1. Democrats retain control of the Senate after holding Nevada seat. In related news, A Guide to Election-Related Self-Compassion. “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

2. The Case for ‘Hibernating’ During Winter on The New York Times. “Our urge to decelerate around late autumn and throughout winter ought to be heeded. The instinct to rest more in that quiet space of time between when the last leaves fall and the first fireflies arrive resonates with ancient human and biological rhythms. We should listen to it.”

3. 20 best cosy UK cottages for a winter break.

4. Mysterious Creatures Emerge from Recycled Materials in Sculptures by Spencer Hansen.

5. The Acrobatic Immigrant Who Invented Pilates in a Prisoner of War Camp. “Interned during WWI, circus entertainer Joseph Pilates used found materials and his fellow prisoners as his test lab, and imagined an exercise system that would captivate millions.”

6. The big idea: why we shouldn’t try to be happy. “Happiness might seem like a noble goal – but striving for it can be counterproductive.”

7. Recipes I want to try: Roasted Garlic Parmesan Brussels Sprouts, and Caramelized Onion Dip, and Salvadoran Pupusas As Made By Curly And His Abuelita.

8. Noah Johnson’s upcycled wearable art. (video) “Noah Johnson is a 21 year old Tasmanian-born fashion designer who has taken TikTok by storm with his upcycled, wearable art.”

9. Tegan and Sara Serve Up A Sweet, Queer Coming Of Age Story In Freevee’s “High School.”

10. Rob Delaney Wants You to Know How He’s Feeling (It May Ruin Your Day) on The New York Times. “In his memoir ‘A Heart That Works,’ the comedian and actor grapples with the pain of losing a child, and how to keep living.”

11. The Mountain Dogs. “A short film following two beloved golden retrievers, Sampson and Baylor, as they climb to the summit of the Pinnacle Trail in Stowe, Vermont each day without their owners.”

12. A Shortcut for Caring for Others (and Being Cared For Yourself).

13. Confessions of an Introvert Who Struggles to Relax.

14. The leaf blower parable from Seth Godin.

15. How Are We Meeting This Moment? on Lion’s Roar. “Stephanie Kaza invites Buddhist communities, and specifically Buddhist leaders, to take a serious look at how they are—or aren’t—responding to the climate crisis.”

16. 7 Things You Definitely Won’t Need This Year (or ever again) on Be More With Less.

17. A gratitude zine from Austin Kleon.

18. Love Everyone: A Guide for Spiritual Activists on Lion’s Roar. “Real political change must be spiritual. Real spiritual practice has to be political. Buddhist teachers Sharon Salzberg and Rev. angel Kyodo williams on how we can bring the two worlds together to build a more just and compassionate society.”

19. A Few Rules For Predicting The Future by Octavia E. Butler. “When a student asks Butler what the answer is to ending the suffering in the world, she replies, ‘…there’s no single answer that will solve all of our future problems. There’s no magic bullet. Instead there are thousands of answers–at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be.'”

20. How to Handle Confrontation When You’re an Introvert Who’d Rather Avoid It.

21. How to donate food to a food bank this Thanksgiving on the Feeding America blog, which includes links to a search tool that will help you find your local food bank. HOW is this a place where someone can pay $44 billion for something as dumb as Twitter AND people are still HUNGRY, don’t have enough to eat, don’t have regular access to such a simple and essential resource?! Seriously, it enrages me…

22. Why I Don’t Celebrate Thanksgiving. “Indigenous chef Elena Terry shares what Thanksgiving means to her.”

23. 100 year old adopts a senior dog. (video) #lifegoals

24. Accessing Joy and Finding Connection in the Midst of Struggle. An episode of Brené Brown’s Unlocking Us podcast with Karon Walrond. “If you’re struggling with how to be fully connected in your life and feel joy and acknowledge beauty and also fight for the things that we need to fight for right now, this will be a great podcast for you.”

25. This Is One of the Most Beautiful Tiny Houses You’ll Ever See. (video) The Living Big In A Tiny House YouTube channel is a fun way to spend some time.

26. These lines from poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: 

“Let my gift to the world be
my constancy, a devotion to openness,
my willingness to be with what is.
Let my gift to myself be patience
as I tend what is dense and dark.”

1. Poems from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: Ode to the Echo and Exemplar and It’s Going to Take a Long Time.

