a living field guide
Things that make me feel alive
A digital journal and slow, ongoing field guide of the things I keep returning to. Four moods. None of it is a recommendation. All of it is honest. Send me yours.
Alive
Moments and art that spark something immediate
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Gustav Anders
A voice that sounds like it's coming from a small room you used to know.
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Ethan French
Songs that take their time. I find new things in the same record every season.
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GAIA Music Collective
A roomful of strangers singing in three parts. The first time I went I cried in the second song.
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Slow film loops at the Museum of the Moving Image
Twelve-minute single takes, projected huge. I sit through them twice every time.
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Hand-copied letters from people I haven't met in person
More than email is supposed to do. Less than a phone call. Just right.
Like I'm grounded
Places and practices that create stability and connection
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Temple Forest Monastery
Two days of silence in a New England forest changed how I listen to my own apartment.
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Monastic Academy for the Preservation of Life on Earth
A serious place, in the old sense of the word. I think about it most weeks.
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Abundance Farms
Hands in soil, people who know each other's parents, a long table at the end of the day.
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Living simply, low-waste
Not a system. A practice of putting fewer things between me and the days.
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Forty minutes of sitting, before the phone
Not pretty. Not always quiet. The single thing I miss most when I skip it.
In motion
People living differently
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Digital nomad minimalists who actually keep one bag
Rare and instructive. The ones who stay light on the inside, not just the suitcase.
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Long-distance walkers and pilgrims
Not for the goal. For what walking a thousand miles does to a person's sentences.
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Taina's walking pilgrimage
A friend walking across a country alone, posting one photo a week. I read her notes carefully.
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Couples who share one car and a long calendar
Quietly, this might be the most radical thing I see anyone doing.
Like building
Future-oriented ideas and things I want to help grow
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Tiny house and off-grid builders
Especially the ones who finish. Especially the ones who write the manual after.
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Regenerative farms and community spaces
Soil and shared kitchens — the first two infrastructures of a better century.
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A neighborhood bulk-foods storefront
On the projects page. I would help with the back room cheerfully for a year.
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Funded creative projects with small audiences
Two hundred people who really want a record made. That's a complete economy.
Tell me what's making you feel alive
I'm collecting these slowly. If you have something for any of the four sections, or you want to build something together, send it.
Write to me