Re-memory lane

Inspired a bit by Seth Godin’s post this morning on why blogging still matters, I’m going through the blog rolls of two of my favourite discontinued blogs of the past 25 years, whiskey river and wood s lot and checking the blog rolls and adding the ones still going to my RSS feed. And as I do so, sipping some excellent coffee from Weird Harbour in Halifax, Nova Scotia, I’m coming across a thing or two to share. Here you go:

• Psychedelics Made Me A Christian. Justin Smith Ruiu reflects on what mushrooms have taught him about the practice of theology.

• Via Negativa is a poetic dialogue with poets from long ago and between two poets of today who riff off each other. It’s less a blog and more an ecosystem of meaning-making.

• The EcoTone Wiki, a trip down memory lane to an experiment I nearly forgot about, where, from 2003-2005 a bunch of us place bloggers decided to write blog posts on a set of shared topics.

It is beautiful to read these old blogs and very melancholy to see the ones that discontinued more than a decade ago in the great Facebook/Twitter pandemic, when walled-garden social media stole our creativity and connection. I know of that some of the people who wrote these blogs died, and others just stopped. There is something very poignant about the last blog post, especially if it comes with no warning of the blog’s discontinuation.

Reading blogs in a feed reader is a slower and gentler way to find inspiration and beauty in the world. I recceomend it over any social media feed.

At some point before the new year, I’ll update my blog roll and you’ll see the ones I’ve added.