1. Need Peace? 10 Ways to Cultivate Quiet in the Chaos by Courtney Carver on Be More With Less. Who doesn’t want/need this, am I right?

2. So you haven’t caught COVID yet. Does that mean you’re a superdodger? “Hollenbach and her team have found a genetic mutation that doesn’t prevent the virus from infecting cells – that’s what Landau was searching for in his HIV research – but still does something remarkable: It prevents a person from having COVID symptoms.” I know a few people, including me, who have yet to test positive.

3. Impressionistic Embroideries by Cassandra Dias Reflect Movement and Lush Landscapes in Thread.

4. Philadelphia man completes over 400-mile walk along the Underground Railroad in honor of Harriet Tubman.

5. Earth is now our only shareholder. “Despite its immensity, the Earth’s resources are not infinite, and it’s clear we’ve exceeded its limits. But it’s also resilient. We can save our planet if we commit to it.” In related news, Billionaire No More: Patagonia Founder Gives Away the Company on The New York Times and Don’t Rush to Canonize Patagonia.

6. Thomas C. Foster on the Seven Deadly Sins of Writing. “The Deadly Seven prevent writing from occurring in the first place. Or, like overconfidence and dishonesty, they create something that is rotten at its heart, and no amount of surface grace can improve that sort of decadence.”

7. StyleLikeU | I’m Not a Thing to Be Looked At: Abigail Bengson on the Winding Road Her Body Has Taken. (video) “Abigail Bengson’s body holds endless stories. It tells the story of her miscarriages—and of the arrival of both her beautiful babies. There’s the story of her time as a 300-pound person, years filled with comfort, satisfaction, and joy. It also holds the story of her eating disorder—which arrived after she shed the protective pounds. It keeps close the story of a familial legacy of abuse, and her ability to transform that horror into beauty, time and again. Abigail’s body is never truly hers—but it is an endless moment to enjoy.”

8. Quinta Brunson Gets the Last Laugh, Interrupts Jimmy Kimmel’s Opening Monologue on His Show.

9. 8 Books About Coming into Queer Selfhood. In related news, 7 Banned LGBTQ+ Authors on the Books That Changed Their Lives and Book-Banning Attempts in US Have Reached Unprecedented Level, Libraries Report.

10. Stop Procrastinating With This 4-Step Formula from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.

11. On the Shortness of Life on Zen Habits. “We could use a daily contemplation on how limited our time is in this life. Most of us avoid thinking about it, or get worked up or sad when we think about it. But it’s a powerful contemplation. Today I’d like to share a series of brief contemplations on the shortness of life, that I find valuable.”

12. A psychologist who has treated women with depression for 15 years shares her 6 most important pieces of advice.

13. Good stuff from Summer Brennan, (the best thing I ever got out of being on Twitter): 5. Invisible Ducks (A Short Craft Essay), and 6. End Art Shame, and 7. Acceptance.

14. How to Work With Anxiety: 3 Techniques For Lasting Change on Lion’s Roar. “Anxiety is a natural response to being human, says Lion’s Roar’s Chris Pacheco. When we try to control our anxious feelings instead of accepting them, we might end up exacerbating fear and worry. Here, he outlines three main strategies for moving through anxiety.”

15. Unselfing Social. I love this idea, although I suppose this weekly list means I’m already doing it: “As an experiment, for one continuous month, make the focus of one in every three things you share on social media — wherever you normally share, however regularly or irregularly you do, however many people you reach — something other than yourself or your own work: a friend’s art project, a stranger’s poem, a record by a musician you love, the tree shimmering with majesty and mystery in the low morning light, someone in your community you admire, a bygone pioneer of something you value, a book that spun you on your axis, the lost cat sign crayoned by a neighbor’s child, the new community garden a few blocks over, news of the dazzling galaxy discovered by the dazzling new space telescope a few million lightyears over.”

16. Frontline: Being Mortal. (video) “FRONTLINE follows renowned New Yorker writer and Boston surgeon Atul Gawande as he explores the relationships doctors have with patients who are nearing the end of life. In conjunction with Gawande’s new book, Being Mortal, the film investigates the practice of caring for the dying, and shows how doctors — himself included — are often remarkably untrained, ill-suited and uncomfortable talking about chronic illness and death with their patients.”

17. Woman’s Last Words Go Viral. This is The Advice We All Need Right Now!

18. What Bobby McIlvaine Left Behind on The Atlantic. “Grief, conspiracy theories, and one family’s search for meaning in the two decades since 9/11.”

