Don't Rush to Your Books Looking for Knowledge

Parades, birds, snow

Kings rule? Queens rule? BIRDS RULE. Exploring gender with Under a Spell.

I made a soup this week it was fine but the best part is it was warm and now we have soup

love is true power <3 unstopibul

Good morning! I have been thinking of you guys all week. How is everyone doing? Does it feel like time is fast right now and everything a little jangly, or am I just not managing my days very well? I’m going to declare that it’s the former. It’s pretty rough out there for most of us. How are you caring for yourself in the storms?

One of my friends was talking about the idea of non-negotiables this week - things that absolutely have to happen in the day for mental and physical wellbeing - and it got me thinking: What are *your* non-negotiables? It’s kind of vulnerable to talk about so you don’t have to, like, share, but it’s a good question to think about, no? What do I need throughout a day to feel *truly* like myself?

A key follow-up might also be: How can I get back to those things when I find that I haven’t done them? Another way of saying it: How do I want to treat myself when I have “failed”? I hope the answer for you is with gentleness and a lot of compassion. (And then get back on that horse!)

the horse

Speaking of self-compassion, I listened to a talk this week between Tara Brach and Kristin Neff, both of whom might be credited (along with a whole lot of other souls and tributaries) for the surge of mindfulness discussions that we are now experiencing - in the media, in the boardroom, in the therapist’s chair and school desk and internet posts. I appreciate the role Kristin Neff is playing in our culture because she took a spiritual practice and started studying it scientifically.

I’m not someone who needs scientific studies to tell me to do a thing. Does it feel good? Do I feel better afterwards, especially in the longterm? Those tend to be my metrics. But a lot of people - especially in the West where it seems like we are reinventing the knowledge wheel of what it means to be human every ten or twenty years: eat your broccoli! Actually, no, *don’t* eat your broccoli! only eat it on Sundays! when the moon is full but with no salt except on holidays! etc. and that’s just food which frankly we are SO weird about, like: just eat something and move on, guys - a lot of people *do* want that information. So we are now getting some “science” about what yogis and mystics and spiritual leaders (and revolutionaries) have known for millenia: that how you treat yourself inside really matters, and we better start paying attention there if we want to fix some of the messes we’ve made.

roadside hubcap. I do not have the expertise to fix this, sadly

Michael. I bought this etched glass at a thrift store because the other side has a whale and calf on it

it is impossible to photograph what I’m trying to show you - maybe I should put Coke in this mug or something dark and try again - but I just love the mental medicine of such a large being as a whale caring for her gargantuan offspring with delicate, devoted care

This is a long-winded way of saying that I’ve been reading a book about writing by Patricia Highsmith who writes: “Insight is not something found in psychology books; it is in every creative person. And—see Dostoyevsky—writers are decades ahead of the textbooks, anyway.”

If you think I did not throw down her book and do a touchdown dance in my living room when I read the line, Writers are decades ahead of the textbooks, you don’t know me very well. Maybe it’s better to tell you that I did *not* spill my second cup of coffee just now on the basement stairs like the first one today which I dribbled everywhere in my early morning blindness. Improvement! Dexterity! Celebrate the wins, no matter how small (lol).

And yes, I’m happy to be here with you in my basement hovel before the world needs me. From here on out we’re going Paid Subscribers, as I’m shifting into what I think of as my public diary, aka the place I explore explore glimmers and bruises which would otherwise go unnoted in the speed of daily life. (If you ever want in on these glimmers but can’t swing the funds, lemme know. I am happy to include any and all who want to be here.) Speaking of notes, however, I came across one I really liked this week, which goes perfectly with the ethos of Under a Spell:

woops, not that one, but I did like this that I saw this week, at a house that displayed a political sign that made me giggle on Halloween. This house always makes me laugh - sometimes because they have done something so spooky on Halloween that we are all going to have nightmares for decades. sometimes it’s a little yard sign. This time it was letting the sun bleach out the rest of this which should read STUDENT DRIVER so it just reads PLEASE BE PATIENT, a note I have pinned to the inside of my brain at all times, urging me to be gentle with this goofball of a human I was born into being

that’s not the note either but is an excellect topic?

there we go, that’s the note on I saw which is from Andrew James whom I do not know but feel like I should. he writes a newsletter called Coffee In Drawings Out

But before we shift to diary mode, you guys already know what Kara’s Holiday Gift Guide is:

• Buy some journals and pens you need or want but don’t forget pencils, we LOVE a pencil. Find a river / bench / coffee shop with handsome faces and commence poking through the detritus / joys of your life.

• Sign up for a movement or art class

• Buy bread, slather it with butter and/or honey

• Get someone in your life an apron and politely demand they cook for you. (Maybe that person is you!)

• Listen

• Sing

• Float away while gazing out a window

• Craft with rudimentary supplies

• Get yourself a cute whisk (or desk) or beloved tea cup

• Double up on basic but delicious ingredients for your life

• Maybe add a kettle in your favorite color?

• Meditate and/or Netflix yourself silly under a blanket

• Tell someone about it

• Share yourself

• Hope

• Dream

• Rinse

• Repeat