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Roxani Krystalli

@rkrystalli.bsky.social
1.7K followers 451 following 69 posts

Senior Lecturer, University of St Andrews. Author of GOOD VICTIMS. Gestures vividly about light and loss, care and place, birds and soil, grief and bodies. roxanikrystalli.substack.com

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Louise Kenward @louisekenward.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
A huge thank you @edbookfest.bsky.social @rkrystalli.bsky.social @atarbuck.bsky.social Rowan Jaines & @portyliterary.bsky.social - everyone who came along & asked wonderful qus & @pollyrowena.bsky.social for photos on stage. Fantastic to meet people I've long been in touch with & to make new friends
Flat lay of Moving Mountains at Edinburgh - book laid out with badge to festival, jar of rhubarb jam from Caro Clarke, a bright green FPN2 face mask and box of migraine tablets.four women on stage talking with each other, large screens either side and audience members in darkness in foreground. Edinburgh International Book Festival in type with logo above and central.Four women standing smiling at the camera.blue ribbon with ID tag that reads: Edinburgh International Book Festival, LOUISE KENWARD, Author.
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Louise Kenward @louisekenward.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
I'm heading up to Edinburgh - this is where I'll be this weekend! Looking forward to speaking to the brilliant @rkrystalli.bsky.social with @atarbuck.bsky.social & Rowan Jaines - what an incredible panel! #NatureWriting #Disability #BookSky (It will be recorded) www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival...
edbookfest.co.uk
Rowan Jaines, Louise Kenward & Alice Tarbuck: Redefining Nature Writing
From Sun 17 Aug - Moving Mountains is a new and compelling anthology of nature writing, from the perspective of disabled and chronically ill authors. Through 25 pieces, deftly edited by Louise Kenward...
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hannah @hannahkateboast.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
So pleased to see this letter from MPs in support of students in Gaza with offers at UK universities. It's been signed by over 100 MPs and is a real cross-party effort. I hope now that Starmer will respond to our requests.
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
Thank you @iajournal.bsky.social for including Good Victims in your books of the summer! Very much looking forward to reading the rest of the books on this list. medium.com/internationa... @standrewsir.bsky.social @ustaresearchimpact.bsky.social
medium.com
The International Affairs summer reading list 2025
There is nothing quite like spending the summer lost within the pages of a great book — or ten. Every year, Book Reviews Editor Mariana…
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The Portobello Bookshop @portybooks.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
What a lovely time we had last night, celebrating the paperback publication of Anima: A Wild Pastoral! 🌱 Thank you so much to everyone for coming along, to Kapka for an amazing event, and @rkrystalli.bsky.social for her wonderful chairing, as always! 💚
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The Portobello Bookshop @portybooks.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
We’re delighted that Kapka Kassabova will join us in the bookshop this coming Wednesday (25/06) for an event to discuss Anima: A Wild Pastoral with @rkrystalli.bsky.social. Sign up to join us in person or online: www.theportobellobookshop.com/events/kapka... @vintagebooks.bsky.social
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Andy Arthur💃🏰⚓🦌 Threadinburgh 🧵 @threadinburgh.scot · 20/06/2025
It's the hottest day of the year so pause for a moment to offer thoughts and prayers for all the Scottish pensioners cooking their Friday mince'n'tatties regardless, because Friday has *always* been mince'n'tatties night these past 50 years and they're not about to change the habit of a lifetime now
Jack and Victor from still game suffering in a heatwave
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 18/05/2025
Hanif Abdurraqib on “the responsibilities of the heart” — one of the most gorgeous essays I’ve read in years. www.newyorker.com/culture/essa...
newyorker.com
In Defense of Despair
The feeling is most commonly framed as an end point, a level of despondency that cannot be overcome. But it doesn’t have to be so.
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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
The Supreme Court is wishing a problem away and so gifting more problems to trans lives. Those lives can, must and will continue being lived in their fullness and their joy. My sisters, please give all your love to each other and none of it to the state. hjosephinegiles.substack.com/p/while-the-...
hjosephinegiles.substack.com
While the Supreme Court ruled, I tore up a fence
On being trans and living a life
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The Portobello Bookshop @portybooks.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
We’re excited that Madeleine Thien is coming to discuss The Book of Records with @rkrystalli.bsky.social on Wed 28th May! Join us to hear about Thien’s first novel since the Booker & Women’s Prize-shortlisted Do Not Say We Have Nothing. Sign up here: www.theportobellobookshop.com/events/madel...
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Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
I got to write a short piece – On Compost – for the LRB. (If you know me irl, you’ll understand that this is a happy thing)
lrb.co.uk
Fraser MacDonald · On Compost
I sometimes wonder whether my love of compost is a response to the dispiriting cleanness of modern life – the spray’...
