This is a curated version of a list that originally appeared on “A Thousand Shades of Gray.” For more of your weekly dose of happy, please visit the complete list here.
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10 Slow and Steady Strategies for Practical Decluttering from Be More With Less – clear, useful, simple instructions from Courtney Carver.
What have you experienced? on Chookooloonks. Make sure to read the comments, leave one of your own.
One-Third Of This Company’s Workers Have Criminal Backgrounds. “Dave’s Killer Bread is urging other employers to hire ex-convicts, too.” This is the kind of bread we eat, because it’s good and because they are doing good.
15 Habits That Will Totally Transform Your Productivity. #3 is my favorite.
Artist Uses Nature To Color Animal Paper Silhouettes on Bored Panda. In related news, Self-Taught Polish Artist Uses Fallen Autumn Leaves As Canvases For Her Paintings and Maple Leaves Left In A Box For 15 Years Became Canvases For My Art. Which reminds me of Flor & Fawn, a creative collaboration between Katie Daisy & Karen Eland—they are going to start doing custom pet portraits and I really want some of my dogs!
The Meaning of Hatha Yoga (and No, It’s Not “Sun & Moon”) from Michael Lloyd-Billington, one of my favorite local teachers. I teach Hatha Yoga and this was still an interesting read for me.
Karl Paulnack Welcome Address at The Boston Conservatory. This is one of the most beautiful things I’ve read about the importance of the arts, of artists, of humans making art. He concludes, among other things, that, “Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, ‘I am alive, and my life has meaning.’ “
Read this when no one loves you. You know what, read it anyway. Read it now.
22 Habits That Will Make Your Life a Little More Peaceful Each Day. Certainly worth a try.
Your life is of the utmost importance, Susan Piver’s latest Open Heart Project video. In the email she sent to the OHP Sangha, she ended this way, “Thank you for being alive. Thank you for bringing your unique beauty to us all. Thank you for working to open your heart to the mystery.” Amen.
Anna Kendrick’s Surprising (and Brilliant) Shower Thoughts. The last one is the best, and I can’t stop thinking about it.
Photo by Patricia Persaud, Graphic Designer at Wanderlust
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Jill Salahub writes about the tenderness and the terror, the beauty and the brutality of life, and of her efforts to keep her heart open through it all on her blog, A Thousand Shades of Gray.