1. Rising Bird Counseling. Courtney Putnam is taking new patients in Washington state, and hopes to soon be able to offer telehealth sessions to those in other locations. This is one of those times that I wish a friend wasn’t a already a friend because I KNOW what an amazing practitioner they would be, the kind I’d like for myself.
3. I learned to draw in ten minutes, from Danny Gregory. (video)
4. A gentle meditation on compost, love, and grief from The Rot. Also from The Rot: 101: How to Compost (The Collection).
5. Excellent Advice for Living: Kevin Kelly’s Life-Tested Wisdom He Wished He Knew Earlier.
6. These Beautiful Photos Chronicle a Search for Light and Enlightenment on Lion’s Roar. “David Gabriel Fischer’s ongoing photo journal gives viewers a glimpse into a mind and world defined by Zen.” These are so gorgeous and powerful, I almost can’t stand to look at them.
7. Good stuff from Seth Godin: The empathy of magic, The low-stakes argument, and When in doubt, look for the fear.
8. 77 Ideas to Simplify Your Life and Feel Better Today.
9. 6 Ways to Enjoy Mindful Walking. “Research shows that mindful walking in nature offers stress-busting and mood-boosting advantages, plus a welcome chance to stretch our legs. Chris Willard, PhD shares six ways to customize your next mindful stroll.”
10. Actually, ‘Bed Rotting’ Can Be a Very Legit Form of Self-Care.
11. ‘Nothing left’: Future unclear for Hawaii residents who lost it all in fire. These images are heartbreaking. In related news, Support the people of Maui by Together Rising, and an emerging guide for collective action and mutual aid (Google doc).
12. Van Gogh’s advice to a young artist. “In order to write a book, do a deed, paint a picture with some life in it, one has to be alive oneself.”
13. How To Become A Minimalist: A Little Guide To Living with Less from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.
14. Poetry from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: The Conversation, Hurkle-durkle, Sympathetic Resonance, and In the Days Leading Up to His Death Anniversary.
15. Wisdom from Morgan Harper Nichols: “Amidst all that is unknown, there is still room to ask yourself this question: ‘What does it look like to find peace right now, even in the smallest ways?'”
16. A Different Way to Think About Screentime. “This conversation won’t necessarily make you feel better or worse about screens. But it will invite you to consider a more expansive understanding of what screens are and what they do — in our kids’ lives, but also in our own.” Also from Culture Study: The Particular Pleasure of the Internet Rec and The Workday “Dead Zone” is a Fake Problem.
17. Maggie Smith: Writing in a Way That Is Brave, Real, and True on Insights at the Edge. (podcast) “Bestselling poet Maggie Smith has a gift for embracing the complexity of our human experience—and for writing about it with piercing intensity, clarity, and beauty. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with Maggie about her approach to her craft and to life, and how writing can serve as a pathway to self-discovery and release.”
18. How to Make a Writer Friend from Jami Attenberg. “Writer friends are different than other kinds of friends. That truth I treasure. How do you meet them? I can’t tell you how to, I can only tell you that they’re there. You just have to keep trying.”
19. Earth Sea Love Episode 059 – We All Already Belong with Mindy Tsonas. (podcast)
20. How To Destroy Buddhism: (and how to keep it going).
21. Maya Stein’s 10-Line Tuesday from August 1st. “This week’s ’10-line Tuesday’ poem was composed solely of 10 photographs. Prompted by a reply from reader Kristen Ambrosi, I invited readers to create their own 10-line poem in response. These poems, in the order that I received them, are below.” My friend Cynthia, a member of my precious Friday morning writing sangha, shared a poem here and it’s gorgeous.
22. Grief, And from Abigail Rose Clarke.
23. My Top Five Favorite Novels of All Time from Robert Jones, Jr. “These are the novels that have had the greatest impact on me as a reader and the biggest influence on me as a writer.” I’ve read four out of five of these and adored them, so I supposed I need to read the fifth one.
24. How Writing Is Teaching Me to Have Quiet Confidence.
25. 7 Tiny Steps To Help You Set Better Boundaries from Tammy Strobel on Be More With Less.
26. Approaching The Speed of Empathy by Patti Digh. “It takes curiosity and humility and deep listening to empathize, and those traits are in short supply.”
27. MA — The Japanese Concept of Space and Time.
28. Forgive The Writers, For We Are So Tired from Chuck Wendig on Terrible Minds.
29. 7 Introvert Habits That Could Be Hampering Your Happiness.
30. The Red Hand Files from Nick Cave. “The Red Hand Files began in September of 2018 as a simple idea – a place where I would answer questions from my fans. Over the years, The Red Hand Files has burst the boundaries of its original concept to become a strange exercise in communal vulnerability and transparency. Hundreds of letters come in each week, asking an extraordinarily diverse array of questions, from the playful to the profound, the deeply personal to the flat-out nutty. I read them all and try my best to answer a question each week.” I found this site because Patti Digh shared a link to this Q & A on how to understand the experience of loss.
31. When walking isn’t about walking. I love what Hugh has to say here about starting over. This post is part of his Life Is So Beautiful series, “Every Monday since 2015, Hugh wakes up, makes coffee, sits down, and writes an email to thousands of folks in at least five different countries. There’s an original blog-length reflection on where he sees beauty in the world right then and links to five things he saw that week that struck him as beautiful. Because the world is beautiful, but sometimes it’s hard to notice.”
32. How Much Do You Need to Earn to Afford a Modest Apartment in Your State?
33. Fans waited 31 years for his next novel. It’s finally here. “‘Sun House,’ the third novel by David James Duncan, author of ‘The River Why’ and ‘The Brothers K,’ is a spiritual epic about seekers who end up living on a large commune in western Montana.”
34. This Aging Filter Is Going Viral On TikTok — And It Seems We’re All Missing The Point. “I’m not really thinking about the aesthetics of wrinkles — I’m thinking about the older faces that I’ll never get to see.”
35. Worry Lines on Instagram, “Mildly Uplifting Daily Drawings.” This one about sad is one of my favorites.
36. RIP Paul Reubens, a.k.a Pee Wee Herman. Paul Reubens, Creator of Pee-wee Herman, Is Dead at 70 and I Loved ‘Pee-wee’s Playhouse’ Enough to Marry It on The New York Times, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse S05 Ep37 Mystery (with another beloved we lost recently, Leslie Jordan) (video), and Conan Remembers Paul Reubens (video).
37. Delicate Cross-Stitched Flowers Pop Up on the Streets of Spain.
38. A Girl Scouts psychologist wrote a guide for parents to discuss body image. It rocks.
39. 5 Grounding Techniques for Overstimulated HSPs.
40. Environmental art interventions with reflective circle sculptures by Martin Hill.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 