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These are precarious times. We are facing ongoing and accelerating threats to our bodies, our choices, our natural environment and our collective survival.

In response to this, the aim is not to be good, but to be present - to be fully alive and engaged in the world.

Questions of goodness are irrelevant if not harmful. The desire to be good - whether in the eyes of god, or under the banner of meritocracy, or due to social pressure to be perfect - often has more to do with serving ourselves than the people we are trying to serve. In Winner Takes All, Anand Ghiradaradas suggests that perhaps it is more generative to do less harm than to do more good.

Don’t worry about goodness or rightness; rather being-ness. As Mary Oliver reminds us (full poem below):

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Kerri (she/her)

Art by Cami Zea

NTK (need to know)

1. In one day, Ron DeSantis signed five bills severely restricting trans rights in Florida. The bills target everything from healthcare to pronoun use to school sports. 

2. Learning to carry a gun isn’t teaching Americans to have good manners. It’s training them to be suspicious and atomized, learning to protect themselves, no matter how great the risk to others. It’s training them to not be citizens.

3. Our overheating world is likely to break a key temperature limit for the first time over the next few years, scientists predict. Here’s what going over 1.5C means.

4. Leah Penniman encourages us to recognize Earth as teacher, text, and kin and embrace what she calls “collective thrival”—which is as essential in this moment of climate crisis as it ever has been.

5. Annie Murphy Paul explains why we do our best thinking with our bodies, Twitter is a terrible way to take a break, and the ‘growth mindset’ is flawed. Why You Should Think With Your Environment, Not Just Your Mind

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Solidarity

The United Nations is warning the next five years are likely to be the warmest on record, with far-reaching repercussions for health, food security, water management and the environment. In the wake of these news one might choose to take shorter showers or start composting. But individual attempts at systemic problems are misguided and futile.

“The myth of individual responsibility has origins in 40 years of the creation of societal order fixated on individualism by the Republican Party,” says Robert Brulle, visiting professor of environment and society at Brown University. The first mainstream manifestation of this individual focus, he says, was BP inventing the concept of the “carbon footprint.” Individualizing the responsibility is a weapon of Big Oil and other extractive corporations to bypass their role and responsibility in this mess.

Rather organizing the public’s efforts to shame and blame, boycott and hold corporations and politicians accountable for phasing out fossil fuels is essential to our survival. Take action with Stand.Earth.

Artwork: @WeAreNuetral

Reflections

Showing up for this moment requires that we go back and get ourselves. Mary Oliver’s poem Wild Geese is a love letter to ourselves and the sacredness that lives within each of us, that lies beyond constructs of separation and supremacy, and calls us to take our place in the world.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

WHAT WE’RE EXCITED ABOUT

CHRONICON is a one of a kind event rooted in the core belief that we are all so much more than the chronic conditions we might have and even struggle with at times. It is for anyone who doesn’t feel 100% well physically, emotionally or mentally and wants to feel less alone in their experience. May 19th, Brooklyn NY. Attend live or check out the live stream.

HERE4THEKIDS is calling all white women to come to Denver on June 5th for a powerful demonstration of civil disobedience in front of the State Capital to call on the Governor to to ban guns and implement a statewide buyback program.

FASCISM 101: CONTOURS AND CHARACTERISTICS is the first in a monthly, 8-session series of virtual conversations about the current political environment and the growth of authoritarianism and fascism in the United States. Starts Thursday May 25th at 4pmPST.

WISDOM TO KNOW A DIFFERENCE is a six-session series led by Nikki Myers that aims to provide a deeper understanding of recovery principles and foster an embodied experience of living a life rooted in these principles. Starts May 24th at 3pm PST.

DETOX HOME RETREAT is a 7-day personal and political home retreat to help you return to yourself and reset your life. Each day you’ll receive a practice kit including movement/meditation, journaling questions, transformational tools, inspirational quotes, self care recipes and rituals. AND we will meet up LIVE each day on Zoom to surface our insights, track our progress and support one another in growth and recovery. Saturday May 20th - Friday May 26th!

WE-NESS

We are obsessed with the new book release Let This Radicalize You by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba and the call to care for each other. Check it out!

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last six years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

Upgrade to paid