this place where you are is pretty spectacular.

y algo golpeaba en mi alma | also at @whereveradventureawaits

[shrinkrants]

“This is the thing about ecology: everything is interconnected. It’s difficult for us to grasp how this works, because we’re used to thinking of the world in terms of individual parts rather than complex wholes. In fact, that’s even how we’ve been taught to think of ourselves – as individuals. We’ve forgotten how to pay attention to the relationships between things. Insects necessary for pollination; birds that control crop pests, grubs and worms essential to soil fertility; mangroves that purify water; the corals on which fish populations depend: these living systems are not ‘out there’, disconnected from humanity. On the contrary: our fates are intertwined. They are, in a real sense, us.”

— Jason Hickel, Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World

[rendzina]

38. What was the best moment of the year for you?

43. What have you learned about yourself this year that you didn't know in the years prior?

49. What do you wish for others for the coming year?

50. What do you wish for yourself?

Best moment is probably a tie between sitting up in a fig tree and stargazing with my friends, and dancing like a fool all weekend long at a wedding with one of my favorite people on earth.

For myself, my intentions this year are to pursue community, honesty, and sufficiency: to build connection, to be truthful and expressive with myself and others, and to find peace in knowing that what I am and what I have, in this moment, is enough. For others, I hope you find what you are seeking, that you feel the warm light of love and joy and peace, that you grow into your identity with grace and goodness.

[rendzina]

First things first, did you have a good year?

Post your favorite selfie.

What have you learned about yourself this year that you didn’t know in the years prior?

I had a really good year! It was a year of practicing consistently showing up for myself.

Technically not a selfie, but one of my fave pics of me this year, taken by one of my friends at my place in Costa Rica:

I learned a lot - I’m far more extroverted than I ever realized. I’ve come to realize just how much I’ve learned over the past couple of years and finally feel like I’m coming into my own as an “expert.” I learned how to manage/hack myself better. Overall, I feel like it’s been a year of growing into myself and really building and blooming. It’s a good feeling 😌

[tina-warriorprincess]

End of Year Meme

First things first, did you have a good year?

How old did you turn this year?

Do you feel your age?

Did your appearance change in anyway?

Post your favorite selfie.

If you traveled, where did you go?

Which fashion trends did you love?

Which fashion trends did you hate?

What was your favorite article of clothing this year? Post a pic if possible?

What song sums up this year for you?

What album came out and has been on heavy rotation since then?

What was your favorite movie of the year?

Did an actor/actress catch your attention for the first time this year?

Favorite new TV show?

Which new ship/fandom has taken over a lot of your time, attention, and tears?

What food did you try for the first time?

Did you make any big permanent changes this year?

What was one nice thing you did for someone else?

What was one nice thing you did for yourself?

Did you develop a new obsession?

Did you vote?

Did you move?

Did you get a job?

Did you get a pet?

Do you regret not doing anything?

Do you regret doing something?

Have you done anything that scared you?

Did anyone/thing make you so mad it stayed with you for days?

Did you lose anyone close to you?

Did you fall in love?

Did you fall out of love?

Did you start a new relationship?

Did you go through a break up?

Did you have to cut ties to someone?

Who was important to you this year but wasn’t important last year?

Who wasn’t as important to you this year as they were last year?

If you could have a do over on one thing you did, would you take it?

What was the best moment of the year for you?

What was the worst?

Did anything happen that you were sure would change you as a person but it really didn’t?

Did anything happen to you that you were sure wouldn’t change you as a person but it did?

What are you most proud of accomplishing?

What have you learned about yourself this year that you didn’t know in the years prior?

Did your opinion of anyone change for the better?

Did your opinion of anyone change for worse?

If you make resolutions, did you complete them this year?

If you make resolutions, what will your resolutions be for the coming year?

If you could go on an adventure during the remaining days of the year, where would you go and what would you do?  Who would you go this?

What do you wish for others for the coming year?

What do you wish for yourself?

[rendzina]

She's alive! 🧟‍♂️

boo! 👻 she is very much alive!

[linafication]

here’s your reminder to let yourself create. not create ‘well’, just create. draw badly. write shitty poems. sing stupid songs. make whatever you want & have a great time doing it. that’s what creation is for. it’s self expression, not perfection

[rendzina]

it's early june, which means the blackberry leaves are unfurling themselves along tangled vines, the same way my thicketed heart is unfurling itself again. the wild berries smell like falling in love, maybe because their sweetness reminds me of the endless sunshine of my childhood summers in michigan. back then, the cold melted abruptly, gifting us suddenly with warm, glowing days immune to sunsets. when i basked in the sunkissed daylight flooding the hayfields, feeling stretched into something nearly immortal, all that winter was worth it.

he is across the table from me, gold chopsticks glinting in his hands, laughing about the strangeness of knowing me less than a month. i laugh back, thinking to myself, may all the months of our lives be this long.

[rendzina]

did my first 14er last weekend. probably it was the most physically demanding thing ive ever done in my life, but man did it feel good to be brave and strong and on my edge.

[luthienne]

“June: covered in dirt with flushed cheeks of lilac. You’ve stitched your wounds with gold thread, hours painted on the kitchen walls.”

— Ana Carrizo, “June”  (via poeticsuggestion)

[rendzina]

i always said i would stay here forever if i fell in love. and i did, i suppose. i had the spot picked out on the hill where they would bury me one day, hopefully decades from now, where somebody would plant hydrangeas on top of my patch of dirt. but then last year happened and we got pulled to opposite ends of the earth and by the time i came home it was too late. “i lost the person i loved because of the pandemic,” he said to somebody in the kitchen, when he thought the noise of the music was too loud to overhear. but it wasn’t. i heard. i knew he loved me but i didn’t think he would have said so. but he did, and i stepped out into the starlight trying to reconcile the love that was lost with the girl who slipped into my place while i was gone, blonde and brave and utterly unlike me, with the way everyone says they are perfect. 

so i was an imperfect love. so i packed my bags again. so i will find some new hill where i can rest my bones. 

