We Don't Wait for the Systems to Crumble to Build Alternatives Rooted in Collective Care
On becoming intentional fractals with our time and energy
So many new folks here—welcome! Whether you found your way from Our Unruly Book list, or this recent piece Cultivating an Untamable Mind, or because you found our spring calendar zines, or some totally different way, I’m so glad you’re here.
Some housekeeping before we start:
Zines are out in the world! It brings and I great joy to share that our spring calendar zines: Sowing Seeds of Creativity, are out in the world. If you ordered yours, it should be at your place any minute, if not in your hands already. We have a few left so if you’re still wanting one, you can get yours over at folkweaver.com. We donate 10% of all profits to Middle Eastern Children’s Alliance.
Lastly—I so appreciate everyone who helps this fledgling space out by becoming a paid subscriber. I know times are tough right now, so in whatever ways you’re able to show up to make this work possible, I’m genuinely grateful you’re here.
Okay let’s get to it!
The other day, while gathered in the living room post-kiddo-bedtime with mama buddies, a friend shared how disempowering it can feel as one person to make a difference, when a force that feels so much bigger than us is coming after everything we believe in.
What do we do, in the face of that? How do we spend our time? Our money? Where do we channel our energy?
We started sharing simple examples—buying things at local stores instead of Amazon, divesting retirement stock from tech companies, changing banks. But as we made that list, another friend shared their doubt: as one person, does taking this kind of action at a small scale actually make a difference?
There is a nihilistic argument lurking beneath this doubt we’ve all inevitably faced: the argument being that as one person, you will make zero difference if you choose not to buy from Amazon, so you might as well keep buying from Amazon.
Nihilism is dangerous because if we give into it, it makes the dystopian future the oligarchies envision become our inevitable reality. Nihilism robs us of our agency to self-determine our future.
As I practice cultivating an untamable mind, I actively refuse to let those in power dictate the terms of my habits. I actively refuse to let them shape our collective future. Their vision becomes our reality if we all feel comfortable enough to stay asleep or helpless enough to stay disempowered. If we fall into that nihilistic thinking—they’ve already won.
That’s why it’s our job to reject nihilism. We need to reclaim our creative capacity and our power. We need to understand that our individual actions, at scale, pave the way for the future of our own making.
When I feel small or disempowered, I often anchor my individual, micro-scale decisions in Adrienne Maree Brown’s use of fractals—a repeating mathematical pattern that works the same in the tiniest scale as it does on a systemic scale. Through fractals, she shows how what we practice individually becomes a repeatable pattern systemically, arguing that what we practice at the smallest scales shapes what happens at the largest scales. Brown says:
How we are at the small scale is how we are at the large scale. The patterns of the universe repeat at scale. There is a structural echo that suggests two things: one, that there are shapes and patterns fundamental to our universe, and two, that what we practice at a small scale can reverberate to the largest scale…it is devastatingly clear to me that until we have some sense of how to live our solutions locally, we won’t be successful at implementing a just governance system regionally, nationally, or globally…and this may be the most important element to understand—that what we practice at a small scale sets the patterns for the whole system.
How we show up in relationships, where we put our money, where we shop for groceries, how we respond to injustice, where we spend our time and our energy—these individual choices set patterns for our larger systems. As more and more of us align our individual behaviors with our theoretical values, we start to build together an alternative system at scale. Our individual actions matter. And they make an outsized impact when we commit to making these changes together.
How I’m practicing these days
These last weeks, I’ve been reckoning with family habits that are out of step with my values, and discerning what actions I can take to change those.
A grocery story: where we shop matters
Here’s an embarrassing example that’s way out of step with my values. I’m sharing it here just so we know this is a highly imperfect space and I am a highly imperfect human on this ride alongside you.
We’ve been doing a lot of delivery grocery shopping. We started that habit because we were drowning with raising two kids in COVID, long commutes, and no family around us to make any of it easier.
But as I sat in the living room with friends on Thursday, questioning what we can do, I felt this pang gnawing at me. I started naming to my friends the disconnect I felt between that online grocery habit and the way I want to live—the values I have that contradict that habit.
In response, a friend shared a sweet story about the relationship her daughter has built with their local grocer from their weekly grocery runs, and it clicked something into place for me: all these services meant to save us time actually disconnect us from each other, from the food, from the people. I was ready to take steps to shift that habit in my family life.
Logistics are not my strong suit, but I created a plan in my brain for when in-real-life grocery shopping could happen logistically—one I found manageable. On Friday, I put my plan into action. I picked the kids up from school and drove them to Rainbow Grocery, a worker-owned coop here in the city that we order weekly from but, embarrassingly, I’d never actually stepped inside*. (*part of this is because until recently, my partner was in charge of the groceries, but that’s a fair play story for another time.)
The moment we walked in, I saw a giant poster of Ahed Tamimi’s face on a righteous international women’s rights sign. My whole body relaxed. I knew these were my people. I belonged here.
We walked through the isles, picking up food with our hands, loading it into our cart, my youngest wiggling with the fierce desire to pee and the fiercer will to refuse a bathroom break. As we waited in line and the frenetic preschool pee energy ratcheted ever higher, a woman working there wearing a “not in our name—jews for ceasefire” shirt blessedly offered to help us bypass the line and check us out at customer service desk.
I told her I liked her shirt, and soon, we were talking about which credit unions we were shifting our money to, what ethical investing looks like right now, what other ways we can show up. We grabbed some cardboard boxes, and she helped my youngest load items into the boxes before we were on our way. When we got in the car my youngest said, “she was really nice.”
This is what we’ve been robbing ourselves of, I thought to myself. This is what all the convenience disconnects us from. This is what changing our habits reconnects us to.
