lqb2weekly #165 (21 jan 2022)

Jan 21, 2022

hey,

phew! team! 2022 has been a wild ride already!

i learned from movement generation that the things (crises) we are experiencing might feel overwhelming (and they are). unfortunately, given the way we, as a species, are being, it is unlikely that things will significantly calm down… in our lifetimes. if ever.

i say that not to be alarmist (although tbh i do tend towards alarmism), but to give reason for my stance these days: learning how to be on a wild ride. how do i find joy amidst the heartbreak (which cannot be avoided)? how do i make space for rest amidst the exhaustion? how do i create space for myself and what i care about amidst the increasing weight and pressure of everything all the time? how do i seek justice and right relationship in small ways, even as big things feel out of control? how do i let go of what i thought i couldn’t let go of? it’s hard but, if you ask me, we are in the foothills of the upcoming days. and there is no better time to practice.

to be clear, learning how to be on a wild ride doesn’t mean pretending like everything is normal. it doesn’t mean trying to live the life i used to live. it means taking time to slow down, pay attention to what is actually happening, get clear about what is actually important, and then adapting as necessary. 🤷🏾‍♂️ i hope i’m wrong about that foothills situation. but if i’m not, at least i’ll have gotten in lots of practice. i hope you can get some in, too.

ok soooooo there is a HUGE amount of stuff i want to share in this newsletter. it’s been exactly 1 month since the last full edition of lqb2weekly (lol) and given how much stuff i’ve consumed and heard about in these past four weeks, the volume of things in this newsletter could very easily be overwhelming. if i had different energy right now, i would spend lots of time curating and editing things down to the bare essentials. but i don’t. i’m just gonna share it all. i give you full encouragement to skip to what looks/feels juiciest and let everything else go. note: 90% of the things i want to share are from my friends. i have great friends. thank Spirit for great friends lol.

my friend, caroline, and i are FINALLY ready to release our 6-episode podcast on enough. if you take nothing else from this edition of the newsletter, listen to this. it’s available on spotify, apple podcasts, and overcast (stitcher is coming soon, too). in the episodes we talk to important people in our lives about what having, knowing, doing, and being enough means to them. let us know what you think. AND, if you listen and want to help us write some simple episode summaries, hit me up and name your price. :) #DoneWasBetterThanPerfect

if you’re interested in monasticism, ordered life, and all things spiritual, check out the latest edition katie gordon’s newsletter: reflections on 2021: monastic friendship and community.

my dear beloved friend and nibbling, emet ezell, won the gloria anzaldua prize! wowwwwwwww. check them out!

a friend, who shall remain unnamed, is looking for some peers to connect with. see the description of what they are looking for in the next paragraph. do you know anyone? if yes, please let me know who (or feel free to just connect them with me directly) at lawrence.barriner.ii+genderfriends@gmail.com

I am a non-binary trans masculine person in my 50s who is feeling isolated in this identity. It's also fairly new to me, although I have been out as queer for decades. I find myself longing for connection to other non-binary trans masculine folks around my age. I am longing for conversations about gender identity from a place of having grown up as a girl in the binary world of the 1970s with popular culture such as the Brady Bunch and Gilligan's Island. Mostly I am longing for peers in this journey.

my friend, nadav, recommended this great movement(s) summary post from 2021 from grassroots international: 12 Movements from 2021. if you’re not yet or still a budding internationalist (like myself), it seems like a great summary.

my friend, farai, and i are teaching a 2-part workshop on feb 10 & 24: dynamizing your 2022. check it out! you’ll get to experience farai’s process of bringing equity and justice to life in your actual body and then i’ll be bringing some visioning and planning tools to help you shape your year. should be a good time. <3

also, my friend, eishna, has a prison penpal who has a friend on the inside who needs a penpal. if you’re interested, lmk.

also, i heard from some chosen family that prison spying is on the rise. if you are against prison spying (i am because i know things tested on people who exist in the margins of our society often end up brought against all of us eventually), here’s some info and a place to sign a letter from stopspying.org – We’ve drafted a sign-on letter responding to reports of AI audio surveillance of phone calls in prisons and jails, and we wanted to invite your organizations to join. Since these programs are being funded (in part) by grants through the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, we wanted to both call on Attorney General Garland to suspend such funding and call on the Civil Rights Division to investigate. We also have a letter asking New York State Attorney General Tish James to investigate such surveillance in New York’s prisons and jails, including one high-profile example in Suffolk County. You can access the three letters and sign-on form here, and we’ll be keeping the form open until COB on Tuesday, January 25th. Please email my colleague Nina Loshkajian (nina@stopspying.org) if you have any questions.

