Hey, friends! I’ve been thinking of you…out there… surviving scary heat…marching for queer liberation…all that we are all bearing.
In here: personal updates, a licheny moment, newsletter(+) experiments, and some rad links.
Some personal updates:
I have five kinds of potatoes and two kinds of corn growing at my mom’s house. Other than that, starting MSW grad school and finishing up the Anne Braden program and fulfilling contracts has made June different from my utopian vision for it… but here comes July so fingers crossed. How’s your June been?
Some lichen updates:
Lichen is still amazing. If you are new here, I think “fruiting bodies” and “holdfast” have some extra cute lichen facts. Something sweetly licheny lately was acquiring the hay in the pic above. It was my first practice with facebook marketplace which I have been very intimidated by; then at the key moment I had no cash, which I never do and feel sheepish about, so I borrowed some, and then the farmer was like “hey do you want new hay or old hay,” and then didn’t accept my borrowed money after all because he just wants the old hay that can’t be fed to animals to find some good use. It’s now on my potatoes and corn and sunflowers, and I am mulched by the experience.
In other lichen news, our grand total for fundraising for CPC is $3000! Thank you notes are in the mail. The whole Braden program, 140 participants across four cohorts, moved over $450,000 towards the work of BIPOC-led organizations!
Some lichen practice updates:
I am going to experiment with moving to one post a month. Same things: lichen, liberation, links, and offerings like study+practice groups.
I am going to experiment with a monthly place to put money in the links. If I put something there, it means I have given my own at least $100, which for me right now is significant. If you donate anything (at all!) to one of these, please let me know so we can high-five.
I am going to experiment with using an actual website. The substack site only collects posts and I’m wanting a more malleable place to play. It’s lichenpractice.com and you are invited! There’s a fun thing to do on the “ourselves” page, maybe start there.
Some links:
song: Fight like Ida B and Marsha P, just listen right now!! I’ve listened five more times since copy/pasting the link in here.
video on accountability from a transformative justice lens
video on what mutual aid is that will dissolve and reshape your heart
a Land Back curriculum, hell yes
“ethical, easy to use, privacy-conscious alternatives to well-known software”
Way of Belonging, an offering from a dear rad Braden person who I will be collaborating with this summer. I especially love their “embodied nature” full moon emails. More soon re: the collab <3
the quilts of Bisa Butler; sit down now so you don’t fall down when you see them
+ a suggested place to put money: summer funds for young artists of color. This program is RAD and I feel so grateful it exists. What if you bought a meal for an artist at $10? +++?
Ok, friends, that’s what I have. It is a time of experimentation for me. That is mostly comfortable from inside it; it is weirder to share it, but I feel like we’ve got each others’ backs.
What are you practicing? What experiments are you running? What do you feel at your back? I don’t ask these to be cute—I would like to know, so text, email, +++, <3.