mindset

Blessings for Our Wild Time (Bayo Akomolafe, Anonymous)

As we navigate this wild and very dark time, we find ourselves finding wisdom in unexpected sources. Here are two that have given us a feeling of expansion and re-orientation.

Life as Desire Path, and Listening

Although we’ve walked many, and have made a few ourselves, we only recently heard the expression “desire paths” to describe unplanned trails created by human desire. It got us thinking about about what is really at play in their making…

A Lenape Meditation on Seeds

As we were leaving our local library, an unassuming looking book on display jumped into our hands: Lenapehoking: An Anthology, a reference to the the native American Lenape homeland on which our own home — all of New York City — is built. In it, we found this remarkable passage on seeds…

A Secret Society’s Approach to Looking at Art

Recently, I went to the Museum of Modern Art to see a single painting, a practice I learned long ago from my father. (Though to look at just one work is also the practice of a centuries-old secret society.) For me, it was a way to revel in the perfection of an Agnes Martin painting, even as Martin’s words described the experience, in art and in life.

How a Wild Snail Kindled Unexpected Possibilities When All Seemed Lost

Forced by a virus to endure a long convalescence in bed, it was impossible for Elisabeth Tova Bailey to imagine a future; “All of life was out of reach.” Only it wasn’t. A forest snail that took up residence on her nightstand, living in a pot of violets, would change her life and become the impetus for a remarkable book.

New Year’s Resolutions: Let’s NOT ‘Budget for New Management’

In our long life, we’ve learned a great deal about New Years resolutions from abandoning them so many times that we finally got with the fact that they generally didn’t work. We relate mightily to this wise, funny little video we found in Instagram…

A Guide to Glimmers and Where to Find Them

Lately, we’ve been hearing about glimmers, tiny moments of awe and beauty that spark joy, calm, well-being and help our nervous systems feel relaxed and balanced (the opposite of stressors and triggers.) Glimmers can be the seemingly ordinary things, as well as very unexpected ones.

‘The Times are Urgent; Let us Slow Down” (Bob Dylan and Bayo Akomolafe)

During the months we’ve been slowing down in an attempt to decipher and heal an illness, potent writings on the theme of slow have come to us randomly, lending insight into what we’d been discovering but didn’t quite yet know, and a kind of guidance.

Wendell Berry’s Reminder

When I heard Wendell Berry reading his poem “How to Be a Poet”, I thought: that’s exactly what I’ve been doing to heal myself of the strange illness I’ve been dealing with.

Ziwe’s Meditation on Feet and Shame

Writing about the public rating of her feet on the celebrity foot database wikiFeet— who knew?!— She describes the strange reality of social scrutiny and all the shit it puts in our heads and that we have to find ways to antidote. Which she does, in the last beautiful paragraph…

The Question We Ponder from Annie Ernaux’s “The Years”

The Years by Annie Ernaux was published in 2008 and won the Nobel Prize in 2022, 14 years later. THAT’s how complex and original its vision and ideas were; it took a long time to be seen. One passage haunts us, or perhaps better put, has become a question we ask ask ourselves daily.

Short Meditations to Get You Through (Vivek Murthy, Wild Man Yogi Bryan)

Dr. Vivek Murthy, 21st Surgeon General of the United States and a Yogi Bryan, a wild man meditator we recently discovered, share their quick meditations for regaining connection and calm. Similar practices, VERY different approaches.

Jacques D’Amboise: “Friendship is Not a Straight Line”

We’ve watched this beautiful clip many times, delighting in the late, legendary dancer Jacques d’Amboise’s insights into the rituals that define friendships and social interaction. We hadn’t known we were dancing…

Apologies from H.C Westermann, Holton Rower, Buson…

The very best letter of apology we can imagine is a strangely wonderful love letter artist H.C. Westermann’s wrote to his wife Joanna Beall Westermann. “Dear Sweety”, it starts. Then he goes at it. It got us thinking about apologies…

To Make the Unwanted Wanted (Jane Hirschfield)

The New York Times’ Ezra Klein’s conversation with poet Jane Hirshfield yielded many remarkable insights. But what dazzled us most was her reading of her poem A Cedary Fragrance, and the story behind her writing it, and its big lesson and challenge.

Annals of Guerilla Action: Outrage and Chalk Fuel a Powerful Statement

Improvised Life’s vast archive is liberally peppered with posts about guerilla actions: small-scale actions that deploy subversive messages in unexpected ways. A recent one in the middle of a busy New York City crosswalk gets our admiration for its daring, power and simplicity.

Advice for An Anxiety Situation (Maira Kalman)

Maria Kalman recently arrived in our Inbox with an invitation to buy a signed and numbered edition she created. It’s called “Don’t Think too Much” and it has much to say on the subject and how not to… (think too much)

Transforming Ordinary Materials Just for the Hell of It

We love when some visionary soul shifts ordinary objects into the visually beautiful and surprising. And reveals the ordinary for what it really it: material full of possibilities…

Nature’s Operating Manual

In her seminal 1997 book Biomimicry, Janine Benyus introduced the notion that we could be better off by simply mimicking the ways problems are solved in nature. Although usually formatted as a numbered list, we saw them for the first time as a single sentence, set up like a poem. And like a good poem, it makes for a radical shift of view…

Lesson in Perception from the Largest Living Being on Earth*

We recently learned about Pando, a clonal aspen tree that is one of the largest and oldest beings on earth. Over 100 acres wide, it has been hiding in plain sight for thousands of years. It is a lesson in how we see, and don’t.

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