December 2020 / Solstice / Changes!
The following is my December letter to our Village Members - a Village you can become a part of! - as we close out the year and approach some exciting changes that will make our monthly Member Village content more accessible to all. Want to join in or learn more? Shoot me a line!
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Hello, dear I4NW Village Members!
As the roiling year of 2020 comes to a close, and we approach the Winter Solstice as well as the turning of the calendar year, I want to share some exciting upcoming changes here in the Member Village, as well as two videos that I feel might be particularly supportive to you in this time of sinking into darkness, green things in winter, and bright stars.
FIRST: Starting around February 2021, the I4NW Member Village will switch to being FREE! You will be able to subscribe, get the monthly members-only newsletter (with some added recs and resources), and watch 1-3 videos made by me, all for free. Please watch the update video below for more details about why this is happening, why it's so exciting for me, and why I hope you'll join me in that excitement and in the next iteration of the Village!
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW - TLDR;
- We're making a new Member Village - a one-stop place where you can subscribe, for FREE, to I4NW's monthly village content
- During January, you'll receive the link to switch over to the free subscription - please click it when you do! I don't want to drop anyone from the village through the cracks, so reach out to me if you have any trouble switching over at rachel.nextworld[AT]gmail.com
- The current (paid) Member Village subscription will stay live until the end of January, as will the Practice Patreon. At the end of January, I will cancel these paid subscriptions (you don't need to do anything to make that happen!)
- I won't add any new content during January, and subscriptions will continue to the end of the month, in order to give folks a chance to catch up on content during January. If you want to cancel your subscription earlier than the end of January, that's totally fine!
- This next, free version of the Member Village will include video captions, the ability to leave comments on videos and share them with your friends, and more topics in the videos!
SECOND: Submissions for the Winter Issue are Still Open!
We're accepting submissions through New Year's for our winter issue, themed "Edge," and we would love to receive submissions from village members and your friends! Please spread the word <3
THIRD: This month's videos are here to support both the grief and the creative re-design richness that can arise in winter, especially this year. They're linked below, with more info.
Finally, I want to say a deep thank you to all of you. In the middle of a year of isolation, terrifying disease, increasing exposures of inequities, growing resistance to white-supremacist systems of violence, and ever growing evidence that we are more interconnected than our current systems can even fathom, you came here and helped begin this community. You shared your thoughts, queries, enthusiasms. You reached inward and outward to find tangible, actionable measures of hope, actual practices for imagining and building the worlds we need, now. You also helped me more than I can explain - feeling connected to you through making videos for you/in conversation with you cut through my own isolation and kept me from getting immobilized. Grief and creativity live side by side, and both need community to thrive, and to see the next world while caring for the current one and making repair for the past. It is exponentially easier for me to hold both when I am in connection with you, and I hope the same feels true in your direction to some extent. Wherever you are, however you're doing, you are always welcome here - you are the "us" of this village, and I'm so excited to venture into this next iteration together, and keep seeding the next world together.
Hoping this winter in the Member Village supports you and those around you, including the land and more-than-human, find rest, compost, ease in the darkness, and green things singing quietly about the coming spring.
With love and gratitude,
Rachel Economy
Owner / Lead Editor-Facilitator, I4NW