2026.01
Morning journal posts from January 2026
In Defense of Beauty
What happens within us when we recognize something as Beautiful?
Wednesday, January 21, 2026
Good morning, The Wonder Fell Way.
How's the day? O/
Too early for most to call morning; it's still yesterday in California.
Night owls and early birds know a reliable peace so many forgot.
To remember the World's a beautiful place, we must remember the World.
Dawn is a good place to start.
Getting good with the morning is always a great place to begin. (See the first line of these journal posts for proof.)
What happens when we recognize something as Beautiful?
The sunrise is always in some way Beautiful. Regardless how you feel about poetry, you see it every sunrise.
The Sun arrives in a poem waiting for witness every morning.
Let's title today's post: In Defense of Beauty, remember I'm a poet, and get to work.
First let's clear up cosmetics and toss make-up and what we wear out.
Those are discussed in another post. I'll link them here and here. And there's a whole lot of talk about Beauty here.
What happens within us when we recognize something as Beautiful?
What do we acknowledge?
The experience is more than just what's pleasing to the eye, to any of the senses. But there is a a kind of joy, a 'rightness' felt when we're in the presence of something Beautiful.
There are reasons why flowers are often seen as Beautiful. They're an easy example of the ways of Beauty.
A seed that fulfills its greatest expression of itself shows the most Beautiful bloom.
Their choices are few but constant. What they do with the quality and quantity of light and water given them determines every flowers level of Beautiful.
People work in the same way.
We do our best with the quality and quantity of the materials presented to us everyday.
Unlike plants we can choose where and how often we get our metaphorical rain and sunshine.
Our choices determine our lives. Beauty is the result of our witness of some epic choices.
The tallest, healthiest, scientifically soundest dandelion in a field of flowers is gorgeous to behold. A dandelion all alone rising from the cracks in an asphalt jungle is a thing of Beauty.
And a very resourceful seed indeed.
That asphalt dandelion has a hero's quest for a life story easily recognized.
Someone who spends hours fussing and fixing their hair and fashion is also acting heroically.
Vanity doesn't make us Beautiful.
Self-care does.
We care about ourselves because life matters and because it does we're going to have the best one we can. We're going to show our best to the World.
That's hero's talk.^
That's an asphalt dandelion sprouting from cracks in concrete all alone early in the Spring.
Take care, find your best light, and make wonderful this wonderful day.
Wynn
Brought to you by the emoji of the day: 🛎️bellhop_bell
Archaic Slab
We Need Your Words for Medicine
So long as we keep paying for bad News, we're going to keep paying for bad News.
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
Good morning, The Wonder Fell Way.
Welcome back. O/
Wonder fell, Wonder fell,
Who's got the spell?
The magic's in the words.
ABC's to seize your dreams.
Thanks for using your magic to bring these words to life.
They're just blips of light or ink on a page without your magic. So thank you.
Do you see it now? The real issue with the constant barrage of bad News and negative opinions?
Every time someone reads it, it's brought to Life.
Enter your new understanding of the power of The Arts.
This is by no means a call for censorship. No. This is a call for a responsibility of readership.
Even if it's only to dismiss it, to roll your eyes and cast it away, what you read and witness becomes a part of your world through your witness of it.
What do you want to have more of in your life? See it more often. Read it. Make it live in your world, so it can live in The World.
Words and images matter so much. Our cellphone staring, screens everywhere glaring, made us go numb and forget.
When we see something we read it. The understanding and evaluation of it becomes a part of our day. And so it lives in The World through the viewer.
What do you fill your day with? What stories are your considerations?
They live through you.
It's a question of values.
...
So long as we keep paying for bad News, we're going to keep paying for bad News.
The more profitable we make good News the more profit will be gained from creating it.
It really is that simple.
When good News pays the bills everyone wins.
What can you do?
Actively choose what you watch and listen to.
If a doom and gloom story shows on a screen, if a jockey starts spouting hate, change the channel. There are so many better ways to feed your day.
You see, when we feed on something for awhile we come to depend on it.
We've become a Nation addicted to tragedy.
Shock and spectacle have ruled the airwaves. Let's cut it out. Stop feeding the synthesized Hell. Actively choose to watch something else.
Don't be quiet about your choice.
Let people know.
