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“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring​

Hey y’all,

Things right now just feel like a lot. Everyone I know feels overwhelmed. Heat waves and hurricanes are pounding the US as climate change makes even nature unreliable. Political unrest and wars and genocides and election stress and, to top it off, an assassination attempt on the former President. I am staying offline as much as I can because going online doesn’t make me happier - the opposite, in fact.

I was talking to someone recently and she said that for her, hope was in short supply these days. I get that - it all seems so heavy, so pervasive. But I also have to disagree.

I have come to see that hope is a practice, not an emotion. It’s a series of things we do. In the book Active Hope, the authors Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone write:

Active Hope is a practice. Like tai chi or gardening, it is something we do rather than have. It is a process we can apply to any situation, and it involves three key steps. First, we take a clear view of reality; second, we identify what we hope for in terms of the direction we’d like things to move in or the values we’d like to see expressed; and third, we take steps to move ourselves or our situation in that direction. Since Active Hope doesn’t require our optimism, we can apply it even in areas where we feel hopeless. The guiding impetus is intention; we choose what we aim to bring about, act for, or express. Rather than weighing our chances and proceeding only when we feel hopeful, we focus on our intention and let it be our guide.

This week I’m doing something different. I’m sharing items from my own personal toolkit that I use to reinforce hope inside me when I feel it flagging.

Below you will find a few quotes and poems that move me, that are reminders of the world I want to live in, that are, to refer to the paragraph from Active Hope, reminders of the direction in which I want things to move. I hope they are useful to you - they have been lifesaving to me.

Five Beautiful Things

The poem The Peace of Wild Things, read by the author Wendell Berry. From the poetry collection of the same name. This is a “poetry film”, and is beautifully illustrated, and is part of the Poetry Film collection done by the On Being Project. Many of my favorite other poems are well represented on that playlist.

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

— Arundhati Roy , from the book War Talk​

The Irish Poet Michael Coady reading his poem “Though There Are Torturers”. From his poetry collection Oven Lane and other poems​

"Hope Is Not a Bird, Emily, It's a Sewer Rat" by Caitlin Seida, from her book My Broken Voice.

Check this out

One way hope has been manifesting itself over here is by pouring ourselves into the kittens we have been rescuing, fostering, and then placing. (I wrote about it here a while back). We just started a cat-focused Instagram channel in order to get attention to these cats, who need homes. Please consider following, liking, and sharing as you are led. You would be doing me a solid favor, and you would get ridiculously cute kitten content along the way.

Thank you!

This newsletter is my little shot glass of hope and aspiration, handwritten by me, sent lovingly to you, and paid for by my members whose kind patronage makes it possible for me to do this. If you want to support this project, consider becoming a member, or buy me a cup of coffee, share the web version of this letter (see the link at the top of the page) on social media, send some cash via a half-dozen ways, send a postcard to the address at the bottom of the page, or just forward this email to your friends. But however you do it, I'm grateful beyond words for your support.

Take care of yourself, and each other.

HH

PS: I love to get email (or snail mail!) from readers, so if you have a coping method you want to share, I'd love to hear about it. I read it all, even if I get overwhelmed at times and can't always respond.