Happy Spring! Podcast, Workshop Dates, and a Request

Actually, I think I'll work backwards, if that's ok

A Request

If you've been following me for any time at all, you will probably remember that I've been supporting a Palestinian family since October of 2023. I first heard about Ahmed and his family from my friend Rosie who was trying to help him and his child be medically evacuated from Gaza. Their home was bombed on or around October 10 and Shawqi was hit in the head by a piece of concrete and severely injured. In the coming months, Ahmed's father fell in to a diabetic coma - unable to get his insulin - and with the help of folks from the Palestinian Grassroots Distribution Project and DonkeySaddle Projects, we were able to stabilize him and get him and his wife out to safety with their daughter and her family in Cairo.

We have been unable to get Ahmed, his wife, Shawqi and his brother, and Ahmed's brother's family out of Gaza, despite trying a multitude of end-runs and creative efforts, but I have been able to send them money to get food, clothing, and, a few months ago, materials to make two sturdy tents.

Ahmed is an architect by trade and was able to construct the tents to mostly keep the families dry and safe this winter (after two and a half years of nomadically moving from place to place, trying to stay safe from the ongoing bombing), but they have no electricity and he is forced to walk several miles once or twice a week to charge his cell phone to communicate. Shawqi has progressively been going blind thanks to the head injury he sustained (an injury that, had he been outside of Gaza, would have been remedied quickly and kept him from losing his sight).

The weather in Gaza has been horrific this winter - cold and rainy, and there has been severe flooding and last week Ahmed messaged me to say that he had located some used solar panels and a controller and battery he can use to power a heater (and a fan in the brutally hot summer to come) and some lights. The cost for the entire system will be about $1800 USD and therein lies the ask: if you are able to contribute any amount to help me send him the money to purchase these materials, I would be eternally grateful. With the wars raging in their part of the world, the likelihood that we will be able to get Ahmed and his family to safety any time soon is diminishing, and I want to keep them as comfortable as possible for now. Every little bit helps.

New Workshop Dates

I've added a few more workshop dates in case folks are interested in online offerings. I won't detail them all here, but you can go to the website and peruse them to see if anything catches your attention. (scroll down past the Venn diagram to see a dropdown menu)

I am also excited to say that, thanks to some amazing new friends in Santa Barbara, I will be doing a weekly Grief Gathering in person on Thursday nights at Su'nan the Space, a gorgeous place dedicated to cultural education and community gatherings. It's a drop in, peer-supported meeting from 5:30-7:30pm where we will explore ideas of collective grief and engage in some somatic practices as well as using our hands to make art and move energy in a way that is supportive and caring. I'll be there every Thursday in April.

I'm just finishing up another 12-week Generative Writing Workshop and I'm curious about what format works best for folks moving forward. I've asked current and former participants what they want, and now it's your turn to weigh in if you want to. The current format is a one-hour online gathering where I provide prompts and folks both write together and discuss what comes up for them in an effort to build community, accountability, and continue to exercise that creative muscle of writing as a vital form of expression. If this sounds interesting to you, please consider completing the poll below to let me know what you'd like.

The Podcast

The most recent episode of the podcast just dropped in case you haven't heard. You can find it here. In this episode, we are talking about the importance of both creativity and rest for our well-being as individuals and a collective. This series is taking a serious look at how our current economy has nothing to do with meeting our real human needs, and exploring all the ways we are getting and not getting those needs met. The goal is to begin imagining what it might look like to create systems and structures that are rooted in care and acknowledgment of our humanity within the wider network of life on this planet.

The companion piece isn't up yet, but when I'm done writing it, it will appear on the Substack that is dedicated to this podcast project. I started this because I wanted a place where listeners could give me feedback on the episodes and also engage with each other around the ideas they hear. If we can't imagine it, we can't build it. I don't have all of (any of?) the answers, but together, we do. Let's talk about it!

Happy Spring!

...or Fall, if you're in the Southern hemisphere. Please know how grateful I am that you're here and that I'm always thrilled to hear from folks, so don't hesitate to hit 'reply' and tell me how you're doing, what you think of anything, how I can be supportive. I mean it.