19. Dear Photograph, “a website that invites readers to submit photos of photos — images from the past, set in the present.” In related news, Dear Photograph: New-Age Nostalgia.

20. Decide how to decide from Patti Digh. In related news, How to figure out what you want out of life. “What society expects of you and what you actually want in life can be different things.”

21. Our Bodies Remember the Bodies from Jena Schwartz. 

22. Choosing ease. “Sometimes the more easeful thing is exactly enough.”

23. 3 common thinking traps and how to avoid them, according to a Yale psychologist.

24. Joe Biden says the COVID-19 pandemic is over. This is what the data tells us.

25. Most of Puerto Rico is still without power as Fiona reaches the Dominican Republic. In related news, on The New York Times, Live Updates: Rescue Operations Underway as Hurricane Fiona Batters Puerto Rico and In Recovery After Storm, Alaska Faces Hard Days Ahead. Maybe Trump could go throw rolls of paper towels at people?

26. This Australian Artist Crafts Visually Stunning, Healthy Masterpieces Out of Food.

27. Willow the blue heeler and my Ringo have a lot in common. (Instagram reel) The song they chose for this reel is so perfect.

1. The Thing Is, a gorgeous poem by Ellen Bass. It’s not new and I have shared it before, but Sharon Salzberg posted it on Facebook and it reminded me how much I love it. It also seems to be a poem that gets more and more relevant the more time passes.

“to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.”

2. This sauna that Theron Humphrey built. (Instagram reel). The view!!! It is so beautiful, I want to cry. And the cabin you can rent that he built is also so gorgeous. The setting, the view… I want to go to there. I love the main house too, but it is out of my price range.

3. For a Longer Peony Season, Think Beyond the Typical Pink and White on The New York Times. *swoon*

4. These Weird X-Ray Images [of animals] Are Both Creepy And Beautiful. Hammerhead shark = what I’d look like if I had to wear my pelvis on my head.

5. 99 Animal Group Names: A List From A to Z. “From a shrewdness of apes to a zeal of zebras, many animals have strange names when they gather in groups.”

6. What Is a Harvest Moon? 

7. Here’s What Extinction Looks Like. “Photos show extinct and endangered species in Field Museum’s collection.”

8. Reading Pathway: Kelly Link’s Short Stories. “If you’re a fan of the weird and strange, the melding of genres and the meddling with reality; if you cite Karen Russell, George Saunders, Aimee Bender, Donald Barthelme as a favorite writer; if you love fairy tales, sci-fi, and fantasy whipped into your reality and baked into an unrecognizable, totally fresh dish: read on. There is a Kelly Link story for everyone; I’ve highlighted a few favorites and categorized by genre appeal. Bonus: most of them are available for free online.”

9. Dear Ani Trailer, (video). “More than 20 years ago, an aspiring songwriter began a creatively obsessive correspondence with music icon Ani DiFranco, believing the replies were encoded in her song lyrics. Dear Ani is an odyssey of music, art, and mania.”

10. Billy Eichner’s history-making gay rom-com Bros has finally hit screens – and the verdict is in.

11. When Weird Al Yankovic Met Daniel Radcliffe, Things Got … Well, You Know on the New York Times. “For their decidedly nonfactual rock biopic, the pop-music parodist and the ‘Harry Potter’ star found themselves on the same wavelength.”

12. AOC’s Fight for the Future. “Almost four years after her improbable arrival in Washington, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has become the political voice of a generation—and a cultural star whose power transcends politics. Now, as the country hurtles toward the midterm elections, AOC opens up about the battle over abortion, her own shot at the presidency, and why it’s critical that men step up now.”

13. Interview: ‘Spirit Rangers’ Creator Karissa Valencia. “After nearly a year and a half in development, Netflix’s new Native-themed animated children’s program Spirit Rangers will debut on Oct. 10. The show is part of Netflix’s Representation Matters Collection, which consists of movies and tv series focusing on storylines about and by people of color. The show follows three Indigenous siblings (Kodi, Summer, and Eddy) who are secret Spirit Rangers and protect the national park they call home. The premise is influenced by showrunner Karissa Valencia’s childhood experiences exploring her tribal territory with her sister.”

14. Project 562. “Created by Matika Wilbur, Project 562 is a multi-year national photography project dedicated to photographing over 562 federally recognized Tribes, urban Native communities, Tribes fighting for federal recognition and Indigenous role models in what is currently-known-as the United States, resulting in an unprecedented repository of imagery and oral histories that accurately portrays contemporary Native Americans.” She also is releasing a book based on the project.

