Surrounding ourselves with good witnesses

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This week my focus turned toward something that wasn’t working for me and I became obsessed with turning it into a bigger problem I needed to solve on my own. My ability to hyper focus becomes sharp and all consuming and I convince myself that if something doesn’t change I won’t be in control.

I went full speed into deciding I needed to completely change my career, do a 180, hide away in my future flower farm forever, never to be seen again.

What slowed me down and pulled me out of the spin cycle of doom was talking to my friends. Specifically three friends who have a similar job as I do : showing up to the page and writing about our experience of living. Or trying to live. Or somehow not dying.

who writes
who writes
who writes

I know I spend a lot of time in my writing, my teaching, my facilitating, and this newsletter talking about my beloveds who are my peers who are the great inspirations of my life. This is because I believe that it is my greatest tool to have friends in the field. My radio show was called Friendship Village because I love to live in small towns but also the small town in my heart is made up of the other writers, artists, and freaks who I turn to when the going gets tough.

I believe naming our teachers, something I consider these three and so many others to be, is an honoring of saying how we become the shapes of ourselves. I also hope it sheds the light on how much our human form is made up of the many parts of so many brilliant lights.

I keep close those are in the same arena as me, showing up with the same rigorous honesty and dedication to the page. I want to feel a little prickle of jealousy when my friends write the best newsletter ever, so that I may be pushed to do the same. I want to bask in the glory of words strung together as offerings to the divine, not because anyone asked us to, but because if we do not we evaporate into nothingness.

When I want to quit, I know I can text any one of those three people and they will tell me not to quit. Or they tell me if I quit or change everything they will still love me. This is the thing about the work, I want to be loved for it, and in spite of it.

I want to write because there is no other way. With dancing and quilting there has always been another way around doing it, but with writing there is not. I am called to type and so I do. And when I do not I don’t understand myself or my life as well.

I name my three friends who helped me this week to say : do this for yourself. Find three co-workers in your field. Whether it is other friends who have the same nine to five as you, are also therapists, provide the same services, or have even just some creative overlap that makes you feel less alone. Find them and keep them close. And closeness doesn't require constant contact, it just requires telling the truth, being willing to be seen, and being a steady witness.

Technology and the digital age will continue to shift in a way that does not serve our attention, that pulls at the seams of our focus, that bullies us into believing if we do not use it we will not reach success or growth. Do not believe this, whatever you do stay in alignment with the values you set out to maintain and to keep. As the grief of the world folds in, move toward deep work and relationships with other artists, writers, herbalists, weirdos in your field. May you wave in the wind together untouched my the attention economy, holding each other in the roots of what is the creative force that holds you.

So much of writing is a solitary act, but the process of knowing ourselves as writers does not have to be. We can smash the idea that we must hunker down and work alone, grinding away in an effort to find ourselves. We can turn towards that which is as old as time - writing alone, tending together.

May you savor your attention
May you find yourself alongside those who witness you in solidarity and love

Flexible Office kicked off yesterday with an amazing visioning session (the recording is available now) and we start today! The doors are always open you can join anytime, and your first two weeks are free xo

1. Yet again we find ourselves here, in the great grief of an unchanging world. Cast a spell of protection around Ralph Yarl and his family by donating to this go fund me

2. I have a fresh stack of Friendship Village advice books hot of the press (Friendship Village was my community radio + advice show in Madrid, NM)

   GRAB A COPY

3. If you are in New Mexico do not miss this talk with Thursday April 20

   bluekaza

   

   A post shared by Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo (@bluekaza)

4. This weekend I am looking forward to attending Walk to the wide open window
   an art show from at Selenas Mountain in New York City
   April 22 - June 10, 2023
   Opening Reception: Saturday, April 22, 7-10 pm

5. Panda Landa has a beautiful art show up at Mojave Flea in Yucca Valley, CA you can check out the work for sale here

6. Morning writing music

7. Inspired by this roadside stand in Vermont

8. A beautiful excerpt from latest in

   fariha_roisin

   

   A post shared by Fariha Róisín (@fariha_roisin)

9. Click here for a really comprehensive post from on action items as laws continue to be passed against trans bodies and lives. I appreciate how much Sam talks about all of the things we can do outside of redistribution and calling - how much there is we can do in mutual care for each other :

   
   can you make a week of meals for your trans friends? can you offer pro-bono services, legal? mental health care? can you buy a week of groceries for someone? can you recommend or offer safe medical care? can you boost mutual aid calls in your own network? can you offer ride share services? can you help someone write a grant for name changes document IDs? can you take on the emotional labor of research HRT services & care providers? do you have access to funds to help someone move to a save-haven state? are you talking about this with your family members who may have access to more resources? can they help?

   

10. Just a note of appreciation for Bear Hebert, whose money talk I went to last week and was so inspired to stay aligned in my spending, saving, debt repayment, and redistribution plan - I highly recommend their class Freely : Anticapitalist Money Course

A portion of April’s paid subscriptions goes towards the Social Justice Sewing Academy

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P.S. I missed the deadline yesterday to tell you about Holisticism’s Systems Spells class but I am still writing here about it because it is an amazing class, as are all of their classes - especially if you are neurodivergent and want to dive into Notion
Check out Michelle’s amazing free video on Monday Hour One