There's Power Together
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Hello friends, I wrote about collective power for my Patreon supporters this week. I wrote about the importance of having each other’s backs, and protecting our neighbors. This was inspired by recent events in the US, of course, but the thing that coalesced my thoughts was a bit of sidewalk stencil graffiti. This is another reminder that the marks we make on this world are important. They invite thought, and conversation. Sometimes they keep a person going, when we don’t even realize it. Here’s a snippet of the piece: On a walk through the city the other day, I saw paused by a sidewalk stencil at a bus stop. “Everything Will Be Okay” it said. Beneath that, another person had scrawled “No it won’t.” And here’s the thing, both humans who left their mark on the sidewalk are correct. If we look at the long view, or what I like to call the 10,000 year arc, things likely will be okay. But in the short term? Not so much. Things are bad, and seem to be actively getting worse. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the excessive, deliberate cruelty on display. It is easy to freeze and think there’s nothing to be done. If that is you, it is time to thaw. We have power. We just have to claim it. We may not feel as if we have a lot of power as individuals, but collectively? The more we work together, and insist on the sovereignty of this earth and the sacredness of our humanity, the more our power grows. I go on to talk about the multiple, inspiring examples of collective power that are happening right now. If you’d like to read the rest, please head to my Patreon page. I’ve made the post free today. Some pretty magical things happened to me this week as well, but I’ll write about that next time. Stay creative. Best wishes — Thorn It’s hard to talk about my books these days, though I know how much comfort books, music, and film give me right now. But here I am: my new magical contemporary fantasy novel debuts on Kickstarter Tuesday the 20th. It would be a big help if you’d click this link and sign up to be notified on launch. I’ll have some special editions available that will never be on retailers. Thanks for checking it out.
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T. Thorn Coyle
Hello friends, As a person who creates things for a living, I need to set boundaries around energy, attention, and time. Even from myself. That last might seem funny, but when you think about it, it’s very true. How often do we say something is important to us, but fail to make it a priority? That could be health, family, enjoyment, financial stability, creativity, spiritual practice, social justice work, or spending time with friends. How often do other things creep in, crowding out the...
Hello friends, There’s a lot of new growth to see on my walks around the city. Tiny green needles at the tips of the Douglas firs. Sprouting grasses. New hops clambering over fences. Tiny figs and unfurling leaves on an equally tiny sidewalk fig tree… There’s planning happening, too. Finches scouting nest sites. Crows gathering twigs. Tiny green figs on a tiny fig tree. All of this new growth and planning fills my heart with joy. So does what feels like celebration in the riot of flowers, the...
Hello friends On one of my walks, I encountered chalk art on the sidewalk. It’s not uncommon, in neighborhoods where children live, to find scraggly ghosts of hopscotch grids, or flowers, or rainbows at one’s feet. This time, it was a pink and yellow heart. I smiled, paused, and snapped this photo: Photo of a pink and yellow chalk heart on a sidewalk. That heart stayed with me, though, because this heart was not just evidence that someone had given a child some chalk to while away a bit of...