1. To Be a Person: Jane Hirshfield’s Playful and Poignant Poem About Bearing Our Human Condition. “Some take, in witnessed suffering, pleasure. Some make, of witnessed suffering, beauty.”

2. Novelist Jesmyn Ward: ‘Losing my partner almost made me stop writing’. “When the father of her children died suddenly, the US National Book award-winning author’s world fell apart. Three years on, she talks about grief, starting over and how she wrote her searing new novel about slavery.” In related news, on The New York Times, In Jesmyn Ward’s New Novel, Slavery Is Hell and Dante Is Our Guide. “‘Let Us Descend,’ by the two-time National Book Award-winning novelist, takes its title from the ‘Inferno’ and its subject from American history.”

3. Inside Jon Batiste and Suleika Jaouad’s Soul-Filled Brooklyn Home. “With the help of designer Hallie Goodman and architect Ravi Raj, the musician and author created an art-filled space that inspires their own creative work.”

4. Bridging the divide: 12 groups working for Israel-Palestine peace. In related news, Ways to help groups who promote peace, provide relief to victims of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Where To Give Money and Take Action To Support Palestinians Right Now.

5. How man’s best friend is helping rehabilitate inmates in England. “Prisoners in England are being taught to train assistance dogs for the community, gaining qualifications so they can set up their own businesses upon release.”

6. Andrea Gibson: Facing Mortality and Being Adored and Cherished by the Universe. “Listen now to this poignant conversation featuring Andrea’s reading of their poem, ‘Acceptance Speech After Setting the World Record in Goosebumps’ and exploring spiritual surrender, finding joy in every instant, facing challenges, moving through grief, the life force of the universe within us, self-love and loving the whole world, trying softer (not harder), the power of relaxation, identifying the keys that open your heart, staying with our fear, activism and loosening our attachment to desired outcomes, being yourself fully, the gift of mortality, giving the present moment the cold shoulder, why authenticity is the most important thing when it comes to writing, the pull of creativity, and more.”

7. paradoxical truths: the aim of a spiritual practice from Abigail Rose Clarke, who says, “Life is nothing but layered paradoxes. And a spiritual practice – any spiritual practice – should be aiming towards being able to hold greater and greater paradoxes without feeling pushed apart at the seams. All the other benefits – the better sleep, and the greater patience, and in the case of body-based practices, all the glow and youth and ease that’s promised, are lovely side effects. But that isn’t the goal. The aim of any practice is to hold the immense truth of the world, which is to say, to hold its immense paradox.”

8. The Red Hand Files #257. Nick Cave responds to Noreen’s question: “Grief I find people have a hard time talking about my pain, lost my husband of 45 years. I want to talk about him, it makes people nervous. What can I do?”

9. Ch-ch-ch-changes… from Esmé Weijun Wang. “The year when everything changed.”

10. Those Little Brown Hands from Frederick Joseph. “A letter to late six-year-old Palestinian-American, Wadea al-Fayoume.”

11. I just know I ache for my friends (and all humans) to know peace, not fear from Patti Digh. “I am not a scholar of Israel, Palestine (and Hamas) but I am a friend to humans there.”

12. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön: “There is a teaching that says that behind all hardening and tightening and rigidity of the heart, there’s always fear. But if you touch fear, behind fear there is a soft spot. And if you touch that soft spot, you find the vast blue sky. You find that which is ineffable, ungraspable, and unbiased, that which can support and awaken us at any time.”

13. How to Cure the ‘Introvert Blues’.

14. The end of writer’s block from Seth Godin.

15. Good stuff on A Writer’s Notebook from Summer Brennan: Essay Camp? and Essay Camp: A November Write-Along and The Work, In Progress. And this she has to say about writing practice applies to any practice, “The ongoing process of writing is one of perpetual drift and return. We are pulled away from our writing practice and then we come back, over and over. Life, the noise of the world, and the constant clamor of our own personal responsibilities can make writing difficult. This habit of return is one of the most important skills that any writer can cultivate, whether we do it daily or only once every few years.” The point isn’t to do it perfectly, but when you notice you’ve drifted off or gotten hooked, you simply notice and come back, and you can do that as many times as you need to — “the habit of return,” the noticing is what matters.

16. The Goal Versus The Mission from Jami Attenberg. “I definitely strive for perfection in my work. I want to make something beautiful and seamless and special for everyone. Always, I want this. (I know you want this, too!) But striving for that perfection should never get in the way of making it to the finish line or even sitting down to do that work in the first place. Perfection is a goal but not the mission. Have a good week. I hope you fuck up a little bit.”