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
Telegram from my garden, an occasional series: The impossible tenderness of daffodils leaning towards the light.
Three daffodils catching the light. Two have peach-hued trumpets, fanning out like a crinoline. The other is a white and yellow daffodil that looks like a scrambled egg. A yellow glazed bowl sits beside the vase. Improbable blue skies all around.
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Laura J. Shepherd @drljshepherd.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
Today's blog post is from my dear friend, colleague, and marvellous co-conspirator @hmberents.bsky.social. Helen writes on "Ecotones And Borderlands Of The Feminist Peace" (@rkrystalli.bsky.social I think you will like this one!): thedisorderofthings.com/2025/04/07/e...
thedisorderofthings.com
Ecotones And Borderlands Of The Feminist Peace
The next contribution to our symposium on Governing the Feminist Peace comes from Helen Berents. Helen is Senior Lecturer in International Relations in the School of Government and International Re…
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
A new essay from me on how radio tethers us to time, place, and each other. It’s really a love letter to BBC Radio 3. I’ll miss @petroc.bsky.social’s “good morning!” so much! roxanikrystalli.substack.com/p/alone-toge...
roxanikrystalli.substack.com
Alone together
A love letter to radio
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School of International Relations @standrewsir.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
📢 Exciting news! Good Victims by Roxani Krystalli (OUP, 2024) has been shortlisted for the L.H.M. Ling Outstanding First Book Prize 2025! 👏🎉 🔗 Read more: www.bisa.ac.uk/news/lhm-lin... #evertoexcel @rkrystalli.bsky.social @uniofstandrews.bsky.social @mybisa.bsky.social
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Charlotte Moore-Lambert @charlottereads.com · 22/03/2025
being an indie bookseller in the helltimes has felt both very stable and very stabilizing, and part of me wishes everyone could be on my side of the counter for a little while, because I think it would help some of you be a little less cynical and doomy right now. so here is my VERY anecdotal data:
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 22/03/2025
I am still rarely on this app, but popped in to thank BISA for including Good Victims on its L.H.M Ling prize shortlist. Looking forward to reading the rest of the books on it! 🌻💛
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The Portobello Bookshop @portybooks.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Last night we had the pleasure of celebrating @danzep.bsky.social’s new book, Overnight, with the wonderful @rkrystalli.bsky.social! 🌌🌙 It was an incredible event & it was wonderful to see so many of you there! Get a signed book here: www.theportobellobookshop.com/978183885750...
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Q Manivannan MSP @qmanivannan.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Published! In my first peer-reviewed article, I contend with narrating grief as political action, conversing with the words of Rohith Vemula, Natasha Narwal & GN Saibaba. Big thanks to @wrawproject with @marieeberry @MilliLake & many others! Open access! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
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Alexander Chee @alexanderchee.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
We have these little bird shapes in the windows to keep birds safe, and at night the moon lights them up. They make me feel like a kid again each time I see them.
A picture window at night covered in pale outlines shaped like the ghosts of birds. A bit of moonlight falls through them and across the bed, where a rainbow colored blanket is spread.
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
A new essay from me on the pleasure of using every fork and chair in the house in times of joy and sorrow. roxanikrystalli.substack.com/p/in-praise-...
roxanikrystalli.substack.com
In praise of gathering
The gift of a crowded table
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Friends and colleagues around Oxford, I’ll be in town @politicsoxford.bsky.social on February 4th to talk about Good Victims. 🌻 It would be lovely to see you there! www.lac.ox.ac.uk/event/histor...
lac.ox.ac.uk
Joint LAC-DPIR Seminar: FROM VICTIMHOOD TO LOVE: The political as a feminist question In Colombia
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
Hello friends! What did you love reading this year? Here is a very incomplete list of favourite books of 2024 (if I can figure out how to create a thread On Here ...). Because it's impossible to pick among beloveds, the list excludes books by authors whose events I've hosted.
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Jasmine K Gani @jasminekgani.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
This is excellent 👇 If you haven't had the chance to watch this lecture or read the article version yet, it is well worth your time.
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Institute of Intercultural & International Studies (InIIS) @iniis.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
The exhibition draws a lot on Philipp Schulz and Roxani Krystalli's (@rkrystalli.bsky.social) research project "Centering #Love and #Care in #Peace and #Conflict Studies" (www.uni-bremen.de/institut-fue...)
uni-bremen.de
A Different Kind of War Story: Centering Love and Care in Peace and Conflict Studies - Universität Bremen
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Institute of Intercultural & International Studies (InIIS) @iniis.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
We warmly recommend the #Politics of #Love exhibition at the Kunsthaus Hamburg to everyone in the are, which will continue until early February. kunsthaushamburg.de/politics-of-... politics-of-love.kunsthaushamburg.de
kunsthaushamburg.de
Politics of Love - Kunsthaus Hamburg
Bildcredits siehe unten Politics of Love 30.11.2024–2.2.2025 Teilnehmende Künstler*innen: Mounira Al Solh, Francis Alÿs, Isaac Chong Wai, Anna Ehrenstein, Amna Elhassan, FAIRY BOT (Jon Frickey, Thies ...
