Saturday Poem

The world doesn’t just invent itself:
it needs some coaching, a poke,
to remind it that invention
has always been necessary.

 

And there are more subtle necessities,
like jellyfish and unicorns.
Things the earth could not
think up on its own and so
thought us up.

 

— From “The Joke,” a poem in Fancy Clapping by Mark D. Dunn, reviewed at The Rumpus by Jim Zukowski.

Source: therumpus.net

Best Practice

“Best Practice” is a letter to oneself. A pseudo-dream where reassurances and self taught coping mechanisms intersect a shuffle of memories. It is an adventure of self care, by cartoonist and painter Joshua Jarrett.

(via The Rumpus)

he he he...

Paper Trumpets #11: Let’s Bounce by Kevin Sampsell

Friday!

(gif found here)

Libra: This week you can feel so present in your own skin. You can feel your feet on the ground, you can feel the air on your face, you can hear the song of the world in your ears. You can feel peace if you need peace, you can feel strength if you need strength, you can come into your own. You can find yourself in storms, you can find yourself in mountains, you can find yourself in sweet foggy air. Try to be gentle with the people you care about. Try to be tender with your own self.

(Words by Madame Clairevoyant and illustration by Jen May)

Ukemi, The Art of Receiving

"In my daydreams, the kindergartener is all grown now, and she has a man or a woman she loves, and the two of them have gone on dates to the pool―my daughter’s backstroke is amazing; the lifeguards make comments about it―and to the local Sonic for cheeseburgers. In the afternoons, between class sessions, she and her boyfriend or girlfriend will tell each other their histories while their roommates are out on errands for birth control. They’ll gossip about mutual friends and they’ll compare notes about the sports they played and how strange their parents’ behaviors are. My daughter’s love interest at college or culinary school will ask her about the photo I’ve sent with her, the one where she’s receiving her orange belt from Master Ochiai and looking into the space above the camera.

“What’s that from?”

“I took karate when I was little,” she’ll say. And this is where I hope she’ll continue with “And I stayed with it through high school. I’m a shodan black belt.”

And her significant other will say, “Show me,” and they’ll clear a space in the middle of the dorm room’s floor, kicking over bean bags and Calculus books. They will bow to each other and spar playfully there on the third floor of an expensive room-and-board dormitory, where my daughter will land her friend into a scarf choke on the area rug and will feel the tap-tap-tap of a hand, a matte, a signal to let up. And my daughter will smile because she will feel safe and equal to this person in her life. She will know full well how to cut off circulation to carotids and jugulars, but, more importantly, she’ll know when to release."

From Ukemi, The Art of Receiving By Barrett Bowlin for The Rumpus.
Click HERE to read the piece in full. It's brilliant.

(Image by Estevan Guzman.)

Don't forget

"Don’t forget that you’re a real, living person. Try to feel gravity holding onto you, try to feel the water and the bones in your body, try to feel the ways you’re held and anchored in your own world."

-- Madame Clairevoyant 

“I think of empathy as a set of cumulative effects, ideally—that it can be a force shaping your habits, shaping where you put your attention and then—if you’re hard on yourself, in good ways—pushing you to translate that attention into action, on whatever scale. That’s interesting—like, what good is “awareness” on its own? Is it good on its own?” 

 

— The Rumpus Book Club Chat With Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exam. 

Nice read!

The bodies that orbit you

Gemini: This week the world’s going to move in loops and repetitions. This week, the world’s going to waken memories buried deep inside of you, thoughts that you haven’t seen in a long time. This week is going to be about charting your path, and the orbit you move in, and the bodies that orbit you. This week is for dealing with the patterns and the recurring dreams and the ideas that just won’t leave you alone. Be as brave as you can. Plant flowers that will come back, year after year.

-- Madame Clairvoyant 

Taurus

This week, you might feel like a tangle and you might feel like a mess and this is okay, this is good. It’s a week for trying to embrace your tangled core, for working to embrace your bright messy brain. This is where your best thoughts can come from; this is where your best work can come from, this is what can light you up. Tell stories that don’t have an end and stories that don’t have a plot; sing songs that don’t make sense; draw pictures with so many colors you could almost get a headache.

-- Madame Clairevoyant 

Dear Sugar, The Rumpus Advice Column #72: The Future Has An Ancient Heart

Love details

"love is not so incomprehensible as you pretend, sweet pea. love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard. it can be light as the hug we give a friend or heavy as the sacrifices we make for our children. it can be romantic, platonic, familial, fleeting, everlasting, conditional, unconditional, imbued with sorrow, stoked by sex, sullied by abuse, amplified by kindness, twisted by betrayal, deepened by time, darkened by difficulty, leavened by generosity, nourished by humor and loaded with promises that we may or may not want to keep. the best thing you can possibly do with your life is to tackle the motherfucking shit out of love. and, honey bun, on this front, i think you have some work to do."

- Sugar
(Dear Sugar, The Rumpus)

Found at KetchumYoga via staceymoves

Gif found here//Source: mr-gif.com

The Strongest Woman in the World

By Yumi Sakugawa
 (via therumpus)

I love the rhythm of Yumi Sakugawa's comic strips. Read more on her blog.

This Year.

Libra: This year’s going to be bright and fast and really great for you, full of friendship and good news and hard work. Feel this as the gift that it is and still, don’t forget to let yourself be dreamy. Make time to laze around alone, and to go on long rambling walks, and to sit under trees or swim in the ocean or let strange spinning thoughts grow inside you. Make time for beautiful things, make time for the weirdest parts of yourself. This year, spend time with babies or spend time with animals. This year, practice being very tender.

-- Madame Clairevoyant

I'm going to work hard to make this one come true.

Libra

This week, you’re maybe going to feel a little fragile, like you’re soft, like you’re bending, like you’re barely even solid, like one hard word could crack you right in half. Don’t try to make yourself unbreakable, don’t try to replace your softness with stone or steel. Just do what helps you live, do what helps you get through the day, do whatever you can to remember how good it is to spend your days in very small ways, sometimes. Listen to songs in other languages, listen to songs without words.

--  Madame Clairevoyant

"This week, after you’ve fed yourself and taken a nap and paid your rent, use all the energy left over for watching the way your take up space in the world, for being gentle with the people around you, for being as generous as you can with your good thoughts. It’s a week for listening and doing favors and sharing everything you can. It’s a week for cultivating feelings of kindness in your own heart, for tending to them carefully, for watching them grow in your heart like a garden, like a field, like a forest."

-- Madame Clairevoyant
(This was for Aries, but I think its more of a one size fits all!) 

Time Zone

Time Zone By Yumi Sakugawa
(From  Saturday Rumpus Comic)

Libra

Just for now, just for this week, forget all your maps and forget all your plans and forget every detailed drawing you’ve made of the future, forget the picture of the life you’re supposed to have. It’s not about throwing yourself into chaos, it’s not about getting rid of your plans for good, just that this is a week for softness, it’s a week for feeling sweet and hazy, it’s a week for unwinding, a little, for loosening up the parts of you that are too stressed, too serious, to look at the mountains or watch the sky or go to the movies in the afternoon.

-- Madame Clairevoyant 
 "I am not a real astrologer or a real writer, and so it’s strange and great that people actually read these..."

It is exactly why I read these!! I'm living by this one this week.