Care has been on my mind
Hello!
Before we get into things today: Would you mind taking this short reader survey? In the face of my multi-passionate brain amidst my limited-spoons body, I am having trouble deciding where to put my creative focus this next season. So I’m doing a few surveys across the different places where people follow and support me. I’d love to hear what you would like to see more of from me! Thank you!!
Dreaming around care 🌱
What if our economy and lives were (re)centered around care? What if we saw foodways as nourishment instead of as commodity? Education as caring for the next generation instead of as training for a labor market? Caring for elders as the weaving work of lineage instead of as chore? Creativity as necessary expression and art as living archive instead of as entertainment? Maintenance work as collective care instead of as industry?
This thought experiment has been opening something up inside of me…small seed though it may be. Glimpses of just how much I continue to view the world and work through the financialized lens of capitalism.
Richer radical alternatives exist. These are possible ways of living: The monastery as mutual aid society // The WildSeed Way // Being in commitment with human and non-human relations // Care work and disability justice.
A comic about care ✋🏼
Zooming in, I wrote this short comic essay about care — and the ways I get in the way of myself around receiving care or (re)building community infrastructures of care.
Then I wrote up a list of readings / frameworks / worksheets on the possibility models of radical care in community, if we can unlearn the heteronormative patriarchal norms that lock up care.
I also hosted a Care-Themed Study Hall as a space to do: silent book club, co-working, or body-doubling on any of the above readings/exercises. But I got anxious and didn’t really spread the word as much as I needed to for anyone to show up. But I used the time to read and study and dream. (I only stewed for part of it. ;)
(Which is why I am inviting you to fill out this short survey to give me more info about what you’d like to see and hear more of from me! The data might assuage my gremlins.)
Teachers 🍓
RIP Joanna Macy, Patty Berne, Andrea Gibson.
Take care,
Christina