Solnox #8 (Summer/Fall ‘24)

Through the Portal // Autumn's Audacity: Holding Grief, Honoring Rage, and Reimagining Hope in the Uncertainty

Oct 10, 2024

[If you’re new here, welcome to my quarterly newsletter that ~tries~ to go out around the solstices & equinoxes. Read on for reflections on the current season, the things I’m getting up to and lots of recommendations for music, jobs & opportunities, articles & podcasts recs, and so much more! Be warned, I am long winded—so read at your leisure, or skip ahead to the sections that speak to you.]

TLDR: Too Long Didn’t Read // A helpful summary of what’s below!

Summer // Autumn Reflections
Scribing n Vibing’
Monthly Jamz + 4 The Culture
Jobs + Opportunities (Yobs + Opps)

The Summer is for FUTURE TRIPPING

I’ve been sitting with my solnox reflections for far too long, letting the seasons and waves move through me without much time for reflecting back out. But at least I can always count on the transition from summer into fall to bring me back down to earth.

This year, I found myself dazed in the slow summer energy, the muggy migraine inducing monsoon weather, mostly overwhelmed at the state of the world. Now with the changing light, as the season dips into the crisp dusk of the year, I feel as if I wasted my summer speculating, catastrophizing, on the potential conclusions of concurring climate disasters, of war machines at work, and on the expansion of policing and prison systems as the state’s chosen response to climate chaos and systems collapse.

Call it future tripping: that spiral that you let go a little too long and that hole you go in a little too deep into about that which is yet to come, most of which you can’t control. Or call it anticipatory grief for the increasing instability and ‘Poly-crisis’ of the times we are currently in and the potential timelines that our future may follow. I hate to admit how much time I’ve spent future-tripping about the instability and uncertainty of climate change, the increasingly fascistic movements of state governments, and, here in the U.S, the cognitive dissonance of and collective gaslighting from both major political parties, the increase of surveillance and state control especially in communities of color, the growing webs of the military-industrial complex and prison and policing systems, as if they are simultaneously tightening their grip around each of us. I know I am not the only one who has felt deep fear and worry about these systems and the impacts of the layers of violence occurring.

And how easy it is to want to acquiesce to hopelessness, to surrender to the demoralizing onslaught of news, to be desensitized by a year of genocide being live-streamed from Gaza into the palms of our hands. How easy it is to feel enraged and indignant as our elected officials continue to prioritize war profiteering rather than calling for an arms embargo, rather than preparing for climate disasters (even in the wake of one of the biggest hurricanes we’ve seen) Daily, we are seeing our economic and political systems as they truly are. I know I'm not the only one who has been struggling to fight off despair amidst these concurrent wars and climate crises, or finding it hard to organize my nervous system and relational systems around anything other than the fear and uncertainty that surrounds us.

Since it’s an election year, we’re seeing the usual political tactics—hateful rhetoric, fear-mongering, othering, and bizarre celebrity endorsements—that feel disturbingly like something out of The Hunger Games. But these campaigns are not games. The cruelty hits harder when I hear people in my own communities—en la frontera, among brown people, immigrants, and people of the global majority—repeating hateful, xenophobic, and fear-driven rhetoric that’s used as justification to militarize and terrorize our borderlands and communities.

And of course, it’s always so complex and messy, the experiences, desires, fears, and cultures that shape us and make us believe one thing over another. But I can’t help but wish and wonder: what more would be possible if we were as committed to humanizing others as we are to othering each other? What more would be possible if we weren’t committed to the most ‘lethal military’ in the world, the toughest border walls, and cop-cities across the country? What if we prioritized care over control, connection over militarism? What if we were instead, invested in life?

AUTUMN: THE AUDACITY OF DREAMING

Here we are again at Hecate’s crossroads. In this threshold of Autumn, and during a particularly watery eclipse season, I am holding onto this grief with one hand and onto audacity with the other. I am grieving for the children of Gaza who have known apartheid and genocide, and who deserve to know peace, joy, and safety. I am grieving for the people of Lebanon, for the people of Congo, for the people in North Carolina and Georgia rebuilding after Hurricane Helene. And I am grieving at how it sometimes feels like I will never be able to share these freedom dreams with people I love.

And I am, all the while, holding onto the reminders of our strength in numbers, the movements for justice that continue to rise up across the world, and the resilience of our humanity, if we choose to remember it, within ourselves and within each other.

In this harvest season, I will count myself lucky to have tasted moments of dreaming in community, dreaming of liberatory ways of healing and being together, in ceremony, in care, and in movements for change. I have felt in my body, in my heart, and in my nervous system, what it feels like to be dreaming in collective with others full of radical ideas; ideas around building worlds designed around care, dignity, and life. Even on days when it’s all I can do to keep my head above the nihilistic waters and resist the powerful undertows of grief, or days when I see nothing but rage – I am reminded in beloved community, that this pain is not mine alone to hold.

I count myself lucky that I get to make art for these dreamers and do-ers, and that I get to make myself over and over again; that I get to live and love, and find connection and intimacy in the most magical and unsuspecting ways; that I have known joy, and collective care, and an abundance of resources even when I alone felt as if I had none; and that I have chosen family and blood family who are committed to growth and change. And somehow, I am still daring to ask for more.

I am thankful for the autumnal equinox’s arrival: a reminder, even begrudgingly so, that change is constant, and that I cannot singularly hold despair and grief without also holding my own beating heart.

In this portal of a season, I am reminding myself that my rage, fear, and grief can coexist with hope. The more I can recommit to building a more humane world, the more I can humanize those around me. In turn, this helps me accept my own limitations, including the limits of my understanding and compassion for those who, to me, seem opposed to imagining a world beyond capitalism and war, beyond what we have been given. The more I can accept my own pain and rage, the more I can transmute it into something less destructive, but something that can serve as an entry point into the strength it takes to summon hope, to dare to dream of realities beyond what currently exists, refusing to be subdued in our pursuit of them.

Lastly, I am paused during this autumnal transition to remember that I am only one body moving through time and space. I am only one spirit unfolding in my own becoming. With my own mix of contradictions, fears, and hopes, I walk through this threshold and let myself be transformed.

I honor this season by looking at my harvest and tending to the building of creative worlds of care, healing, and resistance that are being built daily. I hold the lessons of the final summer sunsets, the kind that set the sky ablaze daring to say, I am not done yet. This audacious summer spirit is alive in my freedom dreams, and I will carry it through the threshold with me as I prepare for whatever uncertainty lies ahead.

Thanks for reading this far, Now onto the rest of the gatherings ♡

Scribin’ & Vibin’

2023 kept me beyond busy and on the move scribing for old friends and new.

2024 on the other hand has forced me to slow down and luckily grant me some time to look back on some of the adventures and incredible projects I’ve gotten to work on nationally and internationally. (Like my first time going to Cape Town!).

I hope to share soon some writing and reflections on what it means to be scribing/notetaking for movements and organizations in these times and be able to witness and reflect back some of the freedom dreams and groundworks being laid. In the meantime, I am dreaming and scheming up some fun new projects with the STOKE collective to hold some semi-regular space to practice and debrief together the world of reflecting social justice and change movements through visuals and artistic tools. If you’re someone who does this kind of work or wants to be doing this kind of work more, please let me know!

Another request/update is that my books are open for the rest of 2024 and 2025. Time starts to fill up fast in the new year, so if you’re dreaming of some visual storytelling, graphic notetaking, or other creative support for your work in the upcoming months, feel free to reach out or schedule a time to chat here.

In the meantime enjoy some of the photos of projects I’ve gotten to work on in the last year or so!