lqb2weekly #199 (11 aug 2024)

Aug 11, 2024

hey,

phew! team! it’s been a minute! i wanted real bad to get this out during late july and i just couldn’t muster the energy (#summer). but here we are. thank you for your patience. :D

first up, i had an amazing breakfast back in june with brian stout, an internet buddy whose writing i have admired for a long while. his newsletter bridging towards belonging, is a beautiful contribution praxis-oriented contribution and if you haven’t checked it out, i def recommend it! anyway, i just wanted to share this cute photo of us at a local palestinian restaurant to remind myself that it is possible to form connections online that become beautiful crossings IRL.

(i wrote this next paragraph back in late july so it’s outdated but just pretend you’re reading this 2 weeks ago): this mercury pre-retrograde is absolutely WRECKING. something i heard chani say the other day on the weekly podcast: this merc pre-ret sitch is pointing to many things, one of which is this: now is a great time to pay attention to what feels shaky or unstable. and if it’s possible to clear it out, do it. if not, that’s ok. just watch it. because once we get to mercury retrograde, the shaking is about to get way more intense and lots of stuff won’t make it. and by shaking, i guess i heard her say “intense review.” mercury retrograde, which gets a lot of shit (and for good reason, things DO tend to break during merc retrograde, says chani), can be proactively approached as an opportunity to pay attention to what’s fragile and either needs extra attention or needs to be allowed to break and let whatever else needs to come thru to come thru. are you ready? i am not.

ok now on to some cute summer updates:

i caught my first party wave! me and a metamour went surfing in mid/late july and both caught the same wave and i didn’t even realize how fun it would be to ride the same wave with someone. new level unlocked. wow!
i have had several hangs this summer where nibblings of mine from different parts of my life have gotten to hang out. and it is SUCH a joyful experience. if you’ve read the patternist series, you might understand some of what excites me about my nibblings beginning to weave together.
july 20th was the first day of the parable of the sower. i just ordered a copy so that i could read along. anyone else doing this? i’m thinking about trying to host some sort of VERY LOW KEY read-along (maybe it’s IG posts with a prompt for folks to share what they’re seeing/noticing/resonating with? if you have energy or an idea here, i welcome it! feel free to respond to this in email or leave a comment on substack).

earlier this week, i ran into ora grodsky. her new book is ready for pre-order (due march 2025). she’s not actually promoting it yet, but i have been hearing about this for years now and i’m excited to get some early word out about it. more about this in the future. Justice, Love, and Organizational Healing: A Guide to Transformational Consulting

and speaking of books, an old classmate just put out a book! i haven’t read it but she is an excellent human and i’d love if one of you read it and lmk how it is.

“At a moment when hot summers, flooding streets, and wildfire-smoke filled skies are impacting us all, it's normal to feel anxious about the future and seek tangible ways to help. I wrote Climate Action for Busy People for those who worry about the advancing climate crisis and want to contribute to keeping their communities safe, but who are also busy working, caregiving, studying, or keeping up with domestic tasks.
The book is roughly divided into three parts. The first digs into why our communities look the way they do. The second walks you through realistic, concrete tasks that you can do today, alone or with family and friends, to protect your community from the climate crisis with only a handful of hours. The final section is a guide to organizing and making change at the municipal level to ensure a more equitable distribution of climate adaptation resources in your community. This book is a quick read and has something for anyone who wants a safer, cleaner, greener future.”

speaking of friends doing fun things, my friend, ariel friedman, poet, musician, mama, etc., has a new band, Feltheart, with two shows coming up this month! they play folk/jazz originals and covers and it’s ari, plus Alex Fam and Anat Hochberg with Matt Meyer on percussion. All kid-friendly! Feel free to pass this along to anyone you think might be interested.

show 1: Sunday, August 18, 4pm
Roslindale, MA
Backyard Summer Concert
RSVP for the address

show 2: Friday, August 23, 12:30pm
Boston, MA
Boston Public Library’s Concerts in the Courtyard

also here’s a video from their last concert so you can get a sense of the vibes.

speaking of music from friends, some folks and i are beginning to plan a grief ritual for men and one of the folks in the planning crew, jordan mudd, recently published a grief song that i wanted to share: don’t wipe your tears. it’s meant as a song to be sung in community/a group. enjoy and lmk if you use it. i’ll share everything back with jordan.

i would be remiss in this newsletter without saying something about politics so here’s a tiny bit: i have so many feels about american electoral politics but right now the thing i mostly want to share is this writing i did a while ago while working at the center for story-based strategy: changing the story on democracy. it’s a little dated but i think it’s worth a read. and if you don’t wanna or don’t have time to read it, this graphic is the tl;dr:

thanks to angus maguire for this simple and beautiful illustration.

…as [adrienne maree] brown and Ash-Lee Henderson, Executive Director of the Highlander Center, and many others said, we must not confuse the story of voting with the story of liberation. Brown reminds us that the work isn't about winning and losing; it's about the perpetual struggle (i.e. organizing) for more and more liberation. What’s outside the frame of the story of voting is that wins and losses are both just part of the process. We must see our work as bigger than whether or not we won (or lost) today or yesterday or tomorrow.

one last tangent: i’ve got a blog post in progress about this but i’ll give a quick preview… during a recent coaching call, i clarified an insight: there is a (good) value that we (lefty movement spaces) prioritize, no human being better or more valuable than any other human, that creates a (bad) side effect; devaluing the differences in people’s ability/skill/expertise at specific things. in the context of the olympics (which i have been watching sparingly), as much as i don’t support nationalism, i do think it’s totally valid to want to be the best in the world at something. and i think that can serve our work, organizations, and movements as long as we don’t conflate being better at something with being better than someone else.

ok. there are so many other things on my mind and for now… on to the things!

(!!) pick of the pack

writing

some things i’ve written since the last newsletter:

Jul 28, 2024 | boundaries: it's easier to go from tight to wide than to go shrink from wide to tight
Jul 22, 2024 | unleashing alternative futures: challenge accepted

quotes

there is nothing new under the sun. also, full transparency, many of these quotes come from james clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter (which i love).

Let your dream devour your life, not your life devour your dream. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Don’t wait to start writing until you have something to say. Start writing so you can find out what you have to say.
You first idea is rarely your best idea. It can take a lot of reps before you discover something worth keeping. — James Clear

You will never find one answer to what makes you happy. There are many answers, and they change based on your current state.
People need to relax, but if all you do is sit on the beach, it gets old. People find meaning in work, but if all you do is work, it gets exhausting. People benefit from exercise, but if all you do is exercise, it gets unhealthy.
Happiness will always be fleeting because your needs change over time. The question is: what do you need right now? — James Clear

I am always doing what I can’t do yet in order to learn how to do it. — Vincent Van Gogh

My personal rule is that it’s a good idea to be patient as long as I’m in the mix.
If I’m taking action, putting in my reps, and trying things out, then I should remain patient and see what opportunities arise. But if I’m not taking action consistently, then I’m not practicing patience. I’m just waiting. — James Clear

Whether you are an adult or child, your first attempts will often seem unimportant or foolish.
- The open mic night at a nearly empty bar
- The early blog posts that get ignored
- The dance recital on a little stage
Early attempts are easy to dismiss because they don’t seem to amount to much. But you have to do the low stakes stuff to prepare for the high stakes stuff. They are the building blocks of confidence, and that’s an enormous thing. — James Clear