2. Johnny & The Mongrels ‘Magnolia & Pine’ Summer Tour Campaign. Johnny owned the gym I joined when we first moved back to Fort Collins and was my personal trainer and friend for close to ten years, (he’s still my friend, just doesn’t own the gym or train me anymore). He’s a good human and I really really really want him to be able to go on this tour. ANY amount helps.
3. Fifteen, or one-third, thoughts on blogging and practice and coming home from Mandy Brown.
6. A Guide to Cormac McCarthy’s Bookson The New York Times. “McCarthy applied a stark, merciless vision to his stories of misfits and the apocalypse. Here’s where to start with his work.”
16. Southside Blooms bringing flowers and opportunity to Chicago’s vacant lots. (video) “Across Chicago’s South Side neighborhood, 10 acres of previously vacant lots are now packed to the brim with flowers, kept blossoming through fully sustainable farms. NBC News’ Shaquille Brewster tells us about the program that’s innovating gardening, while giving back the community.”
1. Things happen, and you go with it, a gorgeous post from Hugh Hollowell on his birthday. I love these lines in particular: “Over the next year I will…commit wholeheartedly to people who will let me down” and “This year I will pray hard for those who are hungry, those who are alone, and those who have nowhere to go, but will pray even harder for those who do not care.”
2. Why We Writefrom Jami Attenberg. Check the comments for my response. In related news and also from Jami, 1000 Words Book Cover Launch. P.S. I just preordered the book.
3. How Sweet It Is, a gorgeous poem from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.
6. The Kō Strategy No.9: TRANSFORMfrom Lucian James’s most recent Kō Strategies newsletter. The section on the strategy and the practice offered were just what I needed right now.
8. Lessons from a Wildfireon Lion’s Roar. “When his community’s beloved retreat center burned to the ground, Anam Thubten took it as a teaching on impermanence. Instead of futilely fighting loss, he says, let it be our invitation to freedom and spaciousness.”
9. An Ever-Expanding Oasis of Links and Recsfrom Anne Helen Petersen. “A magic cookbook app, a summer salad that’s a meal, a really good tank top, plus all the good reads.”
22. On the Precipice of Worse from Mary L. Trump. “Donald J. Trump vs. the United States of America.”
23. How Childhood Emotional Neglect Hurts Highly Sensitive People. “Sadly, childhood emotional neglect isn’t uncommon. In fact, a growing body of research suggests that many otherwise healthy families raise their children with emotional neglect — a failure to value or respond to emotions. This neglect can create unhealthy outcomes for any child, but especially for highly sensitive children.”
24. YOUR FAT FRIEND a film by Jeanie Finlay – Official Trailer(video). “Your Fat Friend charts Aubrey Gordon’s journey from anonymous blogger Yrfatfriend to NY Times bestselling author and podcast host (@maintenancephase) and the complexities of making change. It’s a film about fatness, family and the deep, messy feelings all of us hold about our bodies.”
29. Making Hard Things Beautiful, a live interview with Andrea Gibson offered by Laurie Wagner — two of my most beloved writers, teachers, humans. “It is my great honor to invite you to join me and the truly magnificent spoken word poet, Andrea Gibson, in a conversation about what it is to write from a place of vulnerability, bravery and truth. Not because it’s a good idea, but because it’s the only way to part the veils of our human uncertainty, and to step out onto the page, and into our lives with a rigor and an honesty that makes life more vibrant, and which connects us to ourselves and to others.” Sign up and you can attend the live session or watch later, or both.
31. No Time to Loseby Joanna Macy. “Perhaps the truest form of touching the reality of this moment is this: to experience our capacity to praise and love our world, as it is. Even when it’s on fire.”
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 