Solnox #9 Summer Solstice

I love my people but hate social media, and other summer reflections on getting more present and embodied as the world (as we know it) ends.

Jun 27, 2025

[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, culture, political reflections, 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 Solstice Reflections
Stoke Retreat
Scribing n’ Vibing
Check it out: Local Art!
Monthly Jamz + 4 The Culture
Jobs + Opportunities (Yobs + Opps)

Soaking in the Summer Solstice

Garden Background photo with overlayed handdrawn text that reads " Spring's Presence, Summer's Courage, & the sacred gift of being in our full aliveness. — A photo of my little medicine garden, with my hand drawn typography overlaid.

I always have grand visions for these newsletters, and then they don’t always materialize from my notebooks to your inboxes. But I’m back, and not making any future commitments to these digital landscapes, beyond wanting to come back to this tiny corner of the internet as a practice space that I ultimately started for myself, for two main reasons. First, I wanted to have a place to share all the digital squirrel gatherings that I think are cool (who doesn’t love a fun article or cool playlist?) and second, I wanted to have a different way to connect that wasn’t on social media networks like FB, IG, or the ghost of Twitter. I love my people but hate social media, and it turns out that working in communications in the age of social media has really shifted my relationship to it.

And even though there are beautiful corners of these social media networks with artists and dreamers and storytellers and movement makers connecting and creating, more and more of those connections are being mediated by the social algorithms that our tech overlords have manipulated to keep our attention captured and ultimately feed the attention-industrial complex. Unfortunately it’s becoming harder to recognize just how much of the online content we are engaging in is actually overconsumption traps, political propaganda, or misinformation, amplified by algorithms that further silo us and give tech companies even more control over our daily lives. Every day, I spend an average of 4 hours a day on my tiny screen, a data point I hate to admit, but a reality that many others may share, and a reality that highlights that many of us are giving away a lot of our time and attention to the vortex of social media. And for what? What do we get in return? The addiction of convenience, a rapid fire, never-ending digital soup, an onslaught of information, propaganda, and advertisements?

Social media platforms—once offered to us as fun and creative tools for connection—have increasingly become algorithmic echo chambers, where fear is amplified, doomscrolling is automatic, and disinformation spreads faster than the truth. Social networks now reflect back to us not only our worst anxieties and fears but also highlight the very real fractures in our global systems: late-stage capitalism faltering under its own weight, authoritarian and fascistic ideologies and policies accelerating against the backdrop of a growing distrust of traditional media sources.

As social media users, we’re not just consuming content—we're feeding it our attention. These platforms and their algorithms are finely tuned to reward engagement, regardless of the emotional and psychological toll. Amid fears and us. centered conversations about ‘World War III’ growing online, fears of global ecological and economic collapse alongside the real and growing threat of digital authoritarianism, we’re simultaneously caught in a feedback loop that we are training the algorithm to respond to: the more fear we express, the more fear we’re shown.

But every so often, we can break through cracks in the algorithms and shape narratives for ourselves. As we are seeing the protest unfold in LA, we have an opportunity to disrupt the narrative the current administration is trying to push. The people are not rioting in LA, the people are exercising their democratic right to protest, and to defend the community members being kidnapped from their homes and are subsequently being denied their right to due process, which is a human right regardless of citizenship status. Seeing a governor and judge block the president’s call for military force to be used against protestors is not only a strategic legal win at this moment, it is also a strategic narrative act of resistance to fight against Trump's current mass deportation machine.

We’re living in a moment of intense narrative warfare, where stories shape reality, and our attention is the battlefield. In the U.S., especially, decades of alienation, defunded education, propaganda, and various ideological and political forces have left us vulnerable to political manipulation. Media consumption and online engagement are not just passive entertainment but a powerful force in defining what feels real and what futures seem possible. We are seeing the same processes play out as Israel's aggression towards Iran (and now the US) unfolds, with ‘Apocalyptic propaganda’ ads now running in the US, designed to manufacture consent for escalating violence and regional destabilization, all the while continuing to dehumanize Muslims and Arabs. And at the same time, without wanting to lose the history and political context, content creators and educators are trying to hold nuance and action against this kind of propaganda. I'm also seeing people warn against falling for ‘war on terror’ era propaganda, and trying to fight back against the mainstream media narrative that’s quickly unfolding as even the right is struggling to hold the line on their own narrative. (And hope is not lost, as this week we also saw a historic grassroots progress campaign secure a democratic primary win for Mamdani in the New York City Mayoral Race, despite the racist media attacks, and superPAC money he was up against, the people of NYC still came together to fight for a future that is not only defying the racist, anti-immigrant, and Islamophobic tropes, but rooted in clear values and policies for the people!!)

