there is so much to say (emotionally, politically) but i am in the middle of a whirlwind of summer travels and so i’m mostly not going to say anything other than: check out all this dope stuff my folks are doing. note it’s not really sorted or ordered cause i am moving quick!!! see you on the other side. also, i might skip aug.
maybe the most personally relevant thing here: there’s an open room to live in my building! looking for a dope person to join our sweet little community. details here: Bedroom in sunny dharma house for Sept 1. also, separately, my friend, janhavi, a dope organizer and my aries kin 🐏🐏 , is looking for housemates. go live with them!
a few weeks ago, my friend, sól, put out a sweet video about the power of liberatory coaching in these times. it’s really worth a watch, whether you’re a coach, have gotten coached, or have ever considered (including right now) getting coaching. sól’s description of liberatory coaching in this moment is dead on, in my opinion and experience, including the 5 sessions i held last week as a part of the 2025 better selves fellowship program.
and speaking of coaching, a friend and teacher, gibrán is offering a coaching cohort for facilitators. starts in sept. $2500. worth every penny.
one more coaching thing: my beloved, farai, is offering somatic coaching and taking on new folks at the moment. i’ll include a lil quote below but check out a lil writeup over here and if you’re interested, hit her up!
A guide, facilitator, and somatic coach, Farai invites you into a transformational practice of returning to your body as sacred ground.
Through her approach to coaching—rooted in movement, breath, stillness, and voice—Farai supports clients in listening deeply, intuiting wisely, feeling fully, and embodying what matters most.
Somatic coaching is a life-affirming process that aligns actions and behaviors with your values and visions. It creates more choice, resilience, and the capacity to take powerful, effective actions in meaningful areas of life. Together, you’ll explore somatic awareness, transform old patterns, and build practices that sustain well-being and aliveness.
(wow ok maybe i should start a new section of this newsletter related to all things coaching… stay tuned for that…)
anyway…
The Massachusetts Institute For Community Health Leadership is Now Accepting Applications
One of my most inspiring ongoing professional engagements is as co-director of the Massachusetts Institute of Community Health Leadership (MICHL), an intensive leadership development experience for evolving leaders across the Massachusetts public health and healthcare settings.
I am seeking your help in spreading the below announcement about MICHL Cohort 13: We are seeking interested candidates from across the state, particularly those working with and connected to our most marginalized communities.
For more details, please see below and here, and feel free to reach out directly with any questions. Thank you!
PEACE
Daniel (he/him) Michaud Weinstock dmw360@yahoo.com
https://www.bluecrossmafoundation.org/programs/massachusetts-institute-community-health-leadership
are you in western mass? love dancing and palestine? check this out:
speaking of gaza:
“Santuario Romero is a land back, coming home, and decolonization project where reconnecting Natives and Anti-Zionist Jews can do real authentic work to come back to their own roots and humanity instead of being swallowed up by assimilation and false promises of nationalist belonging.” Consider donating!
my last newsletter highlighted my friend helen’s new book, the salt stones. well, earlier this week the book got a spotlight on npr’s fresh air.
she’s is also hosting a writers retreat weekend in a few months. check it out! she’s a dope editor (30 years!) and you’ll get to stay on knoll farm, a place and land i love dearly.
another friend, rafter, just started a new newsletter experiment!: culture of homecoming. first post: An invitation to Culture of Homecoming. beautiful writing and poetry. and yall know i love a good experiment!
another beloved, nay, is hosting a partner massage workshop in august! it’s FULL (hell yea!) but you should still register if you’re interested. you might make it in off the waitlist or, at least you’ll prolly be in the know when the next offering comes out. i just had a massage from them last weekend and it was 🔥
a beloved friend and collaborator, eli, launch steward for the retreat center, has been sharing this article for a while about retreat centers: Planning For Failure: The Stakes Are Too High Not To. i’m just sharing this quote because it feels powerful in these times:
"How much has one Highlander Center been worth over the last century? How much has one Watershed Center been worth over the last decade? Why should we not have such a center in every state of the country, and more movement schools, media, and housing too?
