Prompt & Ponder | Cascade

What We Need Now. A Cascade of Kindness. (A special open issue for everyone.)

Sep 13, 2025

Given the events of this last week in the USA and the world, I am sending our weekly writing and prompts out to everyone. Usually this is our email for our paid Prompt & Ponder members, but 1-2x a season, I open it up when I feel it is relevant to do so. And after this last week, it feels super relevant to send out some goodness to hold on to.

Most of you read this in your inbox or on the app, so it would mean the world if you’d take a moment to tap the 🤍 emoji and/or share this post to help it get seen by more people. I can only do what I do because of you, and I am so grateful you are here.

There has been a creeping sense of exhaustion pulling at the edges of my day this week. Typically, I work on this email all week long. It’s one of the favorite things I get to do.

But it’s been a week of treading water to keep my nose above the waterline.

I write about wonder and joy. However, that doesn’t negate the impact of feeling deeply and believing, as someone with a mid-sized online platform, I have a responsibility to be mindful of the larger events and context of things happening in real time around me.

A curious communicator at heart, I deeply want to understand the why this happened that way and the how we got here backstories.

Every so often, you might even call it a coping mechanism.

I was the daughter who disappeared into the dusty hallways of online academic library searches trying to find and understand cancer research, treatment options, and strange symptoms late into the night once I was certain my mama was sleeping comfortably.

It didn’t change the ultimate outcome, but it did help me process the journey. I’ve been doing a lot of that this week. A lot of listening. A lot of holding space.

Living for 7 years in Sudan/South Sudan, I saw the unimaginable horrors of what decades of civil war and escalating violence can create. I held lives ravaged by the repercussions in my arms. I also witnessed unfathomable resilience time and time again.

Violence (of any kind) that denies the humanity and flourishing of any of our neighbors only rips us apart from the inside and sows seeds for more violence.

In this time of escalation, we need a cascade of kindness.

I can’t control what leaders and influencers say (nor would I want to).

But I can control me. My choices. I can refuse to let rage and fear shape who I am and sweep me away in its tide.

I think that’s part of why I am so passionate about wonder and what we do here. Wonder gives us tools to be able to tell ourselves and one another a better story and build a better future for all of us.

(If this is your first time here. Each week I send this email of prompts to our paid Prompt & Ponder community members with a theme word, a visual prompt, art-making and writing prompts, and a discussion topic for our conversation chat thread…)

So let’s dive in. Pun completely intended because our word is cascade.

If it’s been a hard week for you, I hope this gives you some tangibly good things to re-center around and find reprieve in.

A Cascade of Kindness

waterfalls and trees — Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash

A cascade is tiny pieces coming together to make a giant impact. It is motion multiplied into momentum that makes change happen.

A cascade is the rush of water spilling over rocks. It’s the tumbling of laughter from one person to another in a room. It is the way light washes over my desk or long hair swishes over shoulders.

In many ways, it’s also how life itself arrives… moments tumbling over moments, creativity flowing in stages, beauty multiplied one tiny detail at a time.

The word cascade originated from French in the 1600s, meaning a small waterfall, typically one of many, pouring down in stages.

Later in the 1800s, it was adopted more broadly, especially in science, to also mean a succession or series that flows with momentum.

To cascade as a verb means to pour, fall, or flow in abundance, often in layers or sequences.

As I’ve been writing this, it has just become a perfect metaphor and picture in my mind. We need a cascade of kindness. A movement of tiny, kind acts that shifts our momentum towards hope.

Now, for our prompts this week! Our Prompt & Ponder members have access to the chat thread linked below to share their work and thoughts.

✨ Visual Prompt

waterfalls surrounded with trees — Photo by Chad Madden on Unsplash

Use this image as a reference to create from.
How might you use the clear areas of color blocking to paint an abstract version of this image? (Golden up at the top, umbers fading to deep sepias in the middle and bottom, cut through with white from the water.)

🎨 Art-Making Prompts

Create a sketchbook piece where colors cascade from the top to the bottom of the page.
Use drips of watercolor or ink to mimic the natural flow of a cascade. One way you can create these is by raising and tilting your paper to encourage them to move with help from gravity.
Create an art piece using repeated shapes that “cascade” across the page.
Illustrate a cascade of laughter or a movement of music—how would you visualize its sound and resonance?
Build a collage of cascading textures that represent different emotions or that tell a story: lace, feathers, torn paper, etc.

📝 Creative Writing Prompts

Write about a character who experiences the same set of cascading events each day. They can only change one thing each day. What do they change, and what are the results?
Imagine a waterfall of letters, each one carrying a secret. Write one of those letters.
Tell a story that begins with one small action and cascades into transformation.
Write a micro-essay about cascading failures and what resilience looked like in the process of facing and transforming them.
Begin with one word and let it cascade into a flood of free association writing.
- This is such a great way to get things flowing when they feel stuck.
- If you’ve never done this. Pick a random word. The first thing that pops up in your head. Or open up a book and the first one your eyes or finger lands on. Don’t worry about grammar or tense or even if it makes sense. Just one word. Then, the next word, the next phrase.
- Let’s say the word is grass. Grass » green » mowed bare » lawn tamed long to be set free and become a meadow wild.
- This was so helpful as I practiced and helped my brain build pathways back to the words that were lost post brain injury.

✍🏻 Reflective Journaling Prompts

Recall a time when joy spread like a cascade through you. What did it feel like? If you had to describe it using colors, what would they be?
Write about a season where change cascaded quickly. What did it teach you?
Cascades are often tiny moments that flow together for larger impact. What tiny habits or simple rhythms might cascade into greater well-being for you?
Imagine your creativity as a waterfall. Describe what it feels like right now. What is flowing? Where is it trickling? What places are pooling? Where does it feel stuck?
How might you create beautiful cascades of kindness and courage in someone else’s life?

💬 Our Community Chat Link for the Week

Question for Conversation in Our Chat. To keep the dynamic of our Prompt & Ponder community consistent, this is just for our members.

To cascade is to trust gravity, to surrender to flow, to keep moving even when rocks rise in the way. What is one cascade you want to embrace more fully in your life?
The chat is the place to share your work as well so we can cheer you on!

Here is our chat thread link for this week. Simply click through to join in the conversation:

The Prompt & Ponder Creatogether Video is Coming

My apologies for getting a stomach bug on top of everything and having to shift things around on Thursday. I am working on a video for what we would have shared live and will send it out via email as soon as it is ready.

We have a special Prompt & Play session on Sept. 25. I’ll send more info about that as we get a little closer.