1. Morning walks. There were a lot of really cold days this week so I only did one of the walks, (when it’s too cold to walk, Eric takes Ringo on a run, but some mornings are even too cold for that).
2. Libraries. I have always loved a good library. This week I’ve been especially enjoying the audio books I can borrow from my local library. I listened to The Dutch House by Anne Patchett narrated by Tom Hanks and now I’m listening to How Y’all Doing?: Misadventures and Mischief from a Life Well Lived written and narrated by Leslie Jordan.
3. Making art with Janice and Mikalina. This week I made a valentine’s day card for Eric and a watercolor of the current state of my intestines.
4. Cancelled plans and naps. This week, I really needed both.
5. My tiny family, tiny home, tiny life. I love it here and the company is the best.
Bonus joy: Baking, cooking, clean sheets, good books, my Kindle, listening to music and podcasts, my weighted blanket, clean pjs, birds in the feeder, the hydromassage chair, the pool, sitting in the sauna with Eric, clean water, down pillows and blankets, wool socks, a massage with Dana (who brought her dog Dani with her, my ideal massage experience, except that Dana wouldn’t let her cuddle on the table with me during our appointment), being able to take care of so many important things without ever having to talk to someone on the phone, a cup of hot green tea, gingerbread muffins, sweet potatoes, texting with Chloe’ and Mom and Chris, having no car payment, stickers, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.
3. Is Everything an MLM? on Culture Study from Anne Helen Petersen. The discussion here of both yoga teacher training (“CorePower’s business model is contingent upon enrolling thousands in expensive ‘teacher training’ courses, even though there’s already a surfeit of teachers out there. The company makes money from the teacher training, and teachers’ own labor becomes devalued, as they’re encouraged to teach for less or teach for donations (appealing to yogic principles of service and selflessness as a means of excusing it)”) and academia (“The Humanities…have massive numbers of undergraduate courses that need teaching. In English programs, it’s some version of ‘comp,’ or composition…Many of these courses are mandated ‘core’ in some capacity, ensuring an unwavering stream of students, and an unwavering demand for graduate student labor to serve them”) rings so true to me, having experienced both myself.
8. Miranda Rights? Wrong! — Dharma Teaching and the Degradation of Tyre Nichols on Lion’s Roar. “In response to the police killing of Tyre Nichols, an unarmed Black man arrested in Memphis, TN on January 7, Pamela Ayo Yetunde looks at how the tenets of Buddhism might be applied to understand the suffering of police brutality. This article is presented as part of Lion’s Roar’s collaboration with Buddhist Justice Reporter, — founded by BIPOC Buddhist practitioners in response to the police torture and murder of George Floyd. BJR publishes articles on issues related to environmental, racial, and social justice and its intersections, from an anti-racist Buddhist lens.”
18. The life and the work are equally important. “Let’s face it—artists are always working, though they may not seem as if they are. They are like plants growing in winter. You can’t see the fruit, but it is taking root below the earth.”
21. Please, God, Help Me Stop Missing Her, part of the Modern Love series on The New York Times. “As an ultra-Orthodox Jew, I tried to ‘pray my gay away.’ It didn’t work.”
22. Encountering the Shadow in Buddhist America. “Following the recent allegations at Shambhala International, we take a look back at a 1990 article that investigated the troubling legacy of its first two heads and established a precedent for Buddhist journalism.” In related news, Survivors of an International Buddhist Cult Share Their Stories. “An investigation into decades of abuse at Shambhala International.” These are both older articles but I was thinking recently of my ten years with Shambhala — raging and grieving mostly.
23. Doctors Aren’t Burned Out From Overwork. We’re Demoralized by Our Health System. on The New York Times. “The United States is the only large high-income nation that doesn’t provide universal health care to its citizens. Instead, it maintains a lucrative system of for-profit medicine. For decades, at least tens of thousands of preventable deaths have occurred each year because health care here is so expensive…During the Covid-19 pandemic, the consequences of this policy choice have intensified. One study estimates at least 338,000 Covid deaths in the United States could have been prevented by universal health care. In the wake of this generational catastrophe, many health care workers have been left shaken.”
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 