? What’s the best question a kid ever asked you? When Sarah Manguso opened a Twitter account and posted this single (and only) tweet, she immediately received hundreds of answers. Many, she discovered, were intelligent, intuitive, inventive, and philosophical. For Manguso, these responses seemed to form a ‘choral philosophy’ that she believes disappears from most people’s lives in kindergarten. As she says in her illuminating foreword, ‘These questions are cute by the word’s original definition, swift and piercing. They cut to the quick.’ Gathering more than one hundred of the best questions from this poll and bringing them brilliantly to life with illustrations by New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck, Questions Without Answers ranges from the ridiculous to the sublime—encompassing birth, death, poop, dinosaurs, and everything in between—to show us the wit and wisdom of little people in all their wondrous glory.”

6. why gardening, and why now? “On the Instinct for Beauty and Life” from Elissa Altman. In related news, What Gardening Offered After a Son’s Death, “Deep in mourning, I thought, What if spring never returns?” by Yiyun Li.

7. communal compassion, “it’s time to create a cadence of taking care of each other” from Karen Walrond.

8. What It Feels Like to Be a Caregiver *Right Now*, “Grief and Rage and Gratitude, So Complicated!” on Culture Study.

9. Why PBS still matters. “There’s a lot to lose when we stop caring for ones who care about kids” from Brad Montague.

10. 8 Things To Let Go of Today for a Simpler Life Tomorrow from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less. In related news, 12 Tiny Decluttering Projects, also from Courtney.

11. I cannot save the world (and neither can you), “But we can write about its beauty” on Writing at Red Lights.

12. There is still joy ahead, I promise from Jenny Lawson.

13. Are We Brave Enough to Create? from Sara Saltee.

14. How to Stay Calm when Talking to Someone with Dementia. “It’s the dementia that’s frustrating, not the person” from Elizabeth Kleinfeld.

15. Good stuff on The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz: 5 Ways to Give Fascism a Middle Finger and No, the Right Doesn’t Hate the New Pope. They Hate His Jesus.

16. Reasons to Commit to It. “Curiosity and tenderness, for starters” on Craft Talk from Jami Attenberg.

17. 20 Lessons on Tyranny: by Timothy Snyder / read by John Lithgow. (video) “Now, more than ever, we need the wisdom of our intellects, the patriotism of our citizens, and the passion and talents of those who still believe in the American experiment. I am deeply grateful to Timothy Snyder for his 20 Lessons On Tyranny and for talents of the brilliant John Lithgow for bringing them to life.”

18. Electric Garden. (video) “When artist Ricky Boscarino bought a dilapidated hunting lodge in the forests of Sussex County, he did not anticipate the journey he and the house would undergo. 36 years later, the house is Luna Parc, a whimsical 5,000 sq. foot museum, atelier, and home resembling something out of the mind of PeeWee Herman or Tim Burton. Meet the madcap artist behind New Jersey’s most iconic home.”

19. Watercolor Mornings & Manifestation Lists. “On Rituals That Remind Me I’m Alive.”

20. Good stuff on Lion’s Roar: How to Create a Meditation Space (“No matter your living situation, you can have a place to practice. Yaotunde Obiora explains”) and A Practice for Letting Your Heart Break (“Kimberly Brown offers a practice for when the weight of the world leaves you angry and overwhelmed”).

21. 10 beautiful images from the 2025 GDT Nature Photographer of the Year awards.

22. The Hardest Winter Of My Life. “Writing from the messy middle” by Andrea Gibson.

23. All This Is Happening on the Farm on Trackless Wild with Janisse Ray.

24. What kind of abundance do you want? from Rita Ott Ramstad on Rootsie. “A small creative life won’t bring you fame or fortune, but there are plenty of other things to be had from not going big.”

25. Pick My Brain, “some answers to your questions” from Maggie Smith.

26. Are You Solarpunk Without Knowing It? on Earth & Verse, “a hopeful vision of the future where nature, technology, and community thrive together.”

27. How I Find Clients As An Introvert from Alexandra Franzen.

28. This is where the battle is being waged by Josie George.

29. Krista Tippett Answers the Orion Questionnaire. “In which we get to know our favorite writers better by exploring the sacred and mundane.”

30. A real recharge. Five ways to get more – and better – rest.

31. Long-lost sisters meet for the first time—wearing the exact same dress.
“We have the exact same taste in everything. Even our houses look the same.”

32. 31 Inspiring May Journal Prompts (+Ideas) for May.

33. An optimal state of consciousness’: is flow the secret to happiness?

34. What Are “Side Quests” And How Can We Use Them for Self-Care?

35. ‘James’ wins 2025 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

36. I constantly felt tired and unmotivated in life, until I adopted these 7 daily habits.

37. Kandy G. Lopez Embroiders Striking, Life-Size Yarn Portraits Highlighting BIPOC Narratives.

38. Heather Clements Art on Instagram. “Artist • Muralist • Interactive Art-Maker. Creating art from my inner-most weirdo.” Her new interactive “pop up” book Pull Me Apart looks so cool.

39. And finally, this set of random things I saved to my phone this week.