"I stopped reading, watching, listening to bad News. Now, I get my good News here."
-Reader Helping to Save Our Country
Again: So long as we keep paying for bad News, we're going to keep paying for bad News.
Artists, Musicians, Writers! This is where we can help.
Flood the airwaves with your works of Hope.
Life is still worth waking up for.
Remind The World.
Right now we need your Art, your music, your words for medicine.
Artists! Administer The World its dose!
Be bold. Be seen. Be beautifully prolific.
Lift us up where we've been pulled down for so long.
The Internet is the biggest boon for creatives since the printing press. Use it. Flex the flexibility and freedom found there and share your wonderful expressions.
The World isn't going to heal itself; our stories are.
Wonder Fell is here everyday to help you keep it going.
Hollywood and Broadway this means you, too.
Stop feeding the beast of tragedy, people need hope. You're both factories of Hope or Hell. The choice is yours. The World is a better place than we've been portraying it to be.
Entertainers time to take some responsibility for the State of our Country.
When the News becomes entertainment, it's time for our entertainers to provide the News.
Every work of Art shows a moral way. America's moral compass has been spinning for decades.
Our stories, our Arts and Entertainment, are the way to reestablish Our True North.
As always, thank you for reading.
Take care, share some good News, share some Art, and make wonderful this wonderful day.
Wynn
Brought to you by the emoji of the day: 🎦cinema
Archaic Slab
Rhythm
It's a question of writers since the dawn of the typewriter... to handwrite or to type?
Monday, January 19, 2026
Good morning, The Wonder Fell Way.
Another one. A sunrise on its way. A journal entry, too.
Glad you're here.
A circle-slash wave for a hello. O/
And away we go.
On with our show...
...
Do you ever examine the Archaic Slabs at the end of each entry?
It's a question of writers since the dawn of the typewriter... to handwrite or to type?
Comfort is the most important consideration. But does the means of expression, the tools used to shape the words, change the output?
The answer, after decades of practice for this writer, is yes.
"Uh-oh."
-Writer Wanting to Do Their Best Work
The reason, again, is comfort. How quick your dreams fly to the page matters.
The rhythm in which we write a sentence is the best rhythm to read the sentence.
I type over a hundred words per minute. I could finish a Wonder Fell entry in five minutes. But there's more to writing than pushing keys.
A journal, for my own tastes, goes better handwritten. It's more personal. When you handwrite the font choice is: You.
Consider music, it helps the analogy. The same popular song sounds different played on a piano versus a guitar.
News of the day and quick catharsis beach reads go best typed. The dreams of the writer march with the click of the keys.
But a long lingering literary opus, a romance for the ages, a journal singing each sunrise, is a musical score best arranged for handwriting.
We can type slow, longhand fast, a piano can rock and roll wail; but what each is most comfortable showcasing is the point here.
Ballads live comfortable lives in piano keys; beach read best sellers love a laptop.
Consider the rhythm of your prose.
Do you want to march the reader along to the story's action? Then tip-tap type away.
Do you want readers to daydream deep into your paragraphs? Pick a pen and glide fantastic with your Fountain or Bic.
How thumb-slapping translates musically to prose I'll leave other authors to measure. It's still too slow and cumbersome a process for these opposable digits to weigh.
Writers! Thank you again for reading. Keep going. The world needs words from people who value words as much as we do right now.
Words are always The World's best medicine.
Take care, write your most comfortable rhythm, and make wonderful this wonderful day.
Wynn
Brought to you by the emoji of the day: 💡bulb
Pic Prompt: Create a stick figure pen and ink illustration of a typewriter, a laptop, and a quill floating in the sky at sunrise.
Archaic Slab
Your Ghost
Sensing anything at all is an act of reading.
Sunday, January 18, 2026
Good morning, The Wonder Fell Way.
A voice in the dark, waiting on the light.
You've got headlights for eyes, flashlights to see.
All writing is an act of graffiti until it's read.
Thanks for pulling me off the wall and bringing me into the story of your life.
All reading is an act of resurrection.
Boo! O/
Thanks for breathing life into these words with your attention.
Without our recognition words are just scribbles on a page, binary blips on a screen.
Ghost magic got you yet? In the reading zone?
This Ghost Realm where reading lives is where everything begins. Dreams become thoughts here, so thoughts can make actions.
