1. Cow Walks Into House To Watch TV With Mom on The Dodo (video).
2. Guy Who Didn’t Like Cats Can’t Stop Rescuing Them Now from The Dodo (video).
3. 100 Very Short Rules for a Better Life. In what seems like “related but slightly dated but no less valuable because of it” news, Less Phone, More Nature: 34 Resolutions For a Better 2018.
4. Good stuff on Lion’s Roar: Three Ways to Make Lasting Change in 2023 (the editor’s note from a recent newsletter), and How to Establish a Daily Practice of Almost Anything, in Six Steps (“Whether it’s meditation, yoga, or your favorite creative activity, you’ll get so much more from doing it every day. Follow these six steps, says Anne Cushman, to enjoy all the benefits of daily practice”), and A New Year’s Blessing (“Zen teacher Karen Maezen Miller offers some words to help us all start the year off right”), and Set Your Intention & Rejoice in Your Day (“Thupten Jinpa teaches us two great practices to start and end every day”).
5. 9 Qualities That Will Make You Proud to Be an Introvert.
6. Stories From the Frontlines of Intentional Community.
7. My Favorite TikTok’s of 2022 on A Grace Full Life. I don’t have TikTok because I KNOW I would spend too much time on it, time I need to do other things, and yet, I do love it when people share especially good ones so I can see too. The first one in this list from Kari is SO good. I want to go back and watch again, take notes.
8. Poetry from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: Waking up and How the Light Came.
9. Two distinctly different perspectives on AI: Patterns, culture and theft from Seth Godin and Eat Shit, Robots! (Or: “No, The Absolute Intrusion Of Artificial Intelligence Is Not Inevitable”) from Chuck Wendig on Terrible Minds. In what feels like related news, January 1, 2023 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1927 are open to all! (public domain means: free for all to copy, share, and build upon).
10. Clutter Is Good for You on The New York Times. “Be careful what you purge. Today’s decluttering victim is tomorrow’s lost object, and lost objects are forever.”
11. A Spiral Year: 23 voices on change, purpose and meaning on The Best Advice Show podcast. “Zak’s end of year/beginning of the new year special featuring a gaggle of wise voices on where we’ve been and where we might be going.”
12. The Kō Strategies. “Kō is the Japanese name for the 72 micro-seasons that make up the solar year. Each has its own particular mood and focus. The purpose of these seasonal micro-divisions is to remind us that life is changing in every instant, and to encourage us to throw ourselves into the full experience of being alive. To make the most of each moment. It’s a higher resolution year, performed in 72 acts. The Kō Strategies are designed to help you navigate the year, to draw attention to the fact that you are here, alive, now, and how important it is to make the most of it all. And most of all, the newsletter will be a drumbeat throughout the year to help you stay present – in a tense world where it’s tempting to dissociate. It begins on 5th February 2023 with MELT.”
13. What I Learned From Quitting My Corporate Job To Work At A Bakery.
14. Owners of Bruce’s Beach, once seized from Black family, to sell land back to L.A. County. “‘This fight has always been about what is best for the Bruce family, and they feel what is best for them is selling this property back to the County for nearly $20 million and finally rebuilding the generational wealth they were denied for nearly a century,’ Hahn said in a written statement. ‘This is what reparations look like and it is a model that I hope governments across the country will follow.'”
15. Hakeem Jeffries Just Made History—and Gave a Helluva Speech.
16. ‘I’ve heard it all: she’s a fraud, a liar, a thief’: Jack Monroe on alcohol, addiction and answering her critics. “She’s the anti-poverty campaigner and food writer who shot to fame by teaching us how to make the most of our pennies. But behind the scenes her world was unravelling.”
17. 10 Films By Indigenous Filmmakers To Watch Instead Of Avatar: The Way Of Water.
18. The photographers scrambling to capture New York’s disappearing mom-and-pop shops.
19. Small town cancels New Year fireworks to avoid disturbing sleeping walrus named Thor.
20. Laura Ingraham abruptly ends interview on football safety after guest criticizes Fox News. He told her at one point, “You murder mercy for profit.”
21. People who haven’t had COVID will likely catch XBB.1.5 – and many will get reinfected, experts say. “Variant XBB.1.5 is very contagious, meaning everyone is at risk even if you’ve already been infected. As the U.S. enters year 3 of the pandemic, here’s an update on the state of COVID.”
22. Murmurations: A Final Winter Solstice Spell.
23. How to Stop Shopping: 12 ideas to save you time and money from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.
24. As an Introvert, My Home Is My Haven, So Please Don’t Show Up Unannounced.
25. The Three Best Meditation Apps. I use Insight Timer, which isn’t mentioned here.
26. The Light Meeting, “a collaboration between Matt Bingham (guitar) and Andrew Hamby (cello). Both Matt and Andrew’s love of calming, melodic music has come together to form the band’s sound.”
27. The 100 Must-Read Books of 2022. “Gripping novels, transporting poetry, and timely nonfiction that asked us to look deeper.”
28. Why Doing Nothing Is Good For You. “The Dutch art of niksen—intentionally doing nothing, letting the mind wander—is much needed in our over-scheduled lives.”
29. Good stuff on This is Colossal: A Chicago Mother Raises an Abandoned Baby Squirrel in the Heartwarming Documentary ‘My Duduś’, and Mila Textiles Reimagines the Balaclava in Vibrant Beadwork and Embroidered Visages, and Mikko Lagerstedt Photographs the Quiet Grandeur of Snowy Nordic Landscapes.
30. 6 tips for making a career change, from someone who has done it.
31. People filled a nightstand in a park with poetry.
32. Thinking of abandoning your New Year resolutions? I’m nailing mine! “Rather than give up booze or go vegan for a month, I set myself three ridiculously easy tasks. I’m already feeling incredible – and disgusted with myself.”
33. Autistic kid only speaks when around an old car so his neighbor lets him play ‘mechanic’. In related news, A stranger gave a boy with autism a $15,000 piano after hearing him play.
34. The 7-Day Happiness Challenge on The New York Times. “Try these simple steps for a joyful, more connected 2023.”
35. 15 people’s hilarious New Year’s resolutions.
36. Sweet mama dog finds shelter from the cold in nativity scene manger and delivers her puppies there.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 