The Intentions We Set...
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Hello friends, Since the solstice, I've been starting every morning by lighting candles and stating my intentions. Then I meditate and make a cup of tea. I'm really enjoying this pattern, and am using it to carry me through to the next calendar year. As a matter of fact, I just ordered a Moleskin daily diary as a gift to myself. I plan to write three daily intentions down each morning, plus my writing plans and business tasks for the day as a way to focus both my attention and my intention. I just got the notice that the diary will arrive on December 31st. That's New Years Eve, for those of us on the Gregorian calendar. Perfect. Now, paper planners like the one I snapped a photo of don't work for me, and never have. Yeah, that's one I bought years ago. See how empty it is? Also I haven't kept a journal in decades. But this new, simple, daily diary plan? Something in the idea appeals. Partially because my work causes me to spend so much time on screens, especially now that I read novels on a tablet. The only books I read in print anymore are non-fiction. I crave the tangible of a good pen, a sturdy diary, and smooth paper the way I crave the daily walks that get me out of the little office nook in my home. In my digital-first life, I need a direct connection to the physical. My theory is that our subconscious is best tapped through the physical world. It has a direct line to our animal nature that comprehends things like candle lighting and walks in the rain or snow. So, increasing my engagement with physicality is another of my intentions, New Years Eve rapidly approaching or not. We all need the physical—especially those of us who don't have physically oriented jobs—as our screen time trackers will likely show us. So, as we close out one calendar year and prepare to enter another, are you evaluating your life patterns and intentions? And how will you include your relationship to the physical world? Best wishes - Thorn This is the last week to get Bookshop Witch for free, either direct from me or on your favorite retailer! You can also request it at your library.
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T. Thorn Coyle
Hello friends, While out running errands the other day, I paused to snap a photo of a sticker on a concrete barrier. The sticker read, in bold print, Realize You’re Alive. It seems like a simple injunction, doesn’t it? Too obvious to say out loud. Of course we realize we’re alive! We’re breathing, aren’t we? We’re thinking. Moving through the world… But do we actually pause long enough to feel this? This thing called us, on this planet, rotating in space, living. How often are we sleepwalking...
Hello friends, Last night, I lit candles in the darkness. This morning, long before sunrise, I did the same. Out loud, I spoke these words, “May we forever be light for each other.” I repeated that phrase three times. A prayer. An incantation. A spell. A call for hope. Today is the Solstice. For me, it is winter. For those in the southern hemisphere, summer. The ancients thought that on solstice, the sun stood still in the sky before changing direction. That is literally what solstice means....
Hello friends, I’m thinking about poetry this week, mostly because the great writer, teacher, and activist Nikki Giovanni died at the age of 81. Poetry was the constant companion of my childhood, teens, and twenties. I read poetry voraciously, and wrote. I always wrote. I stood up in cafés and bars and read my words out loud, testing my voice and shaping my world. I still read and write poetry occasionally, but even when I don’t, poetry has formed me. My breaths are marked in meters and my...