17. The Worst Doctor Diet Advice? from Ragen Chastain. 

18. Messages from This Week of Being Human from Sarah Blondin.

19. 9 (Not so Little Things) That Are Holding You Back from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less. Also from Courtney, 7 Life Mistakes That Make Us Feel Unhappy and Somatic Therapy: 12 Easy Ways To Shift Your Mood With Your Body.

20. For All Beings by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel.

21. Mark Steel: ‘I have cancer and it feels like there’s a leopard in my house’. “The comedian was booked in for a biopsy after noticing a neck abnormality. Standups are used to leaving audiences jolly but he could not share his diagnosis without causing worry.”

22. Louise Glück honed her poetic voice across a lifetime to speak to us from beyond the grave. Check out her page on Poetry Foundation.

23. The art of quitting. “Walking away is hard, but it can be empowering.”

24. Hidden Brain Podcast: Escaping Perfectionism. “Perfectionism is everyone’s favorite flaw. It’s easy to assume that our push to be perfect is what leads to academic, athletic and professional success. But psychologist Thomas Curran says perfectionism has a dark side, and that there are much healthier ways to strive for excellence.”

25. In a reading rut? Here’s how to find a book you won’t want to put down. An interview with Traci Thomas, creator and host of the podcast The Stacks, where she talks to guests about new titles and offers quirky book lists.

26. Tattered Cover bookstore chain files for bankruptcy, plans to close 3 stores. *sigh*

27. Here Are The 15 Winning Images Of The Wildlife Photographer Of The Year Competition.

28. Is a Women’s Museum Still Relevant? on The New York Times. “The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington reopens Oct. 21 after a renovation and the loss of its legendary leader. It faces a world that has changed its outlook significantly.”

29. Georgia deputy fatally shoots man who was wrongfully imprisoned for 16 years. This is who we are — we right a wrong done and make the effort to free an innocent man from prison, we financially compensate him for the time he lost, which allows him to plan on attending college and buying a home, only to murder him during a traffic stop two years later.

30. A Woman Got Callbacks From Every Job She Applied to After She Used AI to Write Her Resume.

31. Fran Lebowitz on Astrology, Taylor Swift, and Lesbian Period Pieces. “The legendary New Yorker is softer on Los Angeles these days, but harsh as ever when it comes to pretty much everything else.”

32. 50 Of The Most Interesting Things People Ever Found On The Beach.

33. 10 Questions I Would Ask My Dog.

34. Baby Showers Beware: “Nesting Party” Takes Internet By Storm As Much Better Alternative.

35. ‘You’ll grow out of it’: the best and worst advice for depression.

36. Yayoi Kusama Apologizes for Past Racist Remarks on The New York Times. “Revelations from the artist’s autobiography threaten to cloud her new show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.”

37. The 300-year-old Japanese method of upcycling. “Sashiko is easy, practical and beautiful – and gaining fans around the world. Bel Jacobs speaks to practitioners to find out more.”

38. Recipes I want to try: Mexican Street Tacos, Sesame Chicken Bowls, and Gingerbread Loaf.

39. 5 things to remember when a friendship ends.

40. Retired country maths teacher Robert Martiensen created thousands of artworks in secret. This is so sweet, but also so sad.

41. Binge Eating Was My First High. “What lengths would I go to feed my hungry heart?”

42. Window Plant Shelf on Etsy. I think I need some of these.

43. The recipe for a better ‘Bake-Off’? Fun format, good casting, and less host shtick.

44. A Hospice Nurse on Embracing the Grace of Dying on The New York Times. “A decade ago, Hadley Vlahos was lost. She was a young single mother, searching for meaning and struggling to make ends meet while she navigated nursing school. After earning her degree, working in immediate care, she made the switch to hospice nursing and changed the path of her life. Vlahos, who is 31, found herself drawn to the uncanny, intense and often unexplainable emotional, physical and intellectual gray zones that come along with caring for those at the end of their lives, areas of uncertainty that she calls ‘the in-between.'”

