Orbit Day!
Today's newsletter contains a gift for you, so if you're short on time, scroll down!
Above: a very cute happy birthday sign Frank made for me in 2021
Today is my birthday. Much like I love New Year's Eve for being an arbitrary moment of contemplation and revelry in time, I love my birthday for a similar reason: my birthday (and yours, and anyone's) marks a single orbit of the Earth around the sun. Space and time are always enmeshed with one another, but in the case of birthdays, there is a very concrete carving of actual space and distance that corresponds to that passage of time. We often think of this orbit as being Earth tracing circle around the sun, which it is... but our Sun itself is also moving through space, carving its own orbit around the plane of the Milky Way. If you could step outside the Solar System and watch it whisk its way around the Galaxy, you'd see that Earth (and all the planets in our system) trace out helical orbits-- cyclic, but also traveling forward in time, such that we don't really return to the "same" place in space every year. It sounds like a lovely metaphor for change and growth, something to lift your spirits when you feel stuck, but it is also, very literally, true.
Back in 2019, I created a short aerial hoop film capturing my own experiences of this idea, called "40 Orbits", which is how old I was that year. You can watch it here-- the soundtrack was composed by my spouse, Frank Okay, and the film itself was captured and edited by my friend RELAX HI DEF. I had been asked to give a short talk as the Scholastic Arts and Writing Alumni Achievement awardee that year, which involves holding the attention of 2700 teenagers, so I figured I'd just show them something I'd made instead. You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/P_25Mv1rf3o
(I'm reminded as I write this that around ten years ago, there was a video making the rounds showing the solar system as a "vortex"-- that video isn't quite right, for a variety of reasons that my colleague Phil Plait explains here. Surprisingly, the debunking of that video starts with misconceptions about orbital motion and lands you on the edge of Denver Airport conspiracy theories, so buckle up for a wild ride!).
Cupcakes
This birthday has been a quiet one for me-- I played my first show since 2020 the previous weekend (for Frank's album release, listen to it here!) and having some time to chill and reset was pretty great. Today I'm headed to school (circus arts school takes almost no holidays off, including MLK Jr. Day) with a batch of cupcakes. I've been making the same cupcake recipe for a decade now, Amy Sedaris' Vanilla Cupcakes. Yes, Amy Sedaris, comedic goddess, makes what I think is the best vanilla cupcake recipe on Earth. They are incredibly adaptable (I make them vegan by substituting plant-based milk and butter, and flax for the eggs-- in the past I have also made them gluten free, and the recipe stands up to substitution really well). Note that the link I posted suggests you make frosting with only sugar and half and half, which is an affront to both God and Amy Sedaris; please use literally any other buttercream frosting recipe instead).
New Class!
In my quiet time this weekend, I decided to mark this year by launching a class called Moving Through the Universe. Moving Through the Universe was actually the first class I ever dreamed up, a way of bringing together my love of space with my love of movement, and sharing that with others. This class is for you if you want to become comfortable moving more, it’s also for you if you already have ways that you enjoy moving (e.g. dance, running, long walks, circus arts, etc). You don’t need experience of any kind, just openness and curiosity.
Here's the full class description:
Moving Through the Universe is an earthly exploration of movement through cosmic distance, exploring scales beginning from the body, to the planetary, to the galactic, and the universal. Each week, participants will receive learning materials such as guided meditations, stretching and care guides for that week’s focus area, and creative prompts. This class encourages movement that is attentive to body needs, desires, and ability: all creative responses will be subject to the participants’ interpretations. Moving Through the Universe aims to help participants find a meditative space where they can feel both embodied and transcendent, and develop a sense of scale and situatedness in the universe. Most aspects of this class can be done on participants’ own schedules, with a Discord for discussion of the prompts and process, and a weekly virtual live gathering to share what we’ve learned with one another!
I haven't previously offered Moving Through the Universe because, well, I felt really intimidated by it! I have taught a lot of people about space things, and it's partly that, but I've never really brought that together with my art practice in a way that is about holding space for others. When I first dreamed it up, it gave me this feeling of vulnerability that I couldn't quite get my head around for a first class offering. Now, though, it feels like the right time. I hope you'll join me, or share it with someone who might enjoy it.
And as promised, here's a gift for you! Because I can't email you cupcakes, you can use the code CUPCAKES to take 5% off, just for reading this newsletter. Note that if you're a Patreon supporter, you get 10% off, so go look at that post for your code!
Last but not least: this workshop is being launched on MLK Jr Day, and runs through Black History Month, so I will be donating 10% of the proceeds to Ujimaa Medics. Ujimaa Medics is an entirely volunteer-run group dedicated to providing community-based emergency medical training, specifically for gunshot wounds, bridging the huge gap in access to trauma services on the south and west sides of Chicago. You can learn more on their website, or watch their recent segment on Matter Of Fact with Soledad O'Brien.
Here's to another orbit on the helix!