my friend, cynthia, a former personal storytelling for social change workshop participant, is fundraising for bcnc (a host for one of those ps4sc workshops i used to teach in partnership with the podcast garage). she’s running the boston marathon. help her (and bcnc) out!

ps - in the january special edition where i shared some annual reflection resources, i shouted out andy cook for being the nudge that made me write. I WAS WRONG. i meant to say andy SHORT. not andy cook. i haven’t talked to andy cook in years (but he’s cool and now i’ll text him to see what’s up), but i definitely meant andy short. so yea, sorry andy. forgive me?

pps - if you have things you want to submit to the newsletter, please send them to lawrence.barriner.ii+newsletter@gmail.com. that’s the direct line and will be filtered as such. things that go to my personal email will eventually make it to here but only at the pace at which i check my personal email… which is… not fast >_>. hey,

on to the things!
(!!) pick of the pack

writing

some things i’ve written since the last newsletter:

Jan 17, 2022 | book review: essentialism by greg mckeown
Jan 12, 2022 | winter 2022 covid stance: let it go (!!)
Jan 10, 2022 | "throwing the miracle away with both hands" (!)
Jan 6, 2022 | adopting two rules for my coaching practice
Dec 31, 2021 | unleashing alternative futures: covid fun guy

quotes

lots of quote here to inspire the beginning of your 2022. skip past them once they get overwhelming. :)

Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.
— John Dewey, philosopher
The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating [people] who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done.
— Jean Piaget, psychologist
“There are two questions that we have to ask ourselves. The first is “Where am I going?” and the second is “Who will go with me?” If you ever get these questions in the wrong order, you are in trouble. — Howard Thurman
who looks outside, dreams. who looks inside, awakens. — Carl jung
People who talk incessantly about “change” are often dogmatically set in their ways. They want to change other people. — Thomas Sowell 1980s–1990s, Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays (1999)
The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers when there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under. — C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. — Lao Tzu
I hope that in this year to come,
you make mistakes.
Because if you are making
mistakes, then you are making
new things, trying new things,
learning, living, pushing yourself,
changing yourself, changing your
world. You’re doing things you’ve
never done before, and more
importantly, you’re Doing
Something.
So that’s my wish for you, and all
of us, and my wish for myself.
Make New Mistakes. Make
glorious, amazing mistakes. Make
mistakes nobody’s ever made
before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop,
don’t worry that it isn’t good
enough, or it isn’t perfect,
whatever it is: art, or love, or
work or family or life.
Whatever it is you’re scared of
doing, Do it.
Make your mistakes, next year
and forever. — neil gaiman
You have no responsibility to live up to someone else’s expectation of you.
Spend as little time as possible chasing other people’s preferences instead of your own. — James Clear

poetry

to den by wendell berry (1986)

reads

some things i’ve read since the last newsletter:

listens

some audio and/or podcasts i’ve listened to since the last newsletter (it’s been a while so be ready to be overloaded lol):

watches

some videos i watched since the last newsletter:

jams

some things i’ve been (aurally) enjoying since the last newsletter:

hypotheticals — lake street dive
the ocean — joseph solomon
rest life — tricia hersey (my friend, aisha, designed this cover art!!!)
strings — iyla

jobs

upcoming events

Reflecting on Our Collective Well-Being: Earth and Racial Justice Interconnectivity | Jan 22, 10am ET | Online
Revisiting Iron John: A Five Part Online Exploration of Mythic Masculinity for Today | Jan 26—Feb 23, Wednesdays, 7-9p ET | Online
Exploring the Green Book: A Lifeline for African Americans Traveling in the Northeast | Feb 5, 10:30a ET | Online
HeART Journaling | Every Thursday in Jan & Feb, 12p ET | Online

$$ (fun-raising)

cynthia lin is fundraising for bcnc

other opportunities

Relaunch of Boston Opportunity Fund announced
Mass Cultural Council Seeks Public Input on COVID Relief Program
- Mass Cultural Council will convene a virtual Public Input Session on January 24, 2022, from 4-6pm, to solicit public comment on how the $60 million in the state’s ARPA spending plan to aid artists and cultural organizations with pandemic recovery should be utilized and invested.
- The Agency is seeking feedback from all stakeholders to determine what types of assistance programs are considered most helpful or necessary by artists and cultural organizations. Those who prefer to submit written comments can do so until 5pm on February 7, 2022.
Reading Work - Open Call (get paid to read abolitionist texts)

right now i’m learning…

that essentialism (by greg mckeown) is like… my whole life dream.