Maybe you never thought about it, took it for granted. It's important now you do.
The Ghost Realm is what separates us from machines, what makes us alive.
It's not deep thinking; it's where thinking lives.
To see the world is to read the world, and so all acts of observation live in The Realm of The Ghost, too.
A picture is worth at least a thousand words, so seeing anything at all is an act of reading.
Listening, too. Ever hear an audiobook?
Our other senses as well...
There's Braille for touch, for an example.
There's the words that blueberry muffins baking and coffee brewing in the kitchen bring for senses of smell, for examples.
Sensing anything at all is an act of reading.
The thing that chooses what to do with what you read is what you are.
Your Ghost.
What my Ghost is up to at dawn is recorded and expressed everyday here.
Thanks for reading. Hopefully my words in some way help you to have a better day.
What we sense is possible ought to match what we dream is possible.
I believe when it does that's called a good life, that's healthy living.
Here's to your health. O/
Take care and make wonderful this wonderful day.
Wynn
Brought to you by the emoji of the day: 💭thought_balloon
Archaic Slab
Why Wonderfell?
Hell isn't other people; it's a world of hopeless stories.
Saturday, January 17, 2026
Good morning, The Wonder Fell Way.
Glad you're here. O/
"Do you ever feel like not showing up, like not writing, in the morning, Wynn?"
-Favorite Wonder Fell Reader
It's work. It's duty. It's doing what I love. It's doing what's right.
I fought for so long to be able to. Now, when I wake, I'm so grateful for the win, I just start.
And it is work.
My Country needs help. The people suffer and don't understand why.
We blame money, ego, greed, bigotry, racism, misogyny, and a lot of other words.
But the true reason is our language itself.
The true reason America suffers is in The Stories We Choose to Share and Digest.
Because what we watch and report is where we assert our value.
When we continuously showcase tragedy and call it News, we tell each other tragedy is worth our attention.
There are just as many good deeds, more I'd say, going on in America than tragedies.
This is not a call for naive optimism.
This is stating the fact that: What we feed grows.
We, as a Nation, have decades worth of feasting on tragedies.
And if the restaurant, The Media, wants to stay in business it has to serve what the people are eating.
Our stories chase ambulances instead of heroes. This is why our Country looks and feels the way it does at present.
We make showcasing Hell a profitable enterprise. People like to profit. They need profit to survive. And so we surround ourselves with Hell in an effort to just stay alive.
Good News is marketable. People love heroes more than nightmares.
Surely you'd rather watch a person rescue a cat over watching them shoot it in the head.
Don't say positive stories don't sell or you are the whole symptom and disease.
A story absent of hope isn't a story; it's an opinion.
Our News stories turned to News opinions a few decades ago. We're living in the consequences of a world feeding on stories devoid of hope.
Hell isn't other people; it's a world of hopeless stories.
Where's Hope?
In our storytellers who still recognize life is worth something good.
If the News is slow to remind us, our Artists need to be quick.
I write about An American Renaissance being a cure for our National malaise because hope has to flood the words we feed on soon if our Country is to survive.
We're better than the stories we're choosing to share.
Why Wonder Fell?
A guy from New England pulls away from society to write deliberately in his journal for a time to remind himself what's truly worth valuing in the World.
Over a hundred years ago Henry did the same. If there was no Walden, there was no 'Civil Disobedience,' and so no game plan for Gandhi or Martin Luther King.
Literature like Wonder Fell can matter that much.
It is my Hope it truly does.
Thank you for reading, for choosing hope over tragedy.
Take care and make wonderful this wonderful day.
Wynn
Brought to you by the emoji of the day: 🌐globe_with_meridians
Pic Prompt: Create a pen and ink stick figure image of a person sat by a lake writing in a journal at sunrise.
Archaic Slab
Check-in with Yourself
What dream of you do you keep with you?
Friday, January 16, 2026
Good morning, The Wonder Fell Way.
How's your brew?
Coffee, tea? An Oatmeal stew?
Start your day. Time to do you.
Quite a business you're in... This You Business.
What do you think of yourself when you think of yourself?
What dream of you do you keep with you?
A friendly point of order for you:
You can only ever be as good, as successful, as happy, as the best dream you keep of yourself.