In his memoir The Long Haul, Myles Horton wrote, “We thought there would be other places like [Highlander] in every state within two or three years if we did a good job.” Horton did his job well, but too few have followed suit. This is a long haul indeed, and victory in the short run is far from certain. Can we afford to spend another billion-plus dollars on go-for-broke political strategies without learning this lesson?"
two consultant/facilitator colleagues are making this offering: Living into Racial and Gender Justice: A Group Coaching Experience for White Men in Leadership. check it out and share if you know someone who might be a good fit.
ok. there’s one thing i have to say (and it will feel kind of random but i’ve had this in the last like 8 newsletter headers and i have taken it out every time): fuck AI. if you happen to know me IRL, you know that i am a low-grade AI luddite/alarmist. i just can’t imagine, given our economic (capitalist) and political (fascist) reality, that AI will be a net good. with a very different context, the internet, which, to some early creators and technologists was a more egalitarian technology (at least at its inception), has gone almost completely sideways (a few key founders/philosphers of the internet have spoken clearly about the perils it has now created given how it’s development has followed the flows of capital, which is what happens in capitalism). it just feels unfathomable to me that AI has any more likelihood to go a different way. it just seems like AI is poised to be lighter fluid added to the intersecting and accelerating crises we’re already facing. anyways, don’t mind me; just over here being worried/annoyed/scared/angry. if i’m wrong about this, i’m not sure what i’ll do to atone to everyone i’ve ranted to about it… but let’s just say i would love to be wrong here.
ok! so much else to say but tryna get offline so i’m just gonna leave it here (typos be damned!)
on to the things!
(!!) pick of the pack
some things i’ve written since the last newsletter:
n/a
there is nothing new under the sun. also, full transparency, many of these quotes come from james clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter (which i love).
The beginning is mostly luck. The end is mostly choices. — James Clear
Ask for things. Ask for things that feel unreasonable, to make sure your intuitions about what’s reasonable are accurate (of course, try not to be a jerk in the process). If you’re only asking for things you get, you’re not aiming high enough. — Cate Hall
Cynicism is not a neutral position — and although it asks almost nothing of us, it is highly infectious and unbelievably destructive. In my view, it is the most common and easy of evils. I know this because much of my early life was spent holding the world and the people in it in contempt. It was a position both seductive and indulgent…
Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position either. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like… keeps the devil down in the hole. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in. In time, we come to find that it is so. — Nick Cave
some things i’ve read since the last newsletter:
Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama on Trump’s Campaign Trail | The New York Times
Trump radically remade the US food system in just 100 days | Grist
Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist | Library Journal
Weed of the Month: Broadleaf Plantain | Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Makes Herself Heard, Prompting a Rebuke | The New York Times
X CEO Linda Yaccarino Says She Is Leaving Elon Musk’s Platform | The New York Times
Trump Sends Marines to L.A. Protests, and Kennedy Fires Vaccine Experts | The New York Times
Sebastian, Alex, and Alex, Russian Dolls — Everything is Alive
Dance Sassy With Chris. Mon 7:30P, Wed 8:15P, Sat 2P, at the Dance Complex, Cambridge Ma.
DIY Adorable and Fluffy Felted Wool Alpaca | Needle Felting Tutorial | Covid Llama Has No Drama
co-hosted by my dear friend, nadav david! (he’s on vacay so might not have been updated this month)
Queer Mixer by Queer Yenta Radio Hour | July 25, 8pm-12am | Holyoke, MA
Partner Massage Workshop by Stages of the Moon Bodywork | 9 Aug 2025, 10am-12pm | Jamaica Plain, MA
Spanish Language Immersion for Families
Session 1: August 11-17, 2025
Session 2: August 18-24, 2025
bad environmentalist: Ask a Bad Environmentalist #2
the bird: Floods, openings, miracles.
building belonging: Learning to love: from monogamy to polyamory
future ancestors: Notes from Half a Life Part 1
solstice newsletter: a time's digest
rectangle | square: 10 | Slow, Broken, World-Leading
The Felt Sense: June Sensory Round-Up
how to use my new dumb phone…
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