lqb2weekly #177 (5 oct 2022)

Oct 5, 2022

hey,

preface: this is the first newsletter since july. it’s PACKED. take what you want and leave the rest. don’t let it overwhelm you. :) also, this edition is too long for most inboxes so if you’re reading this in your inbox (and most of you are), there will be a point where it looks like it got cut off. if you still want more, scroll back up to the top and click the ‘open in browser’ or ‘open in app’ links in the header to see the whole thing. <3

so this is basically how i’ve felt all summer about my lack of publishing lqb2weekly:

but over the last week, i started to feel more like:

because this summer was WILD and EXCELLENT. and i’m not tryna be ashamed of enjoying it. since the last newsletter on 21 july, i have been to: western massachusetts a couple times (to keep working on the retreat center), waitsfield VT a couple of times (to co-facilitate the better selves fellowship), italy (for friend vacations), and the allagash river in maine (4 night canoe trip!). it’s been a lovely run of a summer and i’m ready to start slowing down a bit (but just a bit lol because >_>).

anyways, there are a million and one things i want to share in this edition but i’m gonna pare it down to about 50% of the full list. here goes!

if you want to donate to support the water crisis in jackson, mississippi, here’s a spot: mississippi water donations
a little while back i was a guest on the wonder dome hosted by andy cahill. i had the gift of being in that conversation with a friend and former neighbor, yotam schachter. we had a great conversation and talked (surprise surprise) all about patriarchy. check out our conversation: #106 Facing the Violence Within (with Lawrence Barriner and Yotam Schachter).
me and tanzanite msola are teaching a BIPOC storytelling and meditation workshop! check it out, signup deadline is 24 oct.
my dear friend (and fellow newsletterer), emet, has a book of poetry out. if you like poems, def order emet’s poems! overview over here.
my friend, nadav, shared this beautiful jewish zine: 21 grief technologies.
preppers: i’ve been watching prepper stuff for a while and these two pieces are pretty interesting to me!
- The super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse

The Snap Forward

This Letter Could Ruggedize Your Life.

Hey friends— I’m excited to let you know that I’m teaching a new ten-week class this fall, A Crash Course in Personal Ruggedization. This is a unique opportunity to engage in a deep exploration of the forces shaping our world. We’re going to get there through a ten-week course, combining de…

7 months ago · Alex Steffen

black ecologie: paige curtis, a new friend and alum of the better selves fellowship, has a new newsletter and it’s excellent! check it out and subscribe if it interests you. you’ll see it in the newsletter section of lqb2weekly from here on out.

over the summer i met an amazing artist, nia witherspoon, at knoll farm during hte week before the benefit concert for the better selves fellowship. she has a project called Priestess of Twerk: A Black Femme Temple to Pleasure + Wisdom School. to learn more and stay up to date, check out the website and sign up for her email list here. to make a tax deductible donation, please contact remi@here.org. it’s dope work and i definitely hope you contribute if you’re interested! here’s a longer blurb about the project if you’re curious…
finally, my old friend, tomashi jackson, is teaching a learning pod with UJIMA: exploring histories of education advocacy before and after brown v board. check it out. first session is oct 5!

an ask: i need a caaaaaar. i’m gonna be spending a lot more time driving back and forth from boston to (and around in) western massachusetts in the next months/year. i’d love to find a car to use/rent/buy(?!). do you have an extra car lying around? know someone who does? just reply to this email and lmk what the sitch is.

phew! ok. thanks for coming to my ~~newsletter~~ TEDx talk.

on to the things!

(!!) pick of the pack

writing

some things i’ve written since the last newsletter:

Oct 3, 2022 | book review: captive genders: trans embodiment and the prison industrial complex
Oct 2, 2022 | book review: the compassion book
Sep 27, 2022 | le'mn "movement" music 2022
Sep 23, 2022 | grief when friends have babies
Sep 22, 2022 | unleashing alternative futures: what if trees were beings?
Aug 3, 2022 | run thoughts: trump and bezos as doro; u.s. military as the world's largest social welfare program

quotes

there is nothing new under the sun.