Every day, our cognitive landscapes are being shaped, hour by hour, by the stories we consume and feed into. Daily, hundreds of stories are hurled at us at high speeds, each carrying the weight of real terror: ‘tech broligarchs’ consolidating power, expanding surveillance states, and U.S. police and ICE being trained by the IDF to escalate state-sanctioned violence domestically. These aren’t just headlines—they’re realities we have to process cognitively, spiritually, and somatically.

In some ways, it feels necessary to stay compartmentalized when navigating this fearsome digital terrain. Taken too far, however, this can lead to hyper-normalizing the many layers of state violence our country perpetrates against us and others across the globe. In the interest of staying awake but not collapsing under the weight and overwhelm, we must be aware of how our analytical brains are holding it all, (which of course we should all be concerned with the way these algorithms and increasing use of AI are rapidly eroding our critical thinking and cognitive recall abilities) but we should also pay close attention to how our nervous systems and spirits are holding it all.

When the grief of suffering and ecological destruction becomes too heavy to hold in our bodies, where does it go? When the righteous rage of injustice and pain begins to bubble over, how do we honor it? How do we bolster our spirits and our bodies against trained helplessness and strategic overwhelm from psychological warfare and layers of hegemonic propaganda thrown our way? Maybe this is not something that can be conquered in the mind alone, but also in deep conversation with the body and the spirit.

These questions have made me especially thankful for the annual gift of spring: presence in my attention. Every fresh bloom, or new leaf unfurling in my tiny garden has been a reminder that Spring embodies the wisdom of waking up. If I am able to spend even 15 minutes in the garden or outside soaking up the strength of the sun, I feel that much more embodied in my aliveness. That is to say embodied in my attention. When so much of my time is surrendered to things competing for my attention, it’s easier to stay in motion, either being hyper-productive or passively consuming. But rarely do I spend time fully embodied, present, and alive, tuning into the fullness of my attention.

This past spring I’ve been fighting for my time back— to reclaim my attention. Although, I hate to admit how many days I still lose this fight. I want my attention and the limited cognitive space I have each day to be shaped and grounded in a deeper sense of choice and agency.

I don’t want to operate from a place of fear or scarcity. I want my attention to be intentional—rooted in love, focused on care and protective of my spirit as sacred. I want to listen to the earth and our plant relatives, to the medicine hidden in each moment, to the presence and aliveness in my body and the life all around me. I want my attention channeled towards making art that is honest and connective and peels back corners of the great mystery, art that reminds us why we stay alive and keep fighting for a future worth living. I want my attention to be focused on how I show up in the community—feeding friends, tending gardens, learning how to move through conflict with care and accountability, knowing that liberation is not possible without healing and repair. I want my attention to be laser-focused on abolition—of ICE, of policing, of prisons, of punitive culture in all its forms. I want my attention to be so rooted in love and care that it radiates out in every season. I’m grateful for every moment I’ve been able to savor that I’ve inched closer to these intentions, and thankful for the reminder that the space between attention and embodiment isn’t a one-time bridge to cross, but a lifelong dance of aligning my actions and my values.

It’s been in this transition from spring to summer, as we’ve stretched towards the longest day of the year, that I’ve been trying to channel the bravery and fullness of the radiant summer sun. The sacred summer solstice asks each of us to meet this moment with more capacity and attention than ever. With electric and boisterous monsoons starting early this year, I’m listening to the wisdom of the loud thunderstorms that reach across the whole horizon and the fullness of the blooming trees, remembering what it means to be in the fullness of ourselves, rooted in our dignity and power. What does it really look like to be brave, to be present, to be deliberate with my attention and therefore my actions? This is a question I often forget to remember, but am thankful to sink into it once again this summer.

