all of the usual feelings, sights, and sounds of a transition from summer to fall. But we've found ourselves experiencing something of a reluctance to get back to business as usual.

Is it a reluctance to re-shoulder the level of productivity I was grateful to lighten over the summer? Or the awareness that life could be interrupted by COVID any day? Or a desire to stay present and to continue processing the many moments of grief that we experienced, individually and collectively, over the past nine months, the past three years?

It is hard to grasp the way forward when you are walking against the tide. Every outside message is saying 'get back to normal' while our internal compass resists that notion. Rather than feeling stuck, we're captivated by the idea of renewal. 

In the dictionary, under the word renewal, there is a synonym in all capital letters: REPETITION. What is change except the continual plodding forward, one moment after another? What is commitment or consistency except the very same thing? Living according to your values requires a continual renewal of those values. 

Instead of expecting to answer a question like, 'how am I going to completely transform myself - or the world?' - you might just wonder, 'what do I want to renew today?' In this way, we create less of a cycle, repeating the same pattern without any movement or growth - and more of a spiral, where each repetition brings new perspective built upon everything we've learned along the way. 

For a doorway into this softer, but more powerful question, we recommend "I Worried" by Mary Oliver, which you can find in her book, Devotions, or partially translated in this little beauty of a video by Mae Mann.

In renewal,

Dor + Tay

photo by William Trevaskis for GFJ Stories

 

tidbits...

resources on anti-racism, environmentalism and food culture AKA stuff we're reading / listening to / watching / noticing / thinking about / captivated by this Tuesday . . .
 

For more inspiration from Mary Oliver, revisit an intimate conversation she had with Krista Tippett for the On Being project in 2015: "I got saved by the beauty of the world."

With great power comes great responsibility - and in the week of her death many people are thinking critically about how Queen Elizabeth II interpreted that responsibility. For many, she upheld an era of colonization whose trauma still echoes today.

Even in the media's obsession with airing a Queen Elizabeth II's funeral (based on the ratings from people eager to watch) they are upholding allegiance to harmful institutions over the necessary news coverage of Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico, where millions of people are in need of help. Please join us in donating to Taller Salud, a feminist mutual aid organization coordinating hurricane relief.

"We cannot measure success on production alone." - A Growing Culture looks closely at the question, Can small-scale farmers feed the world?

For those who have not yet made it to September, because you are still mentally / emotionally in August, we recommend Desiree Adaway's short and meaningful summer reading list.

One small act of kindness: support poet and father John Gavin White through a family emergency.

CURE, the coalition for understanding racism in education, is offering a virtual support group for social justice organizers and activists, and you can register here (donation-based).

View and share this free guide to How to Write a More Equitable Job Post, and stay tuned for new resources to deepen this work.

"The process of studying history and prehistory has indefinitely lacked the inclusion and approval of Indigenous people." Read the latest GFJ Story on the swordfish hunters of North Haven Island in Maine. Words by Jasmine Michel, photos by William Trevaskis.

got a tidbit? drop it here for us and we'll share it in next week's newsletter.