1. Poetry: Ask Instead and Don’t Ask Me How to Live and Autumnal Repose and Luck Shop from Julie Barton, Let Hope Stay and Willingness from James Crews, I want to talk to my body from Hannah Ro Writes, Devotion by Alix Klingenberg, Laura, I Want You Pulling Your Hair Back by Natalie Dunn shared by Maggie Smith on The Slowdown, While Thinking About Letting Go by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Heavy by Mary Oliver, and The Way Through by Lynn Ungar shared on Heart Poems.

2. On breath, “And what helps you breathe” by Pádraig Ó Tuama on Poetry Unbound.

3. Twilight Trees, “An elegy for ponderosa pines in a changing west” by Gary Ferguson on Orion.

4. Julian Brave NoiseCat Answers the Orion Questionnaire, “In which we get to know our favorite writers better by exploring the sacred and mundane.”

5. Too Close to the Canvas. “Stepping back so that I can see” by Jena Schwartz. Jena talked in another post about how she’s leaving Facebook, in which she shares this bit of wisdom, “Like so many things, this decision is as gradual as it may seem sudden. As M.J. always says, ‘Little by little, then all at once.'” I need to follow her, step away from social media, but I’m just not there yet.

6. Good stuff from Open Secrets Magazine: Some People Collect Memories from Their Travels. I Collect Things I Didn’t Pay For (“I didn’t think of the habit I started as a child as stealing until recently”), and Why I Still Want a Delia’s Bucket Hat (“I find comfort in my 90s catalog collection”), and Giving Up the Ghost (“Athena Dixon on letting go of what haunts you”).

7. Love, grief, and tears, “On showing care in whatever ways we can” from Rita Ott Ramstad on Rootsie.

8. The 31 best sci-fi movies of all time, “EW’s picks for a supple genre’s greatest, grossest, and most provocative films.”

9. The Black Locust by Eric Wagner, about neighbors and trees and why you shouldn’t just cut down a tree without careful consideration.

10. 10 More Tiny Steps to Simplify Your Home Without Overhauling Your Whole Life by Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.

11. Important stuff from The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz: A “Christian” Pride Festival protestor stopped me in the grocery store… They’re worse than you think, and Every Day is No Kings Day, and Hitler Has Entered the Chat… and JD Vance and the Republicans are Happy to See Him, and The “Peace President” Waging War on America, and ICE is a Test of America’s Humanity, and Many of Us are Failing.

12. Ballerina Farm Goes Full Wellness Brand, “wtf is ‘Hydration The Way Nature Intended’?” on Culture Study.

13. Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025, the winning images.

14. You Belong Here, a Facebook reel from Listen to Sleep.

15. Bear cub zoomies. (Facebook reel)

16. Bella the blue heeler likes to sit like a human. (Facebook reel) In related news, another funny heeler reel on Facebook.

17. A classic video from Sad but Rad that makes me laugh every time.

18. Life Inside a Singular Artists’ Enclave in Brooklyn, in “The Candy Factory.” “Cory Jacobs and Jason Schmidt’s documentary short follows a creative community held together by collaboration and the efforts of a woman who is part landlady, part fairy godmother.”

19. A caregiver’s survival guide: Advice from people who’ve been there.

20. Marc Maron on the End of His Landmark Podcast on The New York Times. (gift link) “The comedian, actor, and former podcaster discusses his decision to bring ‘WTF’ to a close after 16 years and interviewing its final guest, Barack Obama.” In related news, ‘Like losing a friend’: farewell to Marc Maron’s pioneering podcast WTF on The Guardian (“After 16 years and almost 1,700 episodes, Maron is ending his show – which changed the face of podcasting. No wonder it’s sparking an outpouring of sadness”) and What I’ve Learned: Marc Maron on Esquire.

21. Nick Offerman Woodworked His Way to Playing the President on The New York Times. (gift link) “Once a struggling artist looking to find his way in the acting world, Mr. Offerman leveraged his love of craft into a lasting career.”

22. D’Angelo: 14 Essential Songs on The New York Times. (gift link) “The soul singer, songwriter and producer, who died on Tuesday at 51, released three studio albums of meticulously constructed, vocally ambitious, genre-crossing music.”

23. A Wild and Precious Life: Remembering Andrea Gibson, “Their love made no mistakes” on Poetry Foundation by Amber Tamblyn.

24. Why do we all experience grief so different? (Facebook reel)

25. And finally, this random collection of things I saved to my phone this week.

1. Poetry: My Body Knows Its Limits by Page Hill Starzinger and At Last the New Arriving by Gabrielle Calvocoressi (I love the ending lines of this one: “What a prize / you are. What a lucky sack of stars”) and Do You Consider Writing to be Therapeutic? by Andrew Grace on The Slow Down with Maggie Smith, Drought and I Want Beauty by Julie Barton, Your callings will keep calling: Listening to what returns, Letter Four {Falling Gently} from Alix Klingenberg on Earth & Verse, You, the Light by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Saying Yes by James Crews shared on Heart Poems, Helper by James Crews, Keeping Quiet by Pablo Neruda shared by Patti Digh, How to See the Milky Way by Sarah Williams shared on The Marginalian, and blessings, like by Maya Stein. In related news, The Most Romantic Poem on Cup of Jo, (don’t miss the comments section), and Joy Harjo Answers the Orion Questionnaire, “In which we get to know our favorite writers better by exploring the sacred and mundane.”

