July Intentions & Events
Slow activist summers & co-existing in the both/and of life. Plus, cowriting opportunities & workshops for you to join!
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Happy July!
We’re going to jump right in and start off with what we have coming up this month that you can join. I’ll be taking a one-week break starting July 14 to just focus on fun. Waking up when we’re no longer tired instead of 6am, eating lots of fruits, making summer drinks and being in the sun with my kids. Don’t worry—things will still be scheduled here.
We want to honor the slowness that summer ushers in and encourage you to disconnect as often as possible from devices. We are working on a schedule where we aren’t showing up in your inbox too often, but when we do it will be chock-full of fresh work for you to devour. The goal is to send something every other week on Fridays. Think of it as summer Fridays.
July at Lit Lib:
WRITE NOW co-working sessions are now moving to Wednesday and Thursday at new times! We’re going to trial-run this over the summer and if it works well for folks, we will keep it into the fall. These are our twice weekly co-working sessions that are free to all subscribers. This starts officially next week.
Starting July 28, I’m hosting my second session of Gentle Effort Summer Club☀️, where we’ll meet four Mondays in a row for two hours to work on whatever we want in some company together. This is free for paid members and $25 for general audience.
Geography of Joy begins July 19 and happens every other Saturday. Links to register here. Only ten spaces available.
Sister Outsider Study Circle kicks off on July 13 and meets weekly. Space is super limited so I suggest registering right away.
BTS, we’ll be working on scheduling some fall and winter workshops so stay tuned for those announcements! Don’t forget to join our Slack group!
Community,
How are you managing any where in the world right now? How are you taking stock, or at least attempting to?
My desire is a slow churning summer. I’m conflicted in the things I want and the things I need. I know I have to hold both, and somehow it feels incredibly selfish to want that in this moment.
I don’t know where you stand on any number of issues currently reverberating our conscious selves, but I’ve thrown myself headfirst into this project because it’s what calls to me the loudest.
So what do I want? A slow activist summer. A slow awakening? A deeper connection to life off the screen but not, because my struggles are 3,600 miles away. I want to pour into myself and my family. I want to have less stuff and only things I love. I want to feel safer and know my thoughts and actions aren’t causing harm to people I love.
This year opened with a rumble towards more radicalization of myself. We’re at July today, and the steps I’ve taken so far have felt profound and somehow still tiny?
I guess what I’m talking about it focus. I guess it’s purpose. I think it’s intention. There are so many overused words. I’ve never too much liked the idea that we use the language of war and struggle to explain the simplest things. I’m not battling the extreme heat we’re experiencing in Europe right now. I’m enduring it. I recognize the both/and in much of what I feel and do and sometimes I don’t want to both/and a thing.
I do a few things: I created and run Raising Mothers, a literary platform exclusively sharing the parenting narratives of the global majority; I created and run Literary Liberation, a literary educational platform and community; and I write. Do I do these things equally? No. Of all of them, I make the least amount of time to write, and I’m using this summer as my reset. My work mirrors my philosophy on life: I am not meant to do all the things at once no matter what capitalism is trying to force down my throat. I am here to feel and experience life and however that shows up in a particular moment, it is my duty to honor that as best I can. Capitalism has also taught us to compete and these three parts of me aren’t in competition. They are a compliment to each other. They are different expressions of the same core values.
For as far back as I can recall, activism has been a core tenet to my personal ethos. I could not tell you exactly where that came from; I did not have the great fortune of growing up around adults who believed in challenging systems. In fact, I am the one who laid the idea of injustice at my mother’s feet. It makes me feel so alien and I don’t know if it’s this extreme heat making me miss NY a bit extra right now or what, but it’s serving as a mirror where my own internal struggles are being amplified. I look at my kids and how much I’ve already poured into them to make them socially conscious people and how much work and effort it takes. Then I think about my own experience was through the news and reading poetry and plays.
This month feels like a jumble of thoughts. It’s still too hot to make it make sense, but this is what I have to offer you in hopes you find a nugget somewhere.
This summer is about letting go, going slow, giving myself permission to be fed in the ways I need as I need them.
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