Resourceful Women

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• Please go out and buy (or demand at your library) a copy of Surviving HIV/AIDS in the Inner City: How Resourceful Latinas Beat the Odds by Sabrina Chase (aka sabrinamari ). It really doesn't matter if you're much interested in HIV, or anthropology, or the US health care system. If you are a person who can read, you should read it. It's part study, part story, all gripping.

It talks about how we get trapped or are able to navigate the world, and the lessons are applicable to anyone in any situation. The basic answers?: Learn the language and the cultural norms by getting people who understand them to become your allies; and the bigger your network of supporters, the better.

[EDIT]: sabrinamari 's just put up a link to where you can get her book for 35% off until 25th June.

I look forward to an audio version!

• In the spirit of Resource-Fullness, a bunch of resources I am finding enormously helpful right now:
  
  • The Artist's Way
  • Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain
  • Day Dreaming On Paper
  • Lucia Capacchione's work on creative journalling
  • Contemplative Mind-Mapping
  • Havi Brooks' work on The Book of You and Talking To Your Monsters
  • Rex Ambler's work on the Experiment With Light meditation, based on early Quaker experiences
  • Benjamin Bernstein's Ask & Receive meditation
  • Jen Louden's newsletter, and Jen Hoffman's newsletter

I've stopped caring about margins, spelling, punctuation or handwriting in my Morning Pages. They're now places where I do real brain dumping, regardless of content, and talk with my Inner Allies and Younger Selves.

In the notebook originally meant for keeping track of my Artist's Way weekly tasks and check-ins, I now write anything that grabs me, any size I want, at any angle on the page, and now with coloured in bits.

I had no idea how uncomfy doing that stuff myself was until I began doing it. Turns out, creativity is not something Other People With Special Magic Skillz do; turns out that just deciding to scribble in orange and purple along the edge of the page is perfectly fine. The sky does not fall, and no-one's head falls off (h/t sabrinamari ).