45. The Garden at Saihoji Temple in Kyoto, a short peaceful video from Lucian James.

1. Love at First Sight streaming on Netflix. “After missing her flight from New York to London, Hadley (Haley Lu Richardson) meets Oliver (Ben Hardy) in a chance encounter at the airport that sparks an instant connection. A long night on the plane together passes in the blink of an eye but upon landing at Heathrow, the pair are separated and finding each other in the chaos seems impossible. Will fate intervene to transform these seat mates into soul mates? Based on the wildly popular novel, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, by Jennifer E Smith.” Not everyone liked this movie, which is rated 6.9/10 on Rotten Tomatoes. Some reviews said things like the movie was “an absolute stink fest,” “painful to watch,” “booty cheeks” or “absolute buns” (?), and simply a waste of time. I, on the other hand, LOVED it. It was exactly what I needed, easy and sweet. 

2. First Aid for The Soul & Ebb and Flow on A Grace Full Life. Kari has been in a sweet and tender place recently and her blog posts reflect that. The Nikita Gill poem she shares was exactly what I needed this morning.

3. 17 Ways To Open Your Heart. “Building an emotional survival kit” from Andrea Gibson on Things That Don’t Suck. This post is restricted to their paid subscriber community, but it is just one of 1000 reasons you should subscribe. And there’s this, “Since early on in my cancer diagnosis I have been writing and speaking about how amazing it feels to have an open heart. By open heart I mean many things: To feel at ease in my being. To be in love with living. To be guided by gratitude for each precious day. To appreciate the lessons learned through challenges. To interact with everyone I encounter knowing they are my teacher. To not be burdened by the weight of grudges or blame. To be present in the moment.” If you know me at all, you know what a fan I am of an open heart. ❤

4. Poetry: Crows by Mary Oliver on The New Yorker and Terce from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.

5. Author Rebecca Solnit Found ‘Half’ Her Books in a Dataset Used to Develop AI, an interview. I don’t know exactly how I feel about AI, am disappointed by the theft of the intellectual property of so many artists, and yet, also this past week I had to send an uncomfortable text that was necessary but because of my emotional connection to it and the potential outcome I didn’t trust myself to effectively communicate my point, so I tried ChatGPT for the first time and it was SUPER helpful.

6. Good stuff from Seth Godin: The Pizza Principle, Writing your book, It could have easily gone the other way, Different kinds of people, and No thank you.

7. Tips&tricks #1: You’ve hit a chronic illness flare. Here’s what to do with your writing practice from Esmé Weijun Wang, who has been there, done that.

8. Containers are my weakness from Patti Digh.

9. For introverts and those who love them: 5 Annoying Questions That Introverts Are Tired of Hearing and 9 Things Introverts Never Have to Do.

10. Objects, a documentary. “There are two kinds of people. To some, objects are the root of clutter and materialism. To others, objects are a way to keep a treasured record of their lives. Objects follows three unique people who have held onto something that gained incredible meaning for them over decades.”

11. When Museum Workers Take Over Their Institutions’ Walls. “The Met’s staff art exhibition made headlines when it opened to the public last year. As it turns out, these shows are anything but rare.”

12. One Thing at a Time, Lady! My Week of No Multitasking. “I started slow, with a ban on multitasking while talking on the phone or running around the city. No more texting while walking the dog! That went well, so for the final week I decided to tighten the screws and eliminate multitasking entirely. It nearly killed me.”

13. Two sets of 11 things from Jena Schwartz: 11 things (spread over us a shelter) and Still I Can’t Cry.

14. For those of us confused and trying to make sense of things: What is Hamas, and what’s happening in Israel and Gaza? A really simple guide, and What to know as the war between Israel and Hamas continues, and Israel-Hamas war: what has happened and what has caused the conflict? And for those who want to keep going, get deeper: The Lines that Whisper Us, and What Preceded the Killings in Israel and Gaza Was Not “Peace” — It Was Apartheid, and How Was Hamas Able To Launch Such A Devastating Attack On Israel?, and How should the US respond to the Israel-Palestine crisis?, and What the Mainstream Media Never Told You About Palestine.

15. On Turning 40. “As I reach this milestone, there are three things that are on my mind that I want to share with you.”

16. Letters to my home from Susannah Conway. “I don’t want to travel the world. I don’t have or need a bucket list. I want to plant the deepest roots I can and finally have a place that’s mine.” #same

17. Kaira Jewel Lingo’s October newsletter, No One is Excluded from My Heart, which includes this difficult but necessary truth: “Not excluding others from our heart does not mean we do not say ‘no’ to injustice and oppression. We must challenge all forms of discrimination and systemic violence, while never forgetting that whatever others do, they are still part of our human family and even perpetrators and the tragic situations they create still have the capacity to transform and be healed.”

