I hope you’re having a beautiful day. ♡
Here, in celebration is the first of seven ELS ¤ Gems ¤

I hope you’re having a beautiful day. ♡
Here, in celebration is the first of seven ELS ¤ Gems ¤
I hope you’re having a beautiful day. ♡
Here’s another light-filled ¤ Gem ¤
Today we’re featuring a sketch from Niki Flow’s #the1000dayproject on Instagram (which is accompanied by a one-minute recording there).. Niki was invited to this project while listening to an interview on Awakin.org with Elle Luna (author of The Crossroads of Should and Must). Every day for the past 69 days she has used a post-it note and a sharpie to do broad sketches, inspired by a story Elle told during the interview about designing for IDEO. Today, inspired by her friend MJ’s poetry contribution yesterday, Niki decided to begin to show her poetry to a wider audience. As we announced last February, 2016, profits from Elanthian Love Songs – A Bard’s Tale go to funding packs for under1000skies. When we published it was 50 percent until we paid our artist, the fabulous Stephanie Pui-Mun Law (Shadowscapes.com) and our editor. At the end of 2016 we did so and now we can contribute 100 percent of the profits from the sale of Elanthian Love Songs to funding artist packs. This is part 1 of one of the poems in Elanthian Love Songs. Parts 2 until the end will be recorded one minute at a time (the limit on Instagram) and will be illustrated there every day with Niki’s post-it sketches. The plain text of this part of the poem is below since the type is small. Please pass this on and let others know to support our only way to raise funds. We don’t do fund raisers or solicit funds of any kind. This is in line with the gift economy and Nipon Mehta’s beautiful economic vision called “Gifivism.” Thanks so much for supporting under1000skies.
PALE CRAB BALL
(Part 1)
A long time ago, or perhaps yesterday,
I heard a sad story of lovers betrayed.
‘Twas a pity.
The story begins a short distance from here
In the time of full moon, in the Spring of the year
near our city.
For during that time you can hear a strange call,
“Come one come all to the pale crab ball!”
near the river!
“Tis a day to be merry, to dance and to sing
“So come little crabs, let your pincers ring loudly
with rhythm!”
With eyestalks that wiggled, inside eyeballs jiggled
On quick little legs, they skittered and zigged
by the dozens.
And with them came one, a shy pale-crab lass,
Shell polished and sparkling, to this her first dance
with her cousins.
Now off to the side, a band was beginning
With reed pipes and grass lutes, and shells for a’pinging.
The dance started.
The pale crabs all rose up on multiple legs
And gracefully spun with each other and swayed,
so lighthearted.
(To be continued – here – tomorrow and ongoing. There are approximately 7 more minutes to go (49-50 stanzas or so. )
The theme for the month of January is “journey.” If you have a favorite quote or poem about “journey,” or the journey of life, please leave a comment!
♡. under1000skies
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writers, artists & advocates
serving and connecting
homeless creatives.