2. We Are Asking the Wrong Questions About Belonging from Mindy Tsonas Choi. “How do we be and belong with one another in all of our differences? This, is the question of our time.” Amen.

3. 27 Things That Feel Better Than Scrolling Social Media by Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.

4. Good stuff from Patti Digh: What the heart makes in the dark — The pearl is the oyster’s autobiography and What are your hinges? The snow that saved my life. She also shared these links to some other cool stuff: An Existential Guide to Making Friends, and Where writers write — 12 Booker Prize 2025 nominees share their writing spots, and Kazuaki Koseki’s Dreamy Photos Capture Japan’s Forests Shimmering with Fireflies.

5. Wisdom from Danny Gregory: “The quest for the perfect studio, the perfect atmosphere, the perfect sketchbook — those are just forms of procrastination. They can get in the way of making things, not making them easier.”

6.  Good stuff from Jamie Attenberg on Craft Talk: What if I Told You Perfection Was Impossible, and Coffee and Water and Bigger Truths, and Strike While the Iron is Hot, which includes this lovely pep talk:

“You must type while you can type, you must handwrite while you can handwrite. If you are waking up in the morning thinking about something specific related to your writing, then you must honor it. Honor your creativity, spirit, inspiration, artistic self. Always make the time to write. Make the time to make your shit. Do not get in your own way, make room for yourself instead. It’s not just your head you’re tending to here. It’s your heart, it’s your belief system, it’s your whole self when you write.”

7. Good stuff on The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz: Our Town’s PRIDE Festival Was a Beautiful, Joyful Celebration of Community. Then, The “Christians” Showed Up, and Yeah, It’s Hell Here, But Heaven is Still Within Reach, and We’re all ANTIFA, Donald.

8. Conscious Change Collective. “A project of the Garrison Institute’s Spirituality and Social Change Program and Circles for Conscious Change, the Collective is a collaborative field of actors applying inner work and spirituality towards social change. We aim to support a more conscious and cohesive field of action by bringing together organizations and communities to share wisdom, practices, and strategies — strengthening connection, visibility, and momentum for transformative impact.”

9. Let’s Talk About AI Art on The Oatmeal.

10. Nature Gets a One-Star Yelp: The Funniest National Park Complaints.

11. What’s Really Going on With Those Elaborate (Parent-Decorated) College Dorm Rooms? by Anne Helen Petersen on Culture Study.

12. Four Places to Rest. “How our Buddhist refuges can work for non-Buddhists too” by Satya Robyn.

13. Poet Kim Stafford on Instagram.

14. Two Years After Cormac McCarthy’s Death, Rare Access to His Personal Library Reveals the Man Behind the Myth on Smithsonian Magazine. “The famously reclusive novelist amassed a collection of thousands of books ranging in topics from philosophical treatises to advanced mathematics to the naked mole-rat.”

15. 50 (Short) Rules For Life From The Stoics.

16. A Day in the Life of a 102-Year-Old French Yogi. (video) “For decades, Charlotte Chopin has been teaching yoga in Léré, a village in France. At 102 years old, she maintains a simple approach to aging well.” AND, she didn’t even start doing yoga until she was 50 years old.

17. Wisdom from Kari on A Grace Full Life, in response to the question “what is the most important lesson life has taught to you?”:

to stop waiting for life to get easier and instead find meaning right in the middle of the hard parts.

Amen.

18. Monarch butterfly gets a life-saving wing transplant on Long Island: “It was so intricate.”

19. Notes from The Middle of Nowhere by Laurie Wagner. For 12 years, we wrote together almost every week. I joined her Wild Writing Family after she stopped teaching regular classes but have to confess I haven’t taken an active part yet, because every time I see a video of her reading a poem or hear her voice, I want to cry. I miss her. The same thing happened with Susan Piver, when her community grew beyond the capacity for personal relationships and she stopped leading retreats at what is now Drala Mountain Center. Then the same thing happened with my mom, her still there but also not, at least not as she was before.  

20. Our Brains Evolved to Socialize—but Max Out at About 150 Friends.

21. The Permission Workbook: The Perfection Problem. “Overcome it, or you’ll get stuck in creative quicksand forever” by Elissa Altman.

22. Why everyone is lifting weights – and how to get started (whatever your size). “Are reps or weights more important? Is it good if it hurts? How should I structure my workouts? Everything you need to know about resistance training, from the experts.”

23. “It’s Okay But It’s Also Really Not.” When Dystopian Fiction is No Longer a Thought Experiment. “Yume Kitasei Explores the Different Forms Dystopias Can Take, On and Off the Page.”

24. The art of moving on when you don’t get closure: 7 truths you’ll learn the hard way.

25. Sorry, dad! Colin Hanks says John Candy was the ‘nicest guy in Hollywood’ on NPR Morning Edition.

26. And finally this collection of random things I saved to my phone this week.