18. Somatic Therapy: 12 Easy Ways To Shift Your Mood With Your Body from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.

19. How to Experience the True Nature of Mind on Lion’s Roar. “Mingyur Rinpoche shares step-by-step instructions to experience the basic nature of mind.”

20. Eclipse New Moon: Practices for Collective Grief and Grace from Mindy Tsonas Choi, which includes this advice, “Take what concrete actions you have the capacity for, when you can. Reach out to our Jewish and Middle Eastern friends in whatever way you are able. This might look like sending a note, baking a batch of cookies, donating to an organization, sharing critical information, calling your local government officials, or showing up to a rally in solidarity. All of it matters and makes a difference.”

21. Good stuff on The Marginalian: Roxane Gay on Loving vs. Being in Love and the Mark of a Soul Mate and The Importance of Trusting Yourself: Nick Cave on the Relationship Between Creativity and Faith.

22. Moving Poetry: In The Name of Beauty, “and inevitable discomfort” from Sarah Blondin.

23. LitBuzz Presents | Spill The Tea With The Bees : Amy Marie Turner. “Bee Tanya sits down virtually with author Amy Marie Turner to chat about her book Voyage of The Pleiades, Amy’s personal practices of both research & writing as well as her unique life path to becoming an author of many forms.” P.S. I’m reading and loving Amy’s book. It can be an uncomfortable thing to read the published work of someone you know. There’s always the concern that it won’t be good, or more specifically that you won’t like or enjoy it (which is really the only way we measure if something is “good” or “bad”, as all art is ultimately subjective and our evaluation says more about us than it does the work), and then what do you say to them about it? I don’t have to worry in this case, because instead of not knowing what to say, I keep catching myself as I’m reading thinking, “Amy WROTE this! It’s so good! I can’t wait to finish it and tell her how much I enjoyed it, how impressed I am with the research she did.” 🙂

24. How Jesmyn Ward Is Reimagining Southern Literature on The New York Times. I just preordered her latest novel. She is one of my favorite living authors.

25. How the Land Back Movement Is Unraveling Manifest Destiny. “Across Indian Country, tribal nations are buying back their land one parcel at a time.”

26. Positive News, “the online and print magazine for rigorous journalism about what’s going right. Our mission: While most of the news overwhelms people with negative narratives, instead Positive News is here to offer a lens on the world that helps give people a fuller picture of reality, supports their wellbeing and empowers them to make a positive difference. In doing so, we’re showing the rest of the media that good news matters.”

27. The 5 secrets to my success from Danny Gregory. “I’ve been teaching myself to draw for 25 years. Here’s what I’ve learned matters most.”

28. Shedding Our Stuff While Living as Nomads Was Easier Said Than Done.

29. Itches to Scratch by Jami Attenberg.

30. Life bruises us in ways we cannot see from Patti Digh. “It’s not only the big things that bruise us. It’s those little ones, too. And those bruises mean we are alive.”

31. A Bridge Amidst the Hardship from Frederick Joseph. “On the ‘Five For Families’ campaign helping 150 families.”

32. Patrick Stewart says his time on ‘Star Trek’ felt like a ministry.

33. Death in Paradise’s Ralf Little reveals set secret as filming draws to a close. This is a silly, sweet show.

34. Texas company 3D printing houses on Earth, partnering with NASA to 3D print infrastructure on the moon.

35. Ozempic Can’t Fix What Our Culture Has Broken on The New York Times.

36. Elliot Page asks about ghosts on the Handsome podcast. I adore this show and its three handsome hosts, and this is one of the best episodes yet.

37. A fat-loss coach lost 12 pounds while spiking his blood sugar to prove you don’t need to be scared of fruit and oatmeal.

38. See Eddie Murphy wreak holiday havoc in 1st trailer for ‘Candy Cane Lane.’

39. Gary Meikle’s rant on eyebrows in this Facebook reel is hysterical. His accent makes it even funnier somehow.

40. A Celebration of Life for David Bartecchi to be held on Sunday October 22nd, 2023 at 1 pm at CSU. If you would like to provide support to the Bartecchi family in this uncertain time, please consider contributing to their GoFundMe campaign. “Dave was a true friend of the earth and a ‘good relative’ to all people.” Read more about Dave here.