Where we put our money—and where we divest it from—matters
I’m also asking where to put my money and where to pull my money from. I already personally bank at my long-time credit union (so that’s proudly where all Folkweaver money lives!). But last week, I started taking stock of my retirement investments and asking where to move my dollars so that they ethically align with my values.
I’m having a really hard time finding ethically responsible places to invest that are committed to Palestinian solidarity, or at the very least don’t further cause egregious harm to Palestine. Has anyone done research on this? would love to either find or gather a list of ethical investing that accounts for that lens because sadly, most ethical investing does not.
Where I’m spending my time
It’s been a blessedly busy couple weeks—busy in the ways that nourish my soul and give me hope that we are, at a microscale, co-creating alternative systems rooted in care as the old systems crumble. For me these last weeks, that’s looked like:
Doing the work: mobilizing and organizing
making politicized art in good company: on Saturday, my eldest and I made posters for actions with our school community’s bi-weekly art and soup hangs hosted by a beloved community member
attending a gardening 101 class: As I try to better understand this concept of self-sustenance as part of the process of building alternative systems, a friend and I decided to take this gardening class at Garden for the Environment, which I’m already so excited by. It’s powerful to be in a space with others asking the same questions, eager to reconnect with the knowledge of this land we inhabit.
co-building a free little library and planter bed at my kiddo’s school: this project sparked from a friend and my simple desire to bring some of these values into more active practice in our school community about a month ago, and we’ve been gathering each Friday afternoon for the month to make these ideas come to life. Its been really satisfying to collaborate on with folks in our school community, watch the kids take the lead in building, and soon have a place to share books and veggies freely amongst the community.
Showing up to political actions big, small, serious, and hilarious in good company: I’m going to keep sharing about specific actions offline, but I will say attending actions over the last two decades in good company has always anchored me to purpose, connection, resilience, righteous rage, bravery, community, and joy in ways that fuel me for what’s ahead
Making time for spirituality, discipline, and resilience-care
Connecting to spirituality: calling in the Spring Equinox with friends, dropping into circle together to set intentions, fasting for Ramadan—learning how to be in that spiritual cycle again, comforted by the discipline and fortitude and empathy and the billions of other fasting humans is giving me solidity of spirit
Practicing strength and discipline at weekly Kung Fu: I am weekly humbled by all the ways my patterns of bracing against the world as a sensitive being show up in my body. This is a space where learning is collectivist and nonhierarchical, where my fellow students—some my age, some in high school—show me the way. Where our Simo holds space and teaches to transgress in ways that do bell hooks honor.
Taking a birthday dip in the ocean with brave friends: This yearly ritual always reminds me of the powers bigger than myself—that we are not separate from this planet we inhabit or the cosmos surrounding it
Having spa days with my kids where the kids and I turn off all screens, diffuse some essential oils, and take a cozy salt bath together to connect, reset, and remember that resilience-care can be both relational and inexpensive (and importantly, another active practice that challengea the zero sum game between mothers and kids, bucking the trope of the tired mother whose kids rob her of self-care time)
Reclaiming my attention
Divesting from online life: as part of my practice to reclaim my mind, I’m making active effort to divest from social media, particularly instagram, and take up more of my own brain space for long-form content.
Inhaling unruly books to keep learning, unlearning, and dot-connecting, and importantly, sharing notes with others on similar quests
Reading some choice substack pieces, my two favorites this week being:
Dilemma Actions by Scot Nakagawa
Self-organization is Resistance by Mike Jones
Changing Habits is Easier Together
I know so many of us—in this deluge of chaotic and increasingly frightening and gut-wrenching news—are struggling with how to show up in this moment. And, I want us all to remember that rejecting nihilism matters. Reclaiming our fate matters. Believing that our small actions matter—that matters! Because we cannot actually birth the world of our dreams into being if we can’t live it out at the smallest scales in our own lives.
But I know that doing that work alone is hard! So what if instead, we worked to change our habits with friends? maybe it feels futile to forgo Amazon or online groceries alone—that’s how they want you to feel! But something I’ve learned over time from friendships with people like Emily and from my most recent delight, the cliche club, is that habit—changing is undoubtedly more empowering and effective when you take it on with friends.
So what if we did that consciously? What if we each gathered a crew of friends looking to change our daily behaviors—specifically daily spending and investing habits—to better align with our values? What if we each texted 3-5 folks and asked them if they wanted to be on a thread together to intentionally practice changing habits to better align with values? We could:
Set up a a text thread, a monthly gather, or some other recurring container to check in together regularly
Give it a nifty name
Set intentions for places for changes we want to make (ie. shop at local grocery stores in person, stop buying things on Amazon)
make lists of local alternatives to shop at
Research where to divest from and invest into
Share and troubleshoot our struggles logistical hurdles
And most importantly, witness and celebrate the outsized impact of those pattern changes ripple out in our circle.
If each Folkweaver reader commited to that practice with three of their friends, we’d have over 3,000 people changing their behavior—3,000 fractals joining the many sister fractals running similar experiments, collectively shaping an alternative system rooted in collective care. Being one of one feels small. But being one of many—that is the power of a movement.
Are we all willing to be fractals shaping regenerative worlds together? What experiments are you already running? What experiment will you invite your buddies to take on with you? How can we support each other along the way? Let us know in the comments!
In shaping possibilities,
Sara
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Love this piece - it resonated strongly and left me feeling motivated and uplifted!
Love this- thank you. I resonated with so much of it, and it sparked some ideas on how I can build some spaces of collective action and sharing (I'm trying to avoid the word 'accountability' but I think I need more places to hear what others are doing and to feel a part of something bigger in my own individual actions).