Patricia Barnes Therapeutic Yoga

11/17/2025

I want to read more from this author.

Audre Lorde taught us that silence is not safety. Freedom lives in our voices, our stories, and our truth. We speak because we must.

11/14/2025

I had not heard of World Kindness Day until I saw this, and it made me reflect on what kindness I may have given today. I'm sure you have done something kind today, too!

Kindness can change a life. 💛

When Dr. Maya Angelou was a young girl living in Stamps, Arkansas, she met a woman who forever altered the course of her life — Mrs. Bertha Flowers.

As Dr. Angelou wrote in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings:
“Then I met, or rather got to know, the lady who threw me my first lifeline... She was one of the few gentlewomen I have ever known, and has remained throughout my life the measure of what a human being can be.”

Mrs. Flowers’ kindness helped Dr. Angelou rediscover her voice after years of silence. Her compassion nurtured a love of language that would later inspire millions across the world.

On this , let us remember that a single act of kindness can transform a life — and even shape history. 🌿

11/11/2025

This quote lifted my spirits, and I hope it will do the same for you!

11/06/2025

This need is now! Please join me in donating☺️

The need for food assistance is at an all-time high. Every $1 helps provide a meal for families, children & older adults

11/04/2025

This message is the most meaningful, concise, and inspiring that I have heard on this topic! I hope it will be helpful to you💛🙏🏻

Self-care is sacred. It helps keep us fueled for justice., our minds aligned with purpose, and our spirits encouraged to create the Beloved Community. 💛

Here are a few tips to enhance your self-care:

🌿 Pause daily. Take a few quiet moments to breathe, reflect, or pray.
💧 Nourish yourself. Eat well, rest deeply, and hydrate often—your body is an instrument for peace.
🤝 Connect. Build a community that uplifts and restores your energy.
🕊️ Set boundaries. Protect your peace so you can serve from abundance, not exhaustion.
💬 Reflect. Journal, meditate, or spend time in nature to realign with purpose.

Remember justice work is a marathon, not a sprint. Caring for yourself helps you keep showing up—whole, grounded, and ready to love boldly.

11/03/2025

Let's keep reminding ourselves of this important message❤️🙏🏻

Love, which is the foundation of nonviolence, remains the most durable, transformative power in the world.

Let’s choose love over hate, light over fear, kindness over cruelty, and peace over provocation—365 days a year.

11/02/2025

This hit me right between the eyes. How about you?

WELCOME NOVEMBER…

There is something about November that says ‘just keep going’.
We are not quite through the year yet the finish-line looms out of nowhere.
We are plunged into darkness by Mother Nature.
We are faced with the ‘season of joy’,
and yet many of us wonder where we will find it.

And I think November is a great time to take a little peek behind you,
and see just how much you’ve done.
To take stock of your achievements, your endurance,
your survival.
To rest, reinforce, before the festivities envelope us all.
Before beautiful new beginnings.

And most importantly, November is a time to seek out light.
As the natural order darkens, we must find it ourselves.
We must do whatever we can to brighten our day,
our home, the world.

Seek out light wherever you can my friends,
and pay no heed to those who condemn your sparkle.

You are much-needed.

Keep showing up, in that special way only you can do.
And show up for yourself too
(which can sometimes mean not showing up somewhere else).

This year has been hard.
Again.
But beautiful.
Again.

As is the way of life.

As is the way of life.

Donna Ashworth

Art by my favourite Bettina Baldassari

(If you’d like to pre order my latest book ahead of its launch in US/Canada this month, I’d be delighted)

10/28/2025

Let's keep doing our best to help each other through these times! ❤️🙏🏻

❤️

10/22/2025

This writer sets a strong example for today's situation.

Richard Wright was warned that his words could get him killed — so he made them louder.

He grew up in the Deep South during Jim Crow, where reading was rebellion. His grandmother forbade “worldly books,” his teachers punished curiosity, and white men punished everything else. But Wright read anyway — newspapers, pamphlets, anything he could find. “Words were weapons,” he said. “I just had to learn how to use them.”

At seventeen, he left Mississippi with two dreams: to eat every day and to write without fear. Chicago gave him the first, barely. He swept streets, hauled coal, and wrote on scraps of paper in freezing rooms. What he produced was too raw for publishers — stories of hunger, shame, and rage from a man society wanted invisible. When he finally found editors brave enough to print him, he didn’t hold back.

In 1940, Native Son detonated like a moral gr***de. It was the first American novel to force readers — especially white readers — to stare directly at the consequences of racial oppression. Its hero, Bigger Thomas, wasn’t a symbol of hope. He was a mirror. Critics called it violent and un-American. Wright called it the truth.

Then came Black Boy — a memoir so searing that some libraries refused to stock it. He described starvation not just of food, but of dignity, love, and freedom. It wasn’t autobiography; it was testimony.

Tired of being surveilled and censored in his own country, Wright moved to Paris. He called exile his “freedom within exile.” Even there, the FBI kept a file on him. He wrote anyway — essays, novels, and warnings about the price of silence.

When he died in 1960, his ashes were buried beneath a tree on the outskirts of Paris. On the urn was a single word: “Writer.”

Richard Wright didn’t ask America to change.
He dared it to admit what it was — and that was far more dangerous.

10/21/2025

I'm so grateful for Mr. Rogers playing a large role in my childrens' lives.

There are ways we can show our loved ones that they are not alone. One good way is by listening to them. We can find someone special to listen to us, and we can be listeners for others, as well. ❤️

10/20/2025

Do you agree that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation?

Kurt Vonnegut /
"I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle."
"Kurt Vonnegut, born Kurt Vonnegut Jr., was an American writer known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. In a career spanning over 50 years, he published 14 novels, three short story collections, five plays, and five nonfiction works, and further collections have been published after his death. Born and raised in Indianapolis, Vonnegut attended Cornell University but withdrew in January 1943 and enlisted in the US Army. As part of his training, he studied mechanical engineering at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the University of Tennessee. He was then deployed to Europe to fight in World War II and was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. He was interned in Dresden, where he survived the Allied bombing of the city in a meat locker of the slaughterhouse where he was imprisoned. After the war, he married Jane Marie Cox, with whom he had three children."

10/14/2025

Over the years there have been some interesting recipients. Can you think of anyone more deserving than MLK?

On this day in 1964, it was announced that Dr. was that year's recipient of the .