blogs + sites

Caring for Our Nervous Systems on Covid

The most helpful 50 minutes I’ve spent recently was listening to What’s Happening in Our Nervous Systems, a podcast from On Being with Krista Tippet. Clinical psychologist Christine Runyan discusses the physiological effects of the past years of pandemic and the profound changes its wrought in daily life. Knowing “what’s been happening on a creaturely level”, I’ve felt better, more grounded, despite the escalation of a new variant.

Mend Peace (Yoko Ono, Louise Bourgeois)

We were instantly riveted by @tumanualidades.de’s tiny videos of mending because they were so restful to watch, offering seemingly simple solutions to fixes we have in the past spent too much time worrying or procrastinating about. They called to mind a cosmic view of mending and sewing from some favorite artists.

Meditative Retreats Among the Bees via Erika Thompson and Pablo Neruda

Texas Beeworks‘ Erika Thompson’s videos have become a sensation, documenting her adventures calmly moving whole colonies of bees out of hives that that have formed in the midst of people’s lives: under a pool umbrella, in a patio chair, an old tire, a water meter, compost bin, the walls of a house. They are mesmerizing to watch as much for the view into the workings of wild hives as for Thompson’s relaxed, fearless self-assurance.

Will Real Self-Help Please Stand UP?

After reading a New Yorker article on America’s biggest selling books, many of which are “self-help” I realized I’d read many of them and none helped me help myself (although plenty of other things in my life have). Soon after, I stumbled on the penultimate self-help advice.

Let Wendell Berry and Pádraig Ó Tuama Read Poetry to You

Since we discovered the remarkable effects of reading a poem every morning several years ago, we’ve looked for ways to weave poetry more widely into our life. We found a trove of dazzlers to listen to anywhere.

@Mandy Patinkin’s Heartening Reality Sandwiches

Traumatized by seeing her aged face on Zoom, actress Kathryn Grody rants, despairing and conflicted, to her son Gideon as he films her with his iPhone. It is one of the many illuminating moments captured on @Mandy Patinkin, documenting the everyday life of actor Mandy Patinkin, Grody and Gideon as they shelter at their upstate NY cabin.

Tree.fm: Listen to Forests Around the World and Plant Some Trees

The past week working at our desk, we listened to soundscapes of forests in Malaysia, Estonia, Portugal, China and France… Through a remarkable website, we found ourselves transported into tranquil environments AND quickly able to gift trees to friends…