Good Seedlets #29

Watch to nurture…….

• Hybrid Bharatham Episode 9:  This series has existed for several years now, although I am just learning about choreographer Usha Jey right now. This work explores the fluidity between hip-hop and Bharatanatyam dance styles, honoring both traditions in their complexity of movement and rhythm. I’ve been transfixed by how well these styles blend and hope you take a moment to enjoy this as well! 

• Beginner QiGong: Sometimes I want to move, but I don't want to take a class that overexerts both my body and mind– Qigong has been a great solution for that very predicament. Like Tai Chi, Qigong is an ancient practice that helps move stuck energy in your body. This is a quick introductory video that will take you ten minutes, but the stillness and centeredness you feel afterward feels like the gorgeous aftermath of an hour-long energy work session. 

• Audrey Hobart Tiny Desk Concert: Audrey feels like the new music ‘it girl’. Her style of music is playful, self-aware, and modern. I love the fact that she writes pop songs about the tiny embarrassing moments in her life, instances we have all experienced but don't dare to speak of. Like all tiny desk concerts, she strips her theatrical style bare here and lets her lyrics speak for themselves. 

Follow to grow………….

• Soft Boundaries Erica Chidi: Erica uses her experience as a full-spectrum doula and a strategist to write essays that she calls “soothers”.  Her work feels like a nourishing corner of the internet, writing about a softer, more intentional life. A really beautiful follow. 

• Necessary Salt Joy Sullivan: Joy is a poet and runs a robust writing community, Sustences. She writes about what it means to be a woman making slow, rich art in this fast-paced, tech-driven world. Every month she goes somewhere exciting or intimidating, and she writes about that experience- I deeply appreciate her honesty in these reflections. 

 Read to root……. 

• The Thinness Obsession: The Convo We Aren't Having by Caroline J. Sumlin: Sumlin does an excellent job of moving beyond our usual discourse on diet culture and traces the historical and cultural roots of our culture’s obsession with thinness. Please read the whole thing, especially if, like me, you feel like you are drowning in a sea of body contortions and fun-house mirrors. 

• The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett:  Oh my goodness, did I love this book!  Funny, weird, sad, and so full of heart. The story follows a 63-year-old lottery winner with three heart attacks behind him who decides to drive across the country to win back his high school sweetheart– and ends up becoming the guardian of two orphaned kids, his lost adult daughter, and a cat who can predict death. If it sounds like a lot– it very much is, and it is wonderful. 

• More Than Enough by Anna Quindlen: This is a story about IVF and friendship and family lineage. It was incredibly tearful and buoyant, and I felt eerily familiar with the characters. Anna Quindlen has this tendency to write people that I feel like I know well, and her latest book is no exception. This story is warm, wise, and devastating. I recommend a read; however, there are sensitive topics such as pregnancy loss, so please proceed with caution. 

• The Grief Iceberg  by Cheryl Strayed: This is an incredibly tender piece of writing, and I want to share this with you gently. Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild, lost her husband this past May, and this is the first piece of writing that she has made about her loss. 

• On Self Respect by Joan Didion: I return to the essay often. Joan Didion is like that for me. She is a reminder. I have found that these words will hit at different times in different seasons of my life, and it is important to read this essay at least twice a year. Self-respect is about the willingness to be accountable to your own choices, not confidence or approval-seeking. It feels incredibly relevant right now. 

Listen to expand……

• On Being: Michael Pollan on The Mystery of Consciousness: This podcast’s conversation spans psychedelics, AI, and the self, all tied together through what Pollan refers to as “the mystery”. This is a great listen for anyone who has ever stopped mid-thought and wondered what is happening inside them and why they are here. 

• Retaining Our Original Faces in the Age of Distortion: I think about this topic a lot- what does it mean to hold on to who we really are when the world is constantly pushing us towards homogeneity. It feels as though everyone’s faces on the internet and in the world around me keep blending into each other, and this podcast has affirmed that I am not alone in this thinking. This is a thoughtful conversation about our current cultural phenomenon, one that goes into some of the deeper, darker motivations of why this thing feels so pervasive right now. 

Support if you can…. 

• Skydog Ranch: If you are as upset as I am about the wild horses being rounded up for slaughter by the government, this organization is trying to do something about it. If you are able, consider donating at this time.