15. Discussing death: How different cultures in Colorado celebrate and contemplate the inevitable.

16. Myth Translated Into Action: A Plea for Practical Commitment to Our Planet. “Karen Armstrong Considers Mythos, Logos, and Ritual.”

17. Meet South Dakota’s new corn-bassador, a boy who recently found out that corn is real. “Tariq’s profession of love for his favorite vegetable earned him the nickname the ‘Corn Kid’ after his interview racked up millions of views and was made into a song.”

18. Ruled by Children, Kevin Peterson’s Paintings Find Hope Among Environmental Collapse.

19. The Long Fight of Barbara Ehrenreich. “Remembering the champion of the working class, scourge of the self-important, and my friend of 50 years.”

20. All 75 Stephen King Books, Ranked. “We’re sorting through the exhilarating highs, bewildering lows, and many unexpected diversions.”

21. How To Survive Suicidal Thoughts, From People Who Have Been There. “Read this mental health advice, which may help you navigate feelings of hopelessness, depression and more.”

22. Conservatives join liberals in ‘quiet and polite’ Idaho protest to protect their library from book-banners.

23. Javier Zamora Carried a Heavy Load. He Laid It to Rest on the Page. on the New York Times. “Decades after traveling without his parents from El Salvador to the U.S. as a 9-year-old — a journey that almost killed him — Zamora describes the experience in a memoir.”

24. New ‘Blame Wall Street’ Campaign Launched as Climate Emergency Grips Planet. “‘These companies could stop the flow of money to fossil fuels today, but they are choosing greed instead,’ said organizers with the Stop the Money Pipeline coalition.”

25. Inside the lucrative world of pet influencers. Speaking of, my favorite internet pet is Simon: Shelter Dog With Unusual Ears Wasn’t Getting Adopted. Then He Met His New Best Friend!

26. 20 Familiar Products That Have Become Smaller Without Us Noticing This. I wouldn’t be so bothered by this if the increased profit was passed on to the employees.

27. This Wanting Business: On the Cost and Labor of Writing.

28. Recipes I want to try: soy cured egg yolks and taco lasagna. 

29. Is it possible to hold this much grief without shattering? (podcast) “How do we metabolize the grief of another senseless loss of life? By honoring it, by feeling it, by transmuting it into power.”

30. Family Builds Twin Underground Homes on Ancient Farm. (video) 

31. How to Meditate Every Day on Lion’s Roar. “Diana Winston on committing to meditation practice. Featuring her ‘Ten Suggestions for Having a Regular Daily Practice Even if You Would Rather Be Thrown into a Shark-Infested Ocean.'”

32. The 30-Day Notebook Challenge.

33. Deep Adaptation, “a concept, agenda, and international social movement. It presumes that extreme weather events and other effects of climate change will increasingly disrupt food, water, shelter, power, and social and governmental systems. These disruptions would likely or inevitably cause uneven societal collapse in the next few decades. The word ‘deep’ indicates that strong measures are required to adapt to an unraveling of western industrial lifestyles. The agenda includes values of nonviolence, compassion, curiosity and respect, with a framework for constructive action.”

34. Inside Out: Sitting, Writing, and Being Fully in this World an Upaya Podcast offering, a series in nine parts.

35. The Art of Noticing: greatest-hits archive link list. 

36. The Unexpected Power of Random Acts of Kindness on The New York Times. “New research shows small gestures matter even more than we may think.”

37. America Is a Rich Death Trap. “It’s not just the pandemic. For citizens of a wealthy country, Americans of every age, at every income level, are unusually likely to die, from guns, drugs, cars, and disease.”

38. You — yes, you! — can help the planet. Start in your backyard. “This column will give you some tools to help mitigate the damage we’re causing to the planet.”

39. Reflections on dying, a video series from the BBC, a “look at how we approach and come to terms with dying, death and grief.”

40. Calm In the Midst of Chaos on Lion’s Roar. “Sharon Salzberg on the power of equanimity.”

41. Ambient playlist. 23 hours of music, “It is the music of the ether, the sound of dust that lingers in the air. Or it’s super boring. You choose. Ambient music, or whatever variant name you want to dub it has risen from the backwaters of academia and the curiosities of wayward pop savants to a global theme, interacting with the way we live in everything from ‘elevator music’ to ASMR.”

42. How to Have Fun Again on The New York Times.

43. Family of Four Has a Rocking Good Time Arranging Charming Art on the Beach.

44. Sequined and Baubled Masks by ‘Damselfrau’ Fascinate with Mysterious Beauty.