Encouragement Files
(16-25) Field Notes for Curious Minds
This is the 16th Edition ‘The Encouragement Files’, a weekly celebration of others.
This midweek offering is our chance to showcase words, publications and people that have inspired us. Perhaps it will encourage you to celebrate some creativity that lifted your spirits, to share a story that offered a counterbalance to the fractiousness of an out-of-kilter world.
In a world that strives for big audiences, eyes on, immediate reactions to the day-to-day, and solicits it with louder and louder “me me me” behaviours, we are drawn to the quiet folk. Our instinct guides us to the humble folk who emerge with something of substance1 … we love to connect with people whose first instinct is to shout up for others … it is our gentle mission to lift up and amplify those quiet folk. You cannot imagine how touched we have been by the reaction to this weekly celebration of others. Kind words and enthusiastic responses offer such generous encouragement; we cannot wait to pay it forward. Thank you.
Feasts + Fables
Beyond Substack
D E S I G N
Do you spend as much time imagining the perfect tools and spaces for the job as you do writing notes and drafting your masterpiece? You are not alone. This week, we are taken by ‘the perfect desk’, a gorgeous design by Peter Fehrentz.
T H E P E R F E C T S P A C E
If you are going to daydream about the perfect desk, then you need the perfect studio to put it in. We featured a beautiful studio, a writing room hidden amidst nature, designed for a poet in Edition 10. We’re now back for a second viewing.
"Good design is as little design as possible: less, but better - because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity."
― Dieter Rams
C O N N E C T
Human connection and analogue creativity seem like vital bastions in the fight to ensure folk understand and value art, culture and creative practices. We find the Two Pages sketchbook project such an uplifting example of humanness.
“There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.“
― Edward de Bono
So Good We Saved It
Among many gorgeous reflections on Earth Day, this gallery of stunning photography by
caught our eye.We love that
reminds us through her sensitive, reflective observations that nature came first and every day should be Earth day:Orchestral manoeuvres are fading behind me, my whole body is a smiling child wrapped in adult skin. I fly along the ridge with my silver feathered wings into an arc of fog, my smile reflected as if in strange heavenly symmetry. For many seconds I am stilled in euphoric incomprehension, the arc of light above me is like a thousand angels, wings glittering, fluttering with grace. I glance behind me at the light I am still walking through, then, turning back, I am halted again as the miracle of a second arc, white and luminous appears ahead. I am neither child, nor bird, I am a star soaring in the chasm of liminal space into an in-between world that becomes nothing but a fading, distant memory almost before I realise both are completely, irretrievably dispersed.
Copyright © Susie Mawhinney While this year of adventure for us is centred on Europe, we occasionally cast our eyes further afield. Japan keeps finding ways to remind us that it would suit us very well indeed, so perhaps there’s a future adventure to plan for. We started by joining
for coffee.For Japan, we need all the tips we can find and this engaging piece by
is full of them; from bedrooms to bathing (note the characters for Male and Female!), luggage to lunch, and convenience stores to cars.Sometimes we hear folk murmuring that fiction is hard to find on
but amazing advocates like are reversing that perception. ‘Top in Fiction’ is a brilliant ongoing celebration of made-up tales and there is a new Top in Fiction 100 list, an astonishing directory of amazing writers.To celebrate finding myself included on the list, a link to a favourite tale written before The Encouragement Files was a twinkle in the eye:
I hope the dust settles.It gets everywhere. Mother would tell me so every time I raced indoors, hungry fingers reaching to tear a bellyful of warm flatbread. She would scold me as I crashed through the kitchen leaving a trail of powdery footprints. I flashed my best smile, hoping to see forgiveness in her sad eyes. I wanted to tell her that the flour on the kitchen table made more mess than me but I am only nine years old and my tummy growled at me to keep quiet. There had been enough missed meals and I was always ready to eat.Little Butterfly … for the children of conflict
Bite Size
Myths and legends brought to life by illustrator Adam Simpson for a set of commemorative stamps issued by the Post Office in Britain.
Barrie has been knee-deep in maps, navigation tools, spreadsheets and accommodation bookings as he prepares for his upcoming 2,600 kilometre cycling adventure. He is also gathering up inspiration from experienced bike packers who understand the motivation to explore but the need to plan.
One for the travellers … a selection of enchanting islands around Europe; not your usual tourist haunts.
The Writer’s Cabin from Write Within caught our eye. An inspiring rural hideaway in mid-Wales to escape to when you want the words to flow.
Copyright © Severn Valley Creative Studios
PS
Meanwhile, on our tiny farm in the Vienne region of France, we spent Earth Day tending to the potager, the kitchen garden. Tomatoes planted; weeds weeded; and meadow mowed for the 400th time - it feels - since February!
Back next week, same time, same place.
Barrie and JoJo
“Be the person who works in humble, quiet isolation, then emerges from hibernation having completed something of substance” Bobby Powers
You seem to pack more and more into this every week Barrie! That desk! And that studio in the woods! You'd never get me out...
I haven't read Pamela's Earth day post yet, though I don't doubt the quality of her content,(Pamela I'll be right with you) and your Little Butterfly was and still is my favourite of all your stories.Thank you, for all you do and especially for including a paragraph from my favourite walk ever!
"Good design is as little design as possible: less, but better - because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity."
I feel the same way, specifically, about writing fiction, Barrie. That is why I have practiced so much with 50-word stories. It has been helpful to me -- I can easily see the results when I refer back to what I was writing three years ago. I now try to go straight to the heart of a story, often beginning in the middle, and including only the details that drive the story forward, no sidetracks.