Tag: hope

  • Happy New Year!

    Happy New Year!

    We rise, undaunted, into 2024. No matter what it brings to us, we have hope. Seek out what is good, what is true, what is incorruptible. Bring forth beauty in all it’s ineffable forms. Deny those who would espouse a world of gray futility or of black despair. This is not the future. There is, yet, another rising of…

  • Mutual Aid and Comfort

    Mutual Aid and Comfort

    There have been a few times I’ve posted here in support of friends who needed help, and today is partly about that.  Jenn Hast, who is an artist, photographer, and will soon be an accountant (why yes, she is a polymath and Renaissance woman!) is dealing with cancer. The outlook is good, if the short-term…

  • Planning Ahead

    Planning Ahead

    I have to admit, a friend’s comment elsewhere caught my attention and kind of sums up how I feel right now. Like there are storm clouds looming on the horizon, and I’m bracing for the gust front to swirl through the yard, tossing leaves high into the air… Doom is falling. It just hasn’t landed…

  • Odd Prompts: Scrape the Bottom

    Odd Prompts: Scrape the Bottom

    “I’ve only got two dollars in credits.” He was lying on his back on her couch, phone held up over his head so he could read it without moving. “You can’t buy much with that.”  “So wait and spend it later when you have more.” She didn’t turn to look at him. She didn’t have…

  • The Essayist’s Mind

    The Essayist’s Mind

      I haven’t been blogging much this year. Because I’ve been tracking my daily word counts (with the exception of the first week of this month, when I was too sick to care, much less write) all year, I can actually see it. My wordcount for nonfiction has been wavering, and if I don’t pay…

  • Sore Must be the Storm

    Sore Must be the Storm

      Are we seeing some pushback against the ‘cancel culture’? One can sincerely hope. I for one do not see good things coming from a world where a professor can openly threaten to permanently damage a student’s livelihood and career simply because he does not like what the student has to say. It used to…

  • Wilding Places

    Wilding Places

    When the wild creeps into the human spaces, the fear crawls along with it like a wounded animal, snapping at anything that moves. From time immemorial, bandits have hidden in the forests, even if only metaphorically, and a tangle of trees and brush ignites a spark deep in the brain. An instinctive reaction to an…

  • Contrarian

    Contrarian

    I find for all that I prefer to follow the rules and color within the lines when it comes to my interaction with other people, I dig in my heels and ask “why?” when I’m told “you must do so-and-so!” Especially when someone is trying to tell me how to think, how to create. No.…

  • Blast from the Past: Writing with Hope

    Blast from the Past: Writing with Hope

    I first published this post a little more than a year ago, but it seems an excellent follow-on to yesterday’s reminder of what Human Wave is. And it’s Monday, so I’m diving into homework and not thinking about the blog.  Eric S Raymond nails a list of symptoms to look for as warnings signs that a…

  • Bibliotherapy

    Bibliotherapy

    Bibliotherapy Mirror-posted from According to Hoyt this morning. Cedar Sanderson A meta-analysis of the utilization of, and reading recommendations for effective bibliotherapy in a non-clinical setting. Bibliotherapy is the use of reading to improve mental health, reduce anxiety, and increase ‘mindfulness.’ Firstly, what is mindfulness? Psychology Today defines it neatly. “Mindfulness is a state of…

  • Rounding Up

    It’s a Monday Morning Round Up! As usual, my interests are varied, YMMV, and feel free to let me know in comments what you’re reading today! Book o’the morning: Police at the Funeral by Margery Allingham. Art o’the Day: Wickiups (wordpress isn’t letting me upload images, so you’ll have to click, sorry) Reviews Papa Pat writes…