[rendzina]

did i cry on zoom bc my coworkers said nice things about me to my boss? maybe

[rendzina]

What does it mean to be a woman in this world? It is a constant state of high alert, tuned to the danger but presenting softness, walking a dark tightrope of all the contradictory things we are supposed to be. That’s what they say: if we want love, if we want success, if we want belonging, we must be everything: bold and tame, beautiful and humble, brilliant but never overshining.

For us to be together like this, sprawled and undone on this mountain, we must not be in that world anymore. Surely we have passed into some other space, or maybe we carved it from our dreams with our palms. We are safe here, in all our complex fullness, home in our sun-warmed bodies that we have scraped against the earth, every emotion welcome, every insecurity, every fear. And as we make space for all our scattered pieces, the infinite mosaics of our hearts, we slip our keys into the locks of our souls, passing into the kingdom of joyful possibility. Think of all we can create if we do not have to sound the alarm of mankind. We assert our sufficiency, a come as you are kind of coexistence. We eat together, lay with our limbs entangled, peel off our layers and let the wind brush against our unbuttoned skin. The exhale brightens our beauty, fortifies our strength. We are not just the blooms, we are the good earth, dark soil soft with all that we need to grow, to continue onward in the cycle of becoming.

The machined world and its algorithmic expectations is forgotten, lost like the distant haze of a bad dream in the morning’s thin grey light. Let’s just stay here like this as long as we can, dirty feet barefoot in the grass, tumbling hair as windswept as the nests made by the birds, our painted faces turned up towards the sun. Our earth welcomes us back to her, the shadowed new moon making her preparations to drape us in the blessing of starlight. Here on the planet of girls, we honor both. This is the land of plenty, the land of fruit and harvest, the land of riverine tumbling and feline lounging. The trees stand as our teachers and mothers, patient and unyielding in their lessons. We are no longer desperate, clawing for scraps. No. The wheatbaskets of our hearts overflow with abundance. Our happy bellies are full with laughter. We will not go hungry here.

To exist is the gift. To be is the ceremony. Our play is our power and our ferocity is our love. Our bodies, intimate together in the blue-green expanse of earth, are our home.

[slfcare]

this pandemic will end and you’ll claim the window seat in your favorite cafe, stand in a crowd at a concert, visit a museum and make crappy art in the park. sometimes things feel like they’ll go on forever, sometimes bad things feel heavier than good things, sometimes life feels like it’s slowing down and all you’re doing is waiting for the full stop— but just because this hopelessness is all that you’re feeling right now, doesn’t mean that it’s all there is. there’s always more and you will experience that, and you will feel alive again.

[lathandplasterwalls-deactivated]

This feels like a @rendzina post

[rendzina]

@lathandplasterwalls that + this post filled my heart all the way up

[weltenwellen]

Susan Sontag, As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh

[rendzina]

[rendzina]

put a mask on! jesus

hi! fair! i shared that pic without any context for what was happening or my approach to managing risk and protecting others, and i apologize. 

i think this is really important to address so to start, i want to reiterate that wearing a mask and physical distancing are the best way to reduce risk for ourselves and others in this pandemic, full stop.

since outdoor dining is considered a low- to moderate-risk activity, depending on the specific context, i want to share a little bit more about the choices i made to reduce risk to myself and others, taking a harm reduction/risk mitigation approach:

physical distancing: i chose a restaurant with a large, uncrowded patio with generous room between tables. there were two other patrons on the patio, over 20 feet away from me

wearing a mask: i wore a mask at all times when interacting with the wait staff, as well as while entering, while waiting for my meal to arrive, after finishing my meal, and when i left the table to walk off the patio and down the street

reducing time interacting with others: i knew exactly what i wanted to order prior to arrival in order to minimize the amount of time interacting with wait staff. i did not linger after my meal. 

reducing risk of contracting covid in my daily life: i have taken steps in my daily life to reduce my own risk of becoming ill/passing virus asymptomatically to others, including not currently socializing in person with anyone outside of my household, and limiting outings to essentials, always wearing a mask for those outings 

acknowledging the risks i have taken: over the course of the pandemic i have on very rare occasions socialized with somebody from outside my household without a mask and dined outdoors at a restaurant. i live with other people who have a similar perspective on risk mitigation as i do, but they are individuals who may act differently when we aren’t together. however, within the past two(+) weeks, i have not socialized with anybody outside of my household, interacted with/been near anyone outside of my household without a mask on for any amount of time, dined at a restaurant, or experienced any respiratory symptoms, nor have any members of my household, to the best of my knowledge

reducing risk of passing covid onto others: dining outdoors today was run past my household, and all members approved. i have no plans to see others outside of my household or mix households for the holidays. i wear a mask in all public indoor spaces, do not visit private homes other than my own, and, to the best of my ability, stay greater than 6 feet away from others outside of my household in public settings such as when grocery shopping.

limiting my social bubble: the person i was dining with (who took the photo) is a member of my household

so given all that, yes, i did decide to dine on a patio today. this same choice might not be safe, appropriate, or right depending on where you live, the level of covid in your community, the risks you’re taking in your daily life, your general tolerance for risk to self and risk to others, the specific restaurant in question or even the time of day at that restaurant, and your specific circumstances, including laws and social norms in your community. patio dining might be a hard no for you, which is completely understandable. but these are some of the things i’m taking into consideration these days.

[rendzina]

🌻✨💛