For The Worldbuilders

There’s a consistent theme I’m noticing on the other side of my season of surrender. When I’m not being particularly nice to myself I’ll notice myself get frustrated with my capacity. Trying to figure out why I’m not able to lock in like I use to, put in the same amount of hours as I used to, produce as much or as quickly as I used to — both inside my job (stewarding Seeda School) and my art pract...

This week I want to return to the Seeda School newsletter originally published on December 4th, 2023 titled, “What is Your Creative Offer?”, subtitle: “A Questionnaire to Oneself”. In it I share why worldbuilding has been such an essential method for me. But “Why Worldbuilding?” is a question I’ve been getting again lately so I wanted to revisit the question inside this podcast in order to invite...

I’m watching the sharp edges of the second hand turn into a feather here. Here in the space between the real and the infinite, feeling real infinite these days. Working alongside you, body doubling — I am elsewhere, I am here , WE ARE HERE. Emphatically here and the air is heavier. Our breathing is heavier. Our breathing is like fire now. Weightless and heavy with life. Tune into this episode for...

Okay so I’m making twice as much as I was making with much more control over my income but I still don't feel as secure as I felt with my salaried position, when I was working for a company I had no control over. Why is that? Because I am so used to, have been taught to, have been socialized and expected to relinquish the power of my belief, attention and faith to sources outside myself. Creat...

Instead of the “What should I do?” question, here are 3 questions I want to leave you with: Which role will you choose? What container will your practice it in? Will it be through a creative offer, the garden or the 2 hour container in the morning you have before the house wakes up? Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, who will you practice this role WITH ? These are questions we ask in the Seed...

Suddenly, my job no longer worked. I put in my resignation letter September 2020. Suddenly, my romantic relationship no longer worked. I ended it the spring of 2021. Suddenly, the non-existent boundaries in all of my relationships, family, friends, community members had to be reflected on and invented. This is because my job, my romantic relationship, my lack of boundaries were all oriented around...

Enrollment closes on January 29th at midnight! Enroll in the Seed A World Retreat Here: ⁠⁠https://www.seedaschool.com/program⁠ Your creative desire makes space for our collective imagination. Join us inside this creative retreat and attend 9 weekly workshops and 9 weekly office hours based on Seeda School's worldbuilding framework. You'll be developing your creative offer alongside a commi...

What irresistible portals are the people you dream of serving waiting on? Offers as containers that might bring the two worlds spinning away from each other a little closer, if only for a moment, but just long enough for us to experiment with inventing new models of belonging, cooperative economics and mutual aid that build on the old ones. Generating money that will go to mutual aid request flyer...

The number of things we have to unlearn is unquantifiable, but I know the one thing we must set fire to is continuing to allocate an ounce of our power and meaning making to systems that are only satiated by our death. When we slow down we understand the new year goal setting frenzy is connected to our longing to control the chaos and to carve out meaning in the spacetime of the abyss. The gift of...

In search of our mother’s gardens we found a path. Keeping that path “well-trodden” so others may find it too is our only assignment. What’s your purpose? That’s impossible to know and that’s okay because we’re following the truth of our desire instead. What does this look like? It looks like releasing control of the project and signing up for the practice, laying perfectionism to rest. “The form...

All that running, until 2020 when I finally ran out of steam. Unhealthy work habits and a total lack of boundaries kept me distracted for years. In the absence of that distraction was nothing but the stillness, the silence, the darkness, the eyes patiently waiting for me to finally choose myself. On September 2nd, 2020 I submitted my letter of resignation and a 3 month sabbatical turned into two y...

What are our tools, frameworks and creative offers for helping each other navigate this wide open expanse? Worldbuilding is my framework, the Seed A World Retreat is my offering and “The Creative Offer Questionnaire to Oneself” is the tool I want to share today. Download your very own copy of the questionnaire using the link below! Inspired by “The Audre Lorde Questionnaire to Oneself” created by...

