dear friends,
I am having reoccurring thoughts about cocoons.
they are such useful metaphors for so many seasons of life. cocoons give you permission to be silent and still, while confronting the terrifying process of internal change — much of which feels barely legible to oneself, let alone to others.
no one else sees how you dissolve into soup. how you incubate, and metabolize. and rebuild. cocooning is comforting, and it’s lonely and hard.
winter is a cocoon, a website is a cocoon, my teaching is a cocoon, all my practices are cocoons — and art; art is the ultimate cocoon. cocoons give me permission to disappear — and to reappear, one day — as something entirely different.
death of my caterpillar
a few weeks ago, my mother found a caterpillar in her houseplant. I tried to take care of it — to understand what it needed, to help it pupate into a chrysalis or cocoon, and to silently accompany me, during these next months of dormancy. my tarot card of the year is The Hanged Man. I thought to myself that to witness this caterpillar suspend itself felt like a gift from life.
but, then, it died. and of course, I feel guilty and responsible for this. how quickly I attached to it, in just 5 days! I am aware that this is probably a form of displacement grief, and missing my dog Luna — who exists like a blinding eclipse in my mind. distance feels like death. so, I drew this. you can read the full story here.
even though, for this caterpillar, the cocoon/chrysalis did not happen, it exists — more present than ever — in the open sky of my mind.
when my mind feels slippery and I start asking questions — what am I doing? what is this? why am I here? what is the point of all this? — I return to this image of the cocoon. I am gathering my resources, making the work, and nurturing this space. I am allowing growth, and change.
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🧃 Money Juice Cleanse starts Monday
Money Juice Cleanse is my 7 day offering for deep money work, delivered as light and playful juice box-inspired creative practices.
the live session will include: two 90 min discussion sessions + my ongoing guidance + community support + your questions/collaboration to help me create this offering. it’ll be a short, sweet 10 days which I hope will infuse your entire year with lightness & abundance.
dates: Mon Jan 26 - Wed Feb 4
fee: $120 for forever access + guided live session
Labyrinth Library — Season 2 Registration is Open
Labyrinth is my 12 week community container and ongoing teaching vessel — for navigating the wilderness of the creative life. the members in Labyrinth are magical and inspiring — I hope you’ll join us there.
notes from season 1:
labyrinth as a hiking trail map
community reflections
my season 1 reflection notes
artifacts library
dates: Feb 16 - May 16, 2026
🌑 Recent Creations
make art the center of your world
remember that your art is not an afterthought - it is the center that holds everything. it's the life source that feeds your creative world.
in this episode, I'll examine the ways we're taught to think about the binary of art vs. business - and propose my third way of deep integration.
make art the center of your world — kening zhu
your art as the life source that fuels your world
I made a trail map to capture how Labyrinth feels like a non-linear journey of 4 pathways — community, practice, materials, and mystery.
labyrinth as hiking trail map — kening zhu
4 paths for being inside the labyrinth
drawing my way through darkness and anxiety
where is my submarine? — kening zhu
blinding winter sun, dark anxious days
objects of power, capricorn III
fairytale objects as portals into the empire-building energy of capricorn
objects of power, capricorn iii — kening zhu
fairytale objects as doors into the unconscious
🔮 Curations from the Archives
this week’s curations is about creating cocoons
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a website is a cocoon for becoming
a website as incubative creative process for holding change
a website is a cocoon for becoming — kening zhu
a web vessel to hold your processes of change
the story of my first internet cocoon
snapshots of my first personal “blog” website ever, circa 2015
cocoonery: the story of my first internet home — kening zhu
how I started writing on the internet
the minimalist elements you need to cocoon
cocoon in your tent — kening zhu
in the dark night of the soul
years ago, I made a digital zine about sleep.
sleep zine: on nurturing a new ritual — kening zhu
i made a ritual zine about sleep
🧧 Digital Abundance
Digital Abundance is the business course I’ve been preparing my whole life to teach. I’ll guide you, step by step, through imagining, planning, creating, sharing, and releasing a paid offering — and to build the infrastructure for a business ecosystem that feeds your world.
course begins — March 9, 2026
registration will open soon
🗺️ Advising Sessions
I’ve been feeling inspired to reshape my 1:1 advising offering. in addition to 2 hour intensives (where we’ll lay out all the amorphous puzzle pieces of your world), I now offer 1 hour focus sessions — in which we’ll laser focus on untangling one knotty challenge.
I also created a new bookings system for a more seamless process — (because scheduling/logistics = my procrastination black hole).
📝 Notes to Self
what I write in my journals / what goes on in my head
NO Procrasta-Planning - see how much time that saves if you only just either REST 15” or WORK 15”
NO phone checking for 2-3 hours after waking — again! your brain is much more juicy when untouched by notifications.
NO admin work in the mornings — see above. morning email puts you in a bad mood.
even if you wake up with a sense of paralyzing fear and existential terror, the work is to keep going.
cyclical menstrual energy is seriously REAL. before/during period is like ophelia in the water, but by day 8, you will feel like a warrior of Mars. try not to slip into afternoon depression. go for a run! draw out the bad feelings.
a mind prone to falling - is still a beautiful mind. watch the gravity. use it for art-making. dance with it.
how to decide between traveling vs. staying at parents’ home? — do you need silence or stimulation? trust that the right places will call you in, at the right time.
I am running into a new year by Lucile Clifton — a poetry tonic for this time
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I’m wishing you a good week.
may you find what you need.
🐚 kening
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🍃 podcast: botanical studies of internet magic
🦋 join the winter/spring season of labyrinth library
🏔️ explore my courses: house on the webs | creative systems | sharing space camp | money juice cleanse | digital abundance
🪷 advising with me: liminal leap, and intensive sessions
🌔 otherworldly: a web alchemy studio
💧 send me a gift: water my world
You just read issue #71 of kening's letters. You can also browse the full archives of this newsletter.