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
A new essay from me about the opening of the Thessaloniki metro after a century (!) of plans. I’ve been thinking about how time moves in different places and about how many clocks one human can keep. substack.com/home/post/p-...
substack.com
The promise of modernity
On places (un)frozen in time
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
Researching how practices of love and care help people imagine worlds in the wake of loss has filled my life with joy and meaning this year. Philipp Schulz and I loved chatting to @pollypw.bsky.social of @europeanisa.bsky.social about this work. open.spotify.com/episode/4IEC...
open.spotify.com
What is...Love and Care in International Relations?
Voices: The EISA Podcast · Episode
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
I am barely ever here, but it matters to show up for the joys. It was a gift to supervise DR @sarahgharib.bsky.social along with @jasminekgani.bsky.social. I have learned so much from her feminist, decolonial praxis, and the world will too.
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Maria Martin de Almagro @drmmartind.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
Saturday’s are for reading friends’ @rkrystalli.bsky.social and Shirin Rai fantastic work
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Learning to love the dark: an ongoing exercise.
A yellow lamp, a ceramic yellow house with a candle lighting its windows, and two green candles on pink candlesticks. A late light glow. In the background: the green grocer’s.
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Monika Barthwal-Datta @monikabd.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Third, a piece on 'Pedagogy as care: Love, loss, and learning in the world politics classroom' co-authored with the amazing @rkrystalli.bsky.social and @drljshepherd.bsky.social in the Journal of International Political Theory in Sep this year (open access): journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
London friends! I'm giving two talks about my book, Good Victims: The Political as a Feminist Question, next week. Both are free and it would be lovely to see you! Wed, Nov 27, 5 PM, Queen Mary: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/from-victi... Thur, Nov 28, 5:30 PM, UCL: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/good-victi...
eventbrite.co.uk
"Good Victims." Book Talk with Roxani Krystalli
Join us for a lively book talk with Roxani Krystalli where we'll explore the concept of "good victims" and her new book.
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 22/07/2024
A new essay from me on gardening, rituals, and care, featuring a cameo from my mother with her Nescafé, cigarettes, and geraniums. www.womenwritethebalkans.com/essays/light... @womenwritebalkans.bsky.social are wonderful editors and I am so grateful for their wisdom.
womenwritethebalkans.com
LIght Needs — Women* Write the Balkans
She read and she gardened, but she wouldn’t have described herself as a reader or a gardener. Interests, preoccupations, and desires anchored the days without defining the self.
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Women* Write the Balkans @womenwritebalkans.bsky.social · 15/07/2024
Follow @rkrystalli.bsky.social as she tells the story of rootedness in place and time, and life that unfolds in bouts of growth and care: “Some plants benefit from light; others, in my mother’s imagination, grew simply out of spite.” www.womenwritethebalkans.com/essays/light...
womenwritethebalkans.com
LIght Needs — Women* Write the Balkans
She read and she gardened, but she wouldn’t have described herself as a reader or a gardener. Interests, preoccupations, and desires anchored the days without defining the self.
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Alyssa Harad @alyssaharad.bsky.social · 12/05/2024
Roxani has described her most recent research project to me as “taking love seriously.” She is one of the toughest and and one of the most gracious and joyful thinkers I’ve ever encountered. I often share her essay on teaching in the wake of her mother’s death: jnp.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/de...
jnp.journals.yorku.ca
View of Of Loss and Light: Teaching in the Time of Grief
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Alyssa Harad @alyssaharad.bsky.social · 12/05/2024
My friend @rkrystalli.bsky.social has poured many years of listening, working, love and questions into a crucial new book for Oxford Press and for all of us.
Cover of GOOD VICTIMS: The Political as a Feminist Question. A tightly bound bunch of sunflowers rests on a curb next to a camo-patterned backpack. The photo is framed in green.As of 2023, over nine million Colombians have secured official recognition as victims of an armed conflict that has lasted decades. The category of "victim" is not a mere description of having suffered harm, but a political status and a potential site of power.