Learn more about the Retreat: https://www.seedaschool.com/program Read this week's newsletter: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/refusing-colonial-categorization What if we are making appeals for our “humanity” to empires whose very colonial conception of “human” was given form by excluding certain members of the same species? To put it another way, let’s consider we are asking the same peopl...

Subscribe to the Newsletter: ⁠https://seedaschool.substack.com/⁠ See this week's newsletter for more links and footnotes: ⁠https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/fear-cant-survive-a-radical-love Learn More About Seeda School: ⁠ https://www.seedaschool.com/program

Overlapping catastrophes like to flirt with your apathy, whispering into your ear with empty promises about the safety of solitude. The safety of silence. The safety of avoidance. The empty promises are dark and cavernous, without light and without ground. The darkness wouldn’t be so bad if I could at least smell soil — some possibility of change, emergence, growth. But that’s the thing about this...

I want to call in all teachers, writers, artists and business owners to take a close look at what we’re “normalizing” in our practices. What cultural examples are we using to teach that feel apolitical? What references are we pointing to in our art that feel “neutral”? What narratives are we normalizing in our writing? What topics are we avoiding on our business accounts on social media? What are...

It’s Monday morning at my favorite coffee shop and I’m mesmerized by the freedom I’m witnessing. A toddler is freestyle dancing to electronic instrumentals in the middle of the busiest section of the establishment. The line wraps around her, the towering members of her species are careful not to interrupt her flow, everyone collectively ensures she has enough space to be. To dance. Enthralled by t...

Like I said, mistakes? I can name plenty. There is no way to be in a generous practice of producing public facing projects without them. Some of these mistakes were essential, they were carrying divine lessons, and honestly some of them weren’t. The attempts to flatten in the face of the “jack of all trades, master of none” myth (who wants to be a fucking master anyway?), the workaholism unsustain...

Healing from years of childhood trauma, where pleasure meant threat of punishment and desire meant danger. My Element X beckoned, “What if your desire became more powerful than your fear?” See last week's newsletter for more links and footnotes: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/you-will-not-be-punished-for-your Leave a Voice Message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/soft-where/message...

This letter is dedicated with gratitude to the bug in my code last week. It appeared as I was building a project using React in order to introduce the learners in Seeda School ’s Module 4 how to build their own Community Directory using the popular library. I reflected on the library’s name, React . An invitation to be mindful of how we respond to the bugs and blocks which are inevitable in our co...

What happened? I was so focused on building the tools for belonging that I forgot to actually practice belonging. Call my family, show up for my friends, support the art shows of the brilliant folks in my circle, volunteer at the community garden, attend the programming at my local library, walk down to the bar that was literally underneath my feet. This is the slippery trap of building software f...

What new values and commitments do we want to seed the next generation of software inside of? How do we want to collectively tend to this soil? No, software will not solve racism, sexism, ableism and classism — only plain ol’ revolution will do that — but given the fact that software has made all these -isms exponentially worse, I do wonder how building technologies of care might be a salve in the...

Being an artist is a commitment to indeterminacy. It asks, “are you prepared for a life long practice of improvisation?” In many ways, the word asks you to consent not to be a single being. Upon surrender, you join the beyond human swarm in an emergent choreography, a commitment to interdisciplinary practice and collective study. When you release control, another energetic current has room to flow...

While under a tree older than my great grandparents providing the quiet grace of shade, a spider the size of the bread crumb from my morning pastry is my only companion as I read the words of Magdalena Zurawski’s essay, “ Being Human Is an Occult Practice ”. Inside she reminds us, “Neoliberalism requires us to limit or suppress much of what is human in us because much of what is human in us serves...

Over the summer I’ll continue gathering seed data, collaborating with computer kin, and thinking about why we’re all turning to writing at the same time. Meditating on what affordances, shelter, breath, code allows inside this practice. In September, I plan to invite you into a creative coding for writers offering and that’s when live virtual programming inside of Seeda School will resume. In the...