Today I am announcing a new project and talking about the mystery and magic of a daily practice.
Ordinary Practice
A Daily Prayer and Meditation Book
Serialized on Substack
Every day for the next year I will publish an entry in a new newsletter that will eventually become part of a self published book to come out Summer Solstice June 21 2025.
Ordinary Practice is a paid only newsletter and every day you get a new prayer / meditation on topics like codependence, addiction, miracles, ordinary blessings, and more from May 1 2024 - April 30 2025. Beyond this it may continue, morph into something else, or become complete. More will be revealed.
The daily newsletter is the first part and the second part is the finished book. Don’t want an email everyday but interested? Wait for the book to come out <3
TO CELEBRATE IT’S LAUNCH SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE 25% OFF
There will be days where I will double up or miss a day and send two days together. There will be some that are longer than others. There will be quotes and assignments and radical wishes for a more liberatory future.
This is for you if :
You want a prayer in your inbox every day for a year
You want to support the creation of this self published book project
You like my writing
You can translate god however you need
This is not for you if :
You don’t want another thing to read
You hate prayers
You don’t like my writing
God sucks
What is serializing? Serializing is the act of publishing something in one place as you write it and then having it become a physical book at a later date. Authors might publish essays in The New Yorker that later become a book, or many have been serializing in their own newsletters.
In 2015 I started a project called Personal Practice where every day for one year I danced, recorded it, and uploaded it to the social media page. I never missed a day. I got better at dancing, went through a divorce, moved across the country, got happier, and self published a book about it that was featured in The New York Times.
I got the idea for Personal Practice through a few things. My mentor Katherine Ferrier encouraging me to dance more, Mary Welcome reminding me I needed a container to put the dancing in, and my brother Sam Cook-Parrott who had a handwritten sign taped to his bedroom wall in Philly that just said SING EVERY DAY.
Committing to something everyday is something I have only really managed to do in a container and with accountability. Staying sober with the help of other sober people, dancing everyday in the social media portal with an audience, and now I will write a prayer every day and make a book of them.
In traditional publishing you usually get an advance for the book and in this experiment I am keeping all prayers behind the paywall. Someday I may remove the paywall, make a digital copy, or something else. But for this first wave of the experiment it is a paid only newsletter. If you are my friend and want to read it please text me and I’ll add you. If you are my friend and reading me pray to the public everyday sounds stressful please don’t text me.
In this experiment I am going to stay totally transparent about the financial side of how it works. Right now there are nine paid subscribers which is a community funded advance of $329. I feel abundant! Personal Practice was completely unhooked from capitalism until 2017 when I did a Kickstarter for the book which made $12,957 and pre sold over 300 books. I decided to do Ordinary Practice this way to see if it could work and be an example for other people with an interest in serializing a book. Once the book comes out I’ll share how much I made through serializing and how much I made with the pre-orders of the book.
Perhaps five more people will sign up, may all fourteen be blessed for the rest of the year. Perhaps even more will, perhaps this is it! I’ll use the money to live as a writer, pay a designer to make the book, pay for some ads when it comes out, and print the books using a print on demand service I loved using for the Friendship Village Advice Book (my former community radio show)
There will not be a comment section but you are always welcome to reply if you feel moved, share snippets on social media, or tell people about it in your own newsletter.
Daily reflection books are a huge part of my own daily spiritual practice. From the AA Daily Reflections book to Melody Beattie’s The Language of Letting Go - I find great comfort in being able to touch in each day with words that keep my own isms at bay.
It is my hope that this newsletter and book become a part of your own grounding experience, that you can tether in deeper with god, and that you may be inspired to bring your own creative projects to the light.
Ordinary Practice drops into your inbox Wednesday morning. See you there
We start reading the new Artist Way book for Book Club THIS SUNDAY May 5 for all paid subscribers of this newsletter
LIVING THE ARTIST’S WAY BOOK CLUB
🌱 SIX WEEKS
🕸️ SIX EMAILS
📁 SIX ZOOMS
We begin reading the book Sunday May 5 and check in by threads every Friday and by zoom every Sun starting Sunday May 12 at 8amPST/11a EST followed by 5/19, 5/26, 6/2, 6/9, and 6/16 for 60 minutes. The meetings run like a 12 step meeting where you raise your hand to share, have two minutes, and share your own experience, strength, and hope with the group. You don’t have to participate and every meeting is recorded.
HOW TO JOIN :
📖 Buy a copy of Julia Cameron’s new book Living the Artist’s Way : An Intuitive Path to Greater Creativity or check with your local library
🐬 Become a paying subscriber of Monday Monday - this is how you’ll get the Friday emails and zoom links each week
Huge shoutout to everyone who took A Quilt in a Weekend. I mean it when I say we had SO MUCH FUN and broke through huge creative barriers. Drop your email here if you want to know about the next one
This Is a Politicizing Moment. Let’s Spread Our Wings and Lift Up Palestine : This is the gentlest and most mobilizing and beautiful writing I have read about what is happening in Palestine by adrienne maree brown - we flock together.
The Lifegiving Benefits of Befriending Our Mortality by is so so beautiful. Their whole journey and process of writing about it has helped me pay so much more attention to being alive.
Reading : When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry - Edited by Joy Harjo
I got this face wash and its helping my face breakout less
Young deer have been visiting the front yard
I answered all your newsletter questions here
Your newsletter questions answered - by Cody Cook-Parrott
Consistency, randomness, and the in between
Sometimes I deactivate Instagram and it feels like I am in a cocoon
“My being an artist is not a question of being able to make artwork. It is a question of my willingness to make something imperfect, or ugly, and how much resilience I have to face that reality repeatedly.” - in her latest love letter
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⌇⋰ Email : info@codycookparrott.com
⌇⋰ PO Box 252 Cedar, MI 49621