In Good Victims, Roxani Krystalli investigates the politics of victimhood as a feminist question. Based on in-depth engagement in Colombia over the course of a decade, Krystalli argues for the possibilities of politics through, rather than in opposition to, the status of "victim." Encompassing acts of care, agency, and haunting, the politics of victimhood entangle people who identify as victims, researchers, and transitional justice professionals. Krystalli shows how victimhood becomes a pillar of reimagining the state in the wake of war, and of bringing a vision of that state into being through bureaucratic encounters. Good Victims also sheds light on the ethical and methodological dilemmas that arise when contemplating the……legacies of transitional justice mechanisms.

Chapter 1: The Political as a (Feminist) Question
Chapter 2: Making Victims: Histories of Violence and Bureaucracies in Colombia
Chapter 3: Living Ethics and Methods as Questions: Dilemmas of Narrating Victimhood
Chapter 4: Making the (Good) State: Bureaucrats of Victimhood
Chapter 5: Victim Professionals and Professionalised Victims
Chapter 6: "Victim" as Distinction
Chapter 7: The Future of Victimhood
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 15/02/2024
Gorgeous work by colleagues to imagine a science of politics that prioritises life and dignity. I particularly loved the idea of "a principled political joy of coming together to make sense of the world." www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
Reading-through be-longing: Towards a methodology for political sciences otherwise
Inspired by critical feminist, decolonial, and narrative approaches, this paper invites political sciences scholars to engage in different forms of knowledges (unlearning Western-centrism by center...
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Minx Marple @minxmarple.bsky.social · 30/01/2024
might actually be crying
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Active Learning in Political Science Blog @alpsblog.bsky.social · 28/11/2023
A new guest post from @rkrystalli.bsky.social from the University of St. Andrews: "Anxiety, excellence, and reflexivity in the classroom" activelearningps.com/2023/11/27/a... Polisky SoTLsky
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 27/11/2023
How did a politics education come to be devoid of geese honking, and where might we begin to put the honks back in? I wrote about reflexive pedagogy and environmental education. Thanks to @drcathyelliott.bsky.social for the invitation! activelearningps.com/2023/11/27/a...
activelearningps.com
Anxiety, excellence, and reflexivity in the classroom
Today we have a new guest post. Last month Roxani Krystalli published an article on teaching and learning reflexivity in the world politics classroom. In this blog post, she discusses some of the a…
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 06/11/2023
My new essay sprang from Elizabeth Alexander's question: "and are we not of interest to each other?" I wrote about teaching with poetry, and about gathering with care in vulnerable times. www.bisa.ac.uk/members/work...
bisa.ac.uk
Gathering in vulnerable times: conferences, care, and bringing each other along
Roxani Krystalli discusses what she has learned from her students gathering in vulnerable times.
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 23/10/2023
Friends in Edinburgh and those further afield who want to join online: The magnificent Teju Cole is launching his new novel Tremor in conversation with me next week. *Note: Clocks change in the UK next week, so double check your own time zone. www.theportobellobookshop.com/events/teju-...
theportobellobookshop.com
Teju Cole – Tremor at The Portobello Bookshop
Please come and join us for Teju Cole – Tremor on 31st October, at The Portobello Bookshop
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Anna Meier @annameier.bsky.social · 23/10/2023
This article, "Teaching and Learning Reflexivity in World Politics," is a gift. Thank you, @rkrystalli.bsky.social, for your care & attention to the acts of doing reflexivity & what they have meant for you.
academic.oup.com
Teaching and Learning Reflexivity in the World Politics Classroom
Abstract. Complementing discussions of reflexivity as a research practice, this article turns its attention to the classroom. How does a pedagogy that invites s
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 17/10/2023
A different time, a different war. The same beach on which I walk now, the same poetic attentiveness to what sustains light. Grateful for the gifts of John Burnside in this world. www.theguardian.com/books/2001/s...
theguardian.com
St Andrews: West Sands; September 2001
Today - with the news in my mind, and the muffled dreadof what may come - I knelt down in the sandwith Lucas, gathering shells
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 10/10/2023
There is "I am embracing slowness and gentleness" and then there is the speed with which I click on an email about a 2024 garden catalogue of roses.
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 06/10/2023
I recently finished a book and am at the start of another project. I had forgotten how rough and raw beginnings are, compared to the (apparent, if illusory) polish of completed work. I'm sitting with field notes, with half-formed thoughts and bad sentences. I'm sitting with the gift of possibility.
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 05/10/2023
A real change in the air this morning: Visible breath and audible geese and a sprinkling of dew everywhere. Grateful for the accompaniment of robins and dipper song.
A cloud hangs low on a fjord. Trees are turning yellow and orange. The water surface is calm.
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Roxani Krystalli @rkrystalli.bsky.social · 02/10/2023
I have no way of rendering the beauty of the Norwegian fjords into words, nor do I feel compelled to. I do not need to capture it or pin it down. I am just grateful to be in the company of it all, to be alive in a world saturated with gifts.
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