For The Worldbuilders
By Seeda School
For The WorldbuildersJul 26, 2023
047. To Crave Certainty is to Crave a Lie
The invitation of “safety as relation” (Mariame Kaba) is a huge one in a world that has taught us safety is the opposite of relation. A world that tries to convince us, with all it’s tools, that safety is domination, exploitation, segregation, etc. We are being called to be creative in a context where control and certainty are not introduced as triggering, but surrendering to each other’s gaze and no longer being strangers is taught to be the most triggering act we can imagine. Can we see how the core trauma of these systems of oppression is making us terrified of each other? THAT'S its animating, organizing framework. Being so terrified of the other that we can’t see the paralyzing fear of ourselves. What happens when we turn this creative bind into a creative prompt?
- Download the Creative Offer Questionnaire to Oneself
- Subscribe to Seeda School Substack for weekly essay and podcast releases straight into your inbox
- Paul Robeson, poem by Gwendolyn Brooks
- “Refusing Colonial Categorization and Claiming Fractal Possibility: Toni Morrison was in my dream yesterday...” (Nov 13, 2023) by Ayana Zaire Cotton
- Follow Ayana on Instagram: @ayzaco
- Follow Seeda School on Instagram: @seedaschool
- Cover Art: Torkwase Dyson, Liveness and Distance, 2022, acrylic and wood on canvas, 90-1/2" × 72-1/2" × 2-3/4" (229.9 cm × 184.2 cm × 7 cm) Source: A Liquid Belonging
046. Standing On the Abundance Already Inside Your Creative Practice
Only YOU can create the offer calling on your spirit. Some creatives will say, “if you don’t create your idea someone else will”. That’s bullshit. There’s only one YOU, with YOUR unique lived experience and YOUR journey of transformation. So, no. No one else can create the offer calling on your spirit. Join us this spring, take your offer from spirit to material and witness the magic that’s been begging to be actualized all along.
Resources:
- Enroll into the Seed A World Retreat by Monday, April 29th, 2024 here.
- Register for the last Worldbuilding Workshop of the season if you have any questions before enrolling!
- Download the Creative Offer Questionnaire to Oneself
- Subscribe to Seeda School Substack for weekly essay and podcast releases straight into your inbox
- Neta Bomani — Dark matter objects: Technologies of capture and things that can't be held
- Martine Syms — The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto
- Sonya Renee Taylor — Where Do I Want A Slave?: AI and the White Male Imagination
- Follow Ayana on Instagram: @ayzaco
- Follow Seeda School on Instagram: @seedaschool
- Cover Art: Jack Whitten, Atopolis: For Édouard Glissant (2014), Source: MoMA
045. Will You Let Us Perceive You?
"May our visibility be an offering of gratitude to those we dedicate our practice to. The ancestors, past selves, younger cousins, teachers and non-human creatures we owe our breath and possibility to. We didn’t come from nowhere. We come from the freedom fighters who took their imagination to the streets, we come from the parents whose direct action was reading us Tar Beach at night, we come from the hands that prepared the meals for the meeting. Praying hands. We come from all the black feminist theory we now get the privilege to rehearse in theater of the street, the home, the classroom. I show up if only to say thank you, thank you, thank you. It wasn’t in vain, it wasn’t in vain because of you I am possible. It wasn’t in vain. Because of you WE are possible." — Ayana Zaire Cotton
Resources:
- Enroll here using code EARLY-SPRING-24 for $100 off
- Register for the last Worldbuilding Workshop of the season if you have any questions before enrolling!
- Download the Creative Offer Questionnaire to Oneself
- Subscribe to Seeda School Substack for weekly essay and podcast releases straight into your inbox
- Listen to "Off The Grid" interview with Amelia Hruby on Softer Sounds or any podcast player.
