#31: hooked up to Thou
Plus English radicals, whale chat and Foregather
You’re reading This Might Resonate, a monthly newsletter from me, Emily. Welcome to all 887 of you! A favour: if you enjoy This Might Resonate, please forward it to a friend - they can subscribe right here.
I have some work capacity coming up for the autumn/ winter. Aside from reading and watching things, I help teams to collaborate and develop in regenerative ways through facilitation, organisational design, coaching and grief work. Read more and get in touch here.
Reading
All Fours. One of the most vigorous books I’ve ever read, full of eroticism and great jokes.
Arrangements in Blue. An achingly sad and beautifully written exploration of a life lived without romantic love.
The Garden Against Time: In Search Of A Common Paradise. A new Olivia Laing book is a major life event for me. A lot of the hardcore gardening bits went over my head but I loved the exploration of gardening as politics and the Laingian detours into some of my favourite English radicals and artists: Milton, William Morris and Gerrard Winstanley.
Facilitating Breakthrough and The Art of Gathering. The former is for facilitation nerds only. The latter is for anyone who wants to think differently about hosting: a complete facilitation philosophy, full of surprising opinions and practical examples, I highly recommend it.
How First Contact With Whale Civilization Could Unfold. I cried the whole way through reading this — imagine having a conversation with a whale?? Conversely… what if the whale thought I was cringe? Or mid? If asked, I will regretfully decline to be the first homo sapiens emissary to cetacean culture. Related: Whales have an alphabet!
Before Smartphones, an Army of Real People Helped You Find Stuff on Google. Hook all early noughties tech nostalgia straight to my veins
Our middle class commune (joint bank accounts, noisy sex and all) featuring
This profile of Zora Heale Hurston in
.
Most read from the last edition:
America’s premier pronatalists on having ‘tons of kids’ to save the world
What does it mean to grow an organisation as an infrastructure of care?
Watching
La Chimera. The ‘80s fashion, a grubby, depressed, Italian-speaking Josh O’Connor, the magical realism… this is cinema!
The Fall Guy. I had hoped for trashy fun but couldn’t cope with the stilted dialogue.
The Acolyte. Doesn’t reach Andor’s level of inventiveness and artistry but it’s a solid story with gorgeous world-building.
We Are Lady Parts season 2. What a fantastic ensemble cast, an absolute delight.
Big Mood. Pitch-black comedy with woman of the moment, Nicola Coughlan.
Bridgerton season 3 part 2. A disappointing follow-up to the outstanding part 1, but not disappointing enough to make me sour on this smutty period drama.
Listening
To the Gen Z pop girlies.
Writing
A lot of copy for
, which , and I launched last week (I am a founding member of the “People With Too Many Substacks” support group). Compulsive newslettering aside, I’m proud of what we’re building and excited to share more about our first gathering in North Devon over the Autumn Equinox. Read more here and below. Tl;dr: We help women dreaming of hopeful futures make their ideas a reality. Through gatherings and practices that deepen our connection to community, earth and creative energy. Combined with practical creative strategy and design support.My quarterly note on how GriefSick is going: what I’ve been learning, doing and reading, featuring the dreaded taste-gap, Palestine and my grief facilitation enquiry.
Upcoming
Apprenticing to grief
23rd - 28th July 2024
I will be support-facilitating at the Apprenticing to grief journey in Norfolk at the end of July. I participated in the journey myself in October last year, it’s a special experience: “An immersive journey for people wanting to deepen their relationship with grief, and strengthen their capacity to hold grief spaces for others. We explore common stages on the journey of grief, different views of grief, and traditions about how to welcome it; exploring facilitation, questions of safety and ethics in holding grief spaces, and the relationship between grief, trauma and the wider systems of harm and times of disruption we are living in and impacted by.”
There’s a few spaces places left. If you feel curious about or called to grief work in any way, do take a look.
Foregather Hartland
20th - 23rd September 2024
Laura Malan, Fran Cook and I are hosting a gathering in Devon over the Autumn Equinox to support women in making their hopeful ideas a reality.
Through various practices, we’ll be deepening our connection to community, earth and creative energy. And using our combined skills in practical creative strategy and design support to help bring ideas to life.
Take a look and do get in touch if you’re interested, and/ or share with others who might be.
Still savouring…
The Glass Essay, by Anne Carson: “Why cast the world away / For someone hooked up to Thou, / the world may have seemed a kind of half-finished sentence.”
Do you know someone who is growth-oriented and wisdom-seeking? Someone who loves unusual ideas and great reading recommendations? Perhaps they’d like This Might Resonate; please consider sharing this newsletter with them.
You might enjoy my other newsletters: GriefSick (about chronic illness grief) and (about women’s creative energy). Yes, I agree that three newsletters is too many newsletters.
Lastly, if you’re curious, I write about my facilitation and coaching work in LinkedIn weeknotes every Friday.