Check-in with yourself.
Do your dreams of who and what you are and may be, serve what you consider a good life would be?
If you can't imagine it in your life, there's no place for it, so it can never show.
Make a space in your dream for what you feel is your best life.
Be a welcoming host to your greatest dreams of you.
Then take the steps to see them come true.
Recognize when they do and be grateful.
Some friendly advice from your favorite Ghost Poet this morning.
Life can be something wonderful, so Life is worth wondering about.
Dream great dreams for yourself, make a place for them, then go about the work that brings them in.
Sun's up. Cool blue light on leafless tree limbs that sway their Winter's dance in the wind.
As always, thanks for reading, take care and make wonderful this wonderful day.
Wynn
Brought to you by the emoji of the day: 🎤microphone
Archaic Slab
Your Dream and Your Voice
Being a poet, sooner or later, I ought to write about mush.
Thursday, January 15, 2026
Good morning, The Wonder Fell Way.
At it again. O/
Still a few hours till sunrise.
Being a poet, sooner or later, I ought to write about mush.
And misconception.
There's more to being a poet than the card aisle at The Pharmacy.
Though, a poem is medicine when you read it right.
Conciseness and clarity of language is the aim of every poet.
We make better and new ways to express what it is to be alive through words.
We're quality control for words themselves.
Always here to make certain we get as much out of our language as we intend to express.
Our worlds run on words. Poets expand what is possible for language to say.
And so, poets widen what is possible for us to share.
Our relationships are able to deepen because of the work I do.
We can know each other better.
...
Colore marches on. There's already a side-story posted this week.
The next main story verse introduces us to The New World our heroes find themselves in.
From the author's point of view, it's important certain details are set-up to ensure cohesion to the storyline that follows.
This is where the difference in story writer's methods becomes practical.
If you write a story by the seat of your pants, you do your plotting as you go.
A pantser's plot is called: Their First Draft.
As I'm writing Colore as 'live' a process as possible, and I post finished pieces of The Epic at least weekly, the dream of the story (the plot) has to be complete in my mind. There's no turning back once posted to edit.
This would be considered a job-hazard to most writers; I consider it fun.
And didactic.
It's a matter of trusting your dream and your voice.
This author's been dreaming and writing (though never sought publication) everyday for nearly three decades.
Humbly, Colore is in competent hands.
I wouldn't attempt it if I thought otherwise. The message is too important.
There are a lot of things America's been saying about a lot of things in the same ways for a long time. (Hint: The Epic's Name)
Time to upgrade our language about how we talk about some very serious concerns.
Poet's work.
And so I write.
Take care, know your work (and worth), and make wonderful this wonderful day.
Wynn
Brought to you by the emoji of the day: 🪭folding_hand_fan
Pic Prompt: Create a stick figure pen and ink image of a person standing in the card aisle in a Pharmacy.
Archaic Slab
The Stories We Keep
If you're new here, this isn't just a clever literary convention, I really am undead.
Wednesday, January 14, 2026
Good morning, The Wonder Fell Way.
Welcome back. O/
Another day, another ray of sunrise sunshine from your favorite undead poet, +he Ghos+.
Thanks for reading.
(If you're new here, this isn't just a clever literary convention, I really am undead. No brains for breakfast for this zombie. Oatmeal works just fine.)
On with our show...
...
One of those mornings where there's just so much. Where to start? What topic to pick?
Do you have moments or mornings like this, too?
It comes down to choice.
The quality of our lives ultimately comes from the priorities we keep.
So this morning wants to write about choice itself, and that means values.
Consider your relationships to find your definition of worth.
What story each person, place, and thing holds for you determines its value for you.
If there's something in your life, and you just can't seem to shake it, change its storied meaning to better suit your day.
Perhaps you're not a fan of snowy winters. But it's too soon, or impractical, right now to move to a tropical paradise.
There are plenty of ways (stories) to love the snow. Choose one that suits you.
We are the accumulation of the stories we keep.
At birth we inherit the tales of our ancestors, we become adults when we start choosing which to keep and which to discard.
What stories rule your days?
Maybe it's time to refresh a few.
Do that today.
Take care and make wonderful this wonderful day.
Wynn
Brought to you by the emoji day: 📡satellite_antenna
Archaic Slab