- Follow Ayana on Instagram: @ayzaco
- Follow Seeda School on Instagram: @seedaschool
- Cover Art: Tschabalala Self, Out of Body, 2015. Oil and fabric collage on canvas 72 × 60 inches (182.9 × 152.4 cm). Photo by Charles Mayer. Acquavella Galleries. © Tschabalala Self
044. Your Journey of Transformation
The fire of our surrender brought down the walls and created a clearing. We all have our own field guides to teach from inside the clearing we will turn into a classroom. How will you shape your journey of transformation into lesson plans all about love? How has love transformed you?
Resources:
- Register for the Worldbuilding Workshop Series
- Download the Creative Offer Questionnaire to Oneself
- Subscribe to Seeda School Substack for weekly essay and podcast releases straight into your inbox
- Follow Ayana on Instagram: @ayzaco
- Follow Seeda School on Instagram: @seedaschool
- won’t you celebrate with me By Lucille Clifton
- Cover Art: Rachel Jones, SMIIILLLLEEEE, 2021 Material: Oil pastel, oil stick on canvas Source: Thaddaeus Ropac
043. Teach What You Want to Learn
Our breath is the new syllabus. Our survival is the new curriculum. But where is our classroom? This critical geography we must carve out to practice the dis-order that our new world calls for. Black feminist pedagogies have always been critical to my practice. It wasn’t enough to inhale black feminist research — I had to lick it — I had to play with it — I had to stir it — I had to serve it — I had to perform it — I had to breathe it. This was the desire that seeded Seeda School. Inspired by a character that could breathe when I couldn’t seem to catch mine.
Resources:
- Register for the Worldbuilding Workshop Series
- Download the Creative Offer Questionnaire to Oneself
- Subscribe to Seeda School Substack for weekly podcast and essay releases straight into your inbox
- Follow Ayana on Instagram: @ayzaco
- Follow Seeda School on Instagram: @seedaschool
- 3 Body Problem Scene (Youtube)
- Alexis Pauline Gumbs, “The God of Every Day” published by Topical Cream on December 22nd, 2021
- Cover Art: Beverly Buchanan, “Three Familiar (A Memorial Piece with Scars), 1989 [courtesy of the Chrysler Museum of Art, gift of David Henry Jacobs, Jr.] Source: “Beverly Buchanan, Life on the Line” published by Art Papers. Image Description: Three, small, shacks collaged with wood, paint, nails, metal and fire — leaning, grieving, singing, dancing.
042. Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should
There’s a consistent theme I’m noticing on the other side of my season of surrender. When I’m not being particularly nice to myself I’ll notice myself get frustrated with my capacity. Trying to figure out why I’m not able to lock in like I use to, put in the same amount of hours as I used to, produce as much or as quickly as I used to — both inside my job (stewarding Seeda School) and my art practice (writing science fiction in the bathtub). When inside this frustration, I have to remind myself, before my season of surrender, I was operating in complete misalignment with my desire and the pace of my body. The fuel that was charging me was external validation so I was operating in self-sacrificing ways. Exerting domination over my creative spirit and body — it’s no wonder I was more productive. I was constantly dissociating and ignoring my needs, working through meals and feasting on praise instead.
Resources:
- Download the Creative Offer Questionnaire to Oneself
- Subscribe to Seeda School Substack for weekly podcast releases straight into your inbox
- Follow Ayana on Instagram: @ayzaco
- Follow Seeda School on Instagram: @seedaschool
- Revisit Newsletter & Podcast: Season of Surrender
- Letters to the Future: Black WOMEN/Radical WRITING, edited by Erica Hunt and Dawn Lundy Martin
- The Wild Beyond: With and For the Undercommons by Jack Halberstam
- Cykofa: The Seeda Origin Story by Ayana Zaire Cotton
- Cover Art: R.S.V.P. sculptures activated by Senga Nengudi and Maren Hassinger in “Performance Piece—Nylon Mesh and Maren Hassinger,” (1977) (Photo by Harmon Outlaw, Pearl C. Wood Gallery, Los Angeles. Courtesy RedLine Gallery.)(Source: Hyperallergic)
041. Why Worldbuilding?: