1. Wisdom from Danny Gregory: “Money and value are not the same thing. You can be a billionaire and still be a miserable egomaniac who’ll never be satisfied. Or you can live simply, draw in a handmade sketchbook with a cheap pencil every day, and feel like the richest person who ever lived.”
2. Spell Against Indifference, a poem from Maria Popova.
3. Sunrise, sunset. “Being part of a place, witnessing the turn.”
4. Speaking up from Seth Godin. Also from Seth, The convenience fee.
6. The End of the “Social” in Media from Frederick Joseph. “How mainstream social media lured us with connection, then sold us out.”
7. Being with Love, Death and Grief: Tara Brach and Frank Ostaseski. (video) “Grief is our natural way of expressing loss for what we love, and learning to open to grief serves the deepening and widening of our loving. This event, given at the Upaya Zen Center on June 25, 2023, includes short meditations and talks by Frank and Tara, and powerful sessions of questions and responses.”
8. Poetry from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: When It Rains and This Land.
9. Celebrating 27 years without a net from Patti Digh. “I started my own business in August 1996. Here’s what I’ve learned about working as a solo entrepreneur since then. Part One.”
10. Pep Talk from Maggie Smith. “You’re not for everyone.”
11. The Door Opened. “Nancy Hamilton’s enlightening poem ‘The Door Opened’ revels in the glory of openness and emptiness, and overcoming illusions. A meditative narrative on overcoming barriers to inner peace and truth, this poem shows us that perhaps the obstacles we thought existed perhaps were never even there at all. ‘I wrote this piece inspired by an experience I had on retreat where what I was experiencing in meditation was mirrored by what I saw in the material world at the same time,’ Nancy informed The Dewdrop.”
12. 19 of Your Gardening and Landscaping Questions, Answered by a Plant Expert.
13. 99 Ways To Love Yourself A Little Better.
14. I only travel solo because I need to schedule nap time on vacation.
15. Melbourne’s trees bombarded with emailed love letters. “City council gives identification numbers to its 70,000 trees which allow admirers to write Dear Tree letters – and get replies.”
16. Recipes I want to try: Pasta with Tomato Pesto and Garlicky Breadcrumbs, and Zucchini Patties, and Korean Beef Bowl Meal Prep, and Brownie Bread.
17. Wisdom from Maya Angelou: “Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.”
19. ‘I wanted to be small and not seen’: how Shallow Hal almost broke Gwyneth Paltrow’s body double.
20. Solitary confinement and $7,999 tickets: Inside the chaotic plans for Fyre Festival II. “The sequel literally nobody asked for.”
21. Women In Their 40s Need To Eat Differently, And I Promise It’s Not Just To Make Them Look Younger.
22. Maui Is Still in Crisis. Here’s How to Help. “Support the survivors of the wildfire by donating directly and by following these activists and organizations for real-time updates on what’s needed now.”
23. What to Read When You’re Seeking Wonder in Times of Grief.
24. Miley Cyrus Cried While Filming the “Used to Be Young” Video Because She Was Watching Her Mom on Set.
25. Cozy up in Tokyo’s ‘Midnight Diner’ for the TV version of comfort food. It’s a really good show.
26. ‘Trail of the Lost’ is a gripping tale of hikers missing on the Pacific Crest Trail, a book review.
27. Sidewalk Garden. I love this SO much.
28. Good stuff from Austin Kleon: Will this enlarge me or diminish me? and Writer’s block is trying to tell you something.
29. How Sensitive People Can Deal With the Pressure They Put on Themselves to Be ‘the Best’. Clearly I needed to hear this, because it made me cry.
30. Don’t check the clock! 15 ways to get back to sleep when you wake at 3am.
31. Wisdom from Kurt Vonnegut: “And how should we behave during this Apocalypse? We should be unusually kind to one another, certainly. But we should also stop being so serious. Jokes help a lot. And get a dog, if you don’t already have one,” (by way of Hugh Hollowell’s weekly Life Is So Beautiful list).
32. José González – El Invento (Official Music Video). This gorgeous video and song were shared in A Grace Full Life’s What I Kept August 2023 post, which is also worth a look. She always shares such sweet things.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 