In My Solstice Cocoon
The quiet that comes after the noise
Dear Reader,
After weeks of reporting, marketing, and email sending — I feel quiet. I want to retreat into my cocoon. There’s something about this moment in June: the longest light, the heavy blossoms, the gentle insistence to pause and notice what’s right here. I long for beach weather and yet the dreary rainy days also wrap me up in a way that feels familiar.
Yesterday in Systems for Artists (feel free to join us and grab the recording) I shared some of my favorite definitions of the word system.
a group of celestial objects connected by their mutual attractive forces, especially moving in orbits about a center
Lately, I’ve been paying attention to small corners of my day that don’t ask to be shared. The way the light pools on the kitchen floor at 7am. The slow circles June makes before lying down. The words I write that never leave the page. These small, secret things remind me that my life is still mine — even when I feel the expectations of others swinging down on me.
I suppose this is my way of saying: I hope you’re tending to your own interior spaces too. The ones no algorithm can find. The ones that grow wild and soft when left alone for a while. The great seed planting.
Sometimes I forget that Landscapes is not just a writing group or a place to share work — it’s a room I can slip into when the world outside asks too much. A soft interior space for thinking beside others. A place to be changed by what someone else is noticing. This month my dear friend Sky Fusco has been hosting so that I may take a break. Focusing on Pilates, dance, and rest - it has been both a luxury and a place I miss dearly.
This week Friday at 12pm EST I am delighted to be hosting Laurel Schwulst inside of the Landscapes ecosystem. Laurel will be giving an Are.na talk — an informal hour about how she works, how she collects ideas, and how she trusts the shape that things want to take. Laurel’s practice reminds me that the internet can still feel like a garden, or a bookshelf, or a half open window where ideas land on your desk and you shuffle them around and then create new work.
If you’re feeling quiet too, come sit with us. Bring your questions or just listen. Maybe you’ll pick up an idea or two to sit with later.
See you there.
More soon,
Cody
Things of Note :
Grief Writing for Children of Immigrants is a free writing series hosted by Alej Perez-Kohl, MS, LMFT
Northern Michigan folks : Molly Moynahan is teaching her amazing memoir class again this Summer at NMC - July 7th–August 4th (Mondays, 10–12pm EDT)
I finally saw Sinners and I loved it
Huge congrats to Green Door Folk School and Cedar North on collaborating and giving Green Door a home!
CLASSIFIEDS : Reconnect with the folk traditions that held your people long before whiteness swallowed us whole. and do it in service to liberation in our lifetimes How to work with astrology to support your creative + entrepreneurial journey: a free workshop, happening today! 5/16. Learn more + sign up. Commission an intuitive, abstract painting created through ritual and reflection—a way to honour your energy and inner world. Explore soulscapes. Does your work need a jolt of joy? I work with smart people to bring their ideas to life with custom illustration, infographics, comics: dtmstudio.ca It's HOT WRITER SUMMER 🔥 Get your story/essay idea ready to send in just one hour with me, your personal pitching coach. Let’s get you published.
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Instagram : @codycookparrott @personalpractice
Email : info@codycookparrott.com
Website : https://www.codycookparrott.com
Writing Group : Landscapes
Want to read May’s installment for paid subscribers : Check out A Devastated Heart, a Return to the iPhone, and a Pilates shed