2. You Can Do It on Craft Talk, a good reminder for anyone trying to do anything.

3. Sounds True Podcast | Susan Cain: Bittersweet: The Hidden Riches in Sorrow and Longing.

4. How to Be Un-Dead: Anaïs Nin and D.H. Lawrence on the Key to Living Fully.

5. A whole bunch of good stuff from Lion’s Roar: A Practice to Navigate Grief (“In this excerpt from her new book, Navigating Grief and Loss, Kimberly Brown takes us through the practice of ‘standing on the earth,’ which can help us in times of great change and grief”), and How to Be Weird (“Eric G. Wilson explains how we can see the strangeness in reality, and how examining the ‘weird’ can help us understand the essence of life), and Do Dishes, Rake Leaves: The Wisdom of the Ancient Homemakers (“Karen Maezen Miller on how the domestic practice of ancient Zen masters can lead us to intimate encounters with our own lives”), and The Do-Nothing Farmer’s Guide to a Perfect Harvest (“Mark Frank’s five steps to successfully doing nothing — in your garden or any other part of your life”).

6. A Theory of Sprawling Holidays: Welcome to Weeklong Halloween. Because this, “commodification and consumption becomes the primary way that Christmas is expressed, is experienced. The primary affect is one of near-constant purchasing, unboxing, arranging — a vigilant doing — as opposed to periods of observation, contemplation, devotion, being.”

7. ‘I’m changing and I don’t think society helps at all’: Christine and the Queens’ journey to becoming Redcar. “The French pop star has endured the death of his mother, record industry resistance and a backlash after adopting male pronouns. In an emotional interview, he talks about the struggle to understand himself and the music he makes.”

8. The Sounds of Your Self. “‘Finding your voice’—or, even better, your voices—on the page is more than a craft challenge; it’s the key to claiming your story.” In related news, Dismantling the Patriarchy by Reclaiming Her Voice. “Elissa Bassist reflects on how women’s voices get silenced & reborn, the eleven years it took to write her memoir, and how she wrote like a mother#^@%*&.”

9. 30-day challenge from Austin Kleon. In the beginning, this is one of the ways I cultivated my writing practice and this blog.

10. Permacrisis declared Collins Dictionary word of the year. “Collins’s annual compilation of 10 words or phrases which ‘reflect our ever-evolving language and the preoccupations of those who use it’.”

11. The Art of Persuasion in a Polarized Age. “For the majority of Americans who still believe in liberal democracy, in the idea that humans are created equal, and in fact-based reality, talking to those we care about on the other side can feel hopeless. Is there any point trying to reach these people? Is changing minds that don’t want to change a lost cause? It isn’t.”

12. The Body Keeps the Score, and it will Fucking Win.

13. Death as Life’s Work. “In her new book, Hayley Campbell seeks to demystify death by sharing the perspectives of funeral home directors, gravediggers and others.”

14. The Best Cinnamon Rolls You’ll Ever Eat, a recipe that claims, “The BEST cinnamon rolls in the WORLD. Big, fluffy, soft and absolutely delicious. You’ll never go back to any other recipe once you try this one!” and as my partner said, “there’s only one way to find out!” I also want to try this recipe: Lebkuchen (aka German Gingerbread).

15. Dyed and Rolled Pages Splay Outward into Flower-Like Forms in Cara Barer’s Book Sculptures.

16. Ray Bradbury on feeding your creativity from Austin Kleon.

17. Don’t Be Afraid to Do These 10 Hard Things for Yourself.

18. On Being Selfish.

19. 10 Essential Areas to Declutter that Will Save You More Time. I like how this frames the effort as a way to make your home more functional for you rather than to prove something to other people.

20. 99 Mindful Conversation Topics For Deeper Connections. These would make good journal prompts too.

21. 5 Beliefs That Increase My Calm. “These powerful mindsets can lead to less drama and more peace.”

22. Painted on Vintage Postcards, Flora and Fauna Celebrate Farming Traditions and Wildlife of the Midwest.

23. 7 Little Things That Make Highly Sensitive People Happy.

24. Photographer Levon Biss Illuminates the Strange, Otherworldly Chrysalises of Butterfly Pupae.

25. Rest Is Resistance. “How to dream your way toward a radically decolonized future”, an excerpt from Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey.

26. Kindly Go Fuck Yourself With Your Shitty Fucking Gas-Powered Leafblower, You Tremendous Asshole from Chuck Wendig on Terrible Minds. Seriously, leafblowers are dumb.

27. “Autumn Anxiety” Is a Thing, and This Is How I Deal with It.

28. How to thrive during (and after) this election.

29. 3 Myths About Themselves That Highly Sensitive Introverts Need to Stop Believing.

30. Dried Flowers Are Arranged into Passageways and Processions in Installations by Rebecca Louise Law. This one is my favorite.

31. Natural Wood Kaleidoscope. This is so cool. It’s also on sale, so I bought one for a holiday gift.

32. If bumblebees can play, does it mean they have feelings? This study suggests yes.