This summer, I am making an altar of the transmutation potential that we can glean from both the birthing energy and transition of spring, and the riot and reckoning that each summer’s potential has to offer. It’s at this crossroads, of spring’s fleeting presence and summer’s shining courage that I’m connecting with the aliveness of the earth as much as I possibly can, letting it remind me of the gift and sacredness of being fully alive and of our ability to tap into the strength that lies within each of us.

And while I’m still worried about the pathways social media has in store for humanity, I’m still thankful for the gift of being able to witness the many ways people are standing in their courage. What a gift to be able to create, a gift to feel moved by dance, music, theater— a bright array of artist creations still being birthed and shared every day, even as everything is crumbling around us. Even in grief and fear and pain, there is a deep power each of us carries to transmute and transform this wreckage into something beautiful.

Regardless of what unfolds in this increasingly fascistic timeline, I will not let my spirit be broken. My spirit will remember this aliveness and will remember the life force that flows, with all of its potentiality, through me and every being.

I hope you enjoy the solstice, and please peruse the rest of my gatherings & reflections at your leisure,

xoxo

STOKE Retreat:

I’m always amazed by how much transformation can happen in just one weekend— when we commit to digging into questions together, staying with the discomfort, and reaching for deeper understanding and trust, anything is possible. In moments of uncertainty and transition, it’s a gift to reconnect and recenter on what truly matters.

My facilitation collective annually gathers for retreats, to deepen in our dialogue and praxis and tend to the foundation of our work: our relationships. This May we spent time leaning into dialogue across difference and embodiment to navigate shifting terrain, making space for joy, healing, and laughter, even amid hard decision-making. We’re practicing how to be more spacious, more adaptive, and more experimental to show up for the movements we are accountable to. Reflecting on what it takes to make decisions collectively and to build the worlds we want to live in, together, is a deep practice I never want to take for granted. Between this and running our final online transformative conflict workshop (for now), it’s been energizing and eye-opening to be in deep practice of care and collective decision-making that ultimately support our movement spaces in slowing down and tending to the vital care-work of gathering, of grief, and around conflict. We need places to grieve, celebrate, vision, and adapt together. We need practices that help us stay rooted, connected, and in motion.

If your group or organizing project is looking for ways to deepen connection and resilience right now, our books are open! & if you’re local to NM, stay tuned for some in-person conflict skill-building opportunities!

Scribin’ & Vibin’:

I’ll be honest, the past few months have been rough. We’ve watched our movements face rapid defunding, and have seen resources disappear from public lands, science research, and even healthcare and food programs for children, all for supposedly being associated with ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’. As so many organizations and projects have lost major parts of their funding, I haven’t been surprised to see channels for a lot of my visual scribing work dry up. Sadly, creative work— the art, the beauty, the storytelling— is often the first to go.

That said, the slowdown has also brought some beautiful and unexpected gifts: more spaciousness and playfulness in my visual scribing practice. Over the past six months, I’ve been part of a beautiful, grounding mentorship and cohort focused on Somatic Scribing hosted by Cielo from As the Crow Flies. It’s been a revelatory space for lineage-tracing, network-building, and somatic scribing explorations, and overall a deeply generative place to explore the interconnections in my work. If you want to learn a bit more about some ways this can look like, you can check out em’s constellation reflections on a recent workshop on generative somatic and scribing.

I’ve also been holding a very low-key, once-a-month online drop-in space for anyone interested in practicing visual scribing. It’s been a joy to gather with others in a playful, exploratory way. If you’re a beginner scribe, visual storyteller, or facilitator curious about visual practice, I’d love to have you join us sometime — just let me know! ♡

Forever grateful for these two spaces that have helped me stay grounded and deepen my practice, even in this uncertain and shifting terrain.

CHECK IT OUT: Local Art Edition

For all my burque babes, I just wanted to share my partner's solo show coming up on on Friday, July 11th! Come through to see some incredible installations and creative reflections on trash, debt, coyotes, and memory. The opening will be the evening of the 11th and will be up in BINGO Gallery through August.