Most of us were taught that God would love us if and when we change. In fact, God loves you so that you can change. What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change is the experience of love. It is that inherent experience of love that becomes the engine of change. — Richard Rohr

Before the truth sets you free, it tends to make you miserable. — Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Much of the work of midlife is to tell the difference between those who are dealing with their issues through you and those who are really dealing with you. — Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a person’s life is made up of nothing but the habits they accumulated during the first half. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Research widely, select carefully.
Broad funnel, tight filter. — James Clear

My life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. — George Bernard Shaw

The first step—perhaps the most enormous step—is to find what you are genuinely interested in.
If you are genuinely interested, you will discover endless opportunities for improvement. But if you are disinterested, even obvious improvements will feel like a chore.
And, if you can maintain your genuine interest and curiosity as the years accumulate, you will become hard to compete with because you will have skill to go with your passion. If you’re interested, you’re dangerous. — James Clear

The chief prevention against getting old is to remain astonished. — Kevin Kelly

As a child I was taught that to tell the truth was often painful. As an adult I have learned that not to tell the truth is more painful, and that the fear of telling the truth — whatever the truth may be — that fear is the most painful sensation of a moral life. — June Jordan

Knowledge is making the right choice with all the information. Wisdom is making the right choice without all the information. — James Clear

I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so important to know as to feel. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil. Once the emotions have been aroused — a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love — then we wish for knowledge about the subject of our emotional response. Once found, it has lasting meaning. It is more important to pave the way for the child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate. — Rachel Carson

It is not necessary to change a person in order to change their behavior.
Just change their environment. — James Clear

Anyone who acts without paying attention to what he is doing is wasting his life. I’d go so far as to say life is denied by lack of attention, whether it be to cleaning windows or trying to write a masterpiece. — Nadia Boulanger

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory. — Howard Zinn

If you’re unwilling to adapt to the future, you’ll justify the past. — James Clear

I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable. All these and other factors combined, if the circumstances are right, can teach and can lead to rebirth. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Building habits in the present helps you to do more of what you want in the future. — James Clear

poetry

sleeping in the forest — mary oliver

reads

some things i’ve read since the last newsletter:

listens

some audio and/or podcasts i’ve listened to since the last newsletter:

watches

some videos i watched since the last newsletter:

jams

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

misunderstood — banks
prisoners & guards — aisha badru
crawling — linkin park
water — kehlani
church girl — beyoncé
plastic off the sofa —> virgo’s groove — beyoncé
the water poem — ram dass, awaré

jobs

Core Consultant/Trainer | Racial Healing Initiative | $20k ($75/hour) | Remote
Clean Transportation Program Director | Union of Concerned Scientists | $171,000-$191,000 | Remote
Mijente
- Development Project Manager | $73-77k | Remote
- Director of Transformational Giving | $80-87k | Remote
ICA Group
- Communications Director | $73-78.6k | Remote
- Executive Director for the Fund for Jobs Worth Owning | $95-105k | Remote
- Cooperative Growth Consultant | $62-66k | Remote
- Director of People and Culture | $75-81k | Northampton, MA
Muslim Justice League
- Campaign Organizer | $50k | Boston
- Communications Director | $50k | Boston
Jews for Racial & Economic Justice
- Executive Director | $80-90k | NYC
- Lead Organizer | $65-70k | NYC
Responsible Computer Science Challenge Fellow | Mozilla | $45k PT | Kenya
Boston Neighborhood CLT
- Project and Operations Manager | $80-90k | Boston
- Resident/Neighborhood Organizer | $60-65k | Boston
Consultant - Program Director | Breakthrough Strategies & Solutions | $140-160k PT
ECCO
- Field Coordinators: English-speaking, Bilingual English-Spanish, Bilingual English-Haitian Creole
- Community Ambassadors: English, Spanish, or Haitian Creole speaking
- Data Coordinator
- All the positions

fun-raising

other opportunities

newsletters

black ecologie: Vol II: how to start a fire 🔥
solstice newsletter: #4 - eclipsed + w/ updates!
emet ezell: how can we be together?
building belonging: Liberatory Governance... and belonging
astroradicals: THE MOOD: Rumble and Bumble
better humans daily: Pleasure is fine, but satisfaction is what you should chase.

right now i’m learning…

that i DEFINITELY overdid it with travel this summer. it was lovely but i have realized that i actually don’t need as much travel or vacation as i booked this summer. i saw it all coming back in like april/may and thought it was gonna be a lot and fine. and it was a lot. but too much. the major takeaway: this being my first full year of self-employment, i think (coming out of working for other people) i expected i would need a LOT more vacation than i ever took when employed somewhere else. i overcorrected and it’s good to learn that i actually need less vacation than i anticipated. definitely taking 20 days off the grid between aug and sept was rough (but i also think if i’d planned better it could be fine). i’m also learning the difference between full-on vacation time and time not doing paid work but still doing stuff (including my community/organizing/movement work).

mood

it’s fallllll. i always don’t like fall. it’s the reminder that winter is coming and the slow down is imminent. it’s a good reminder. slowing down is just so hard. treebeard (see gif), helps me remember how to slow down and why. tree medicine is potent. such good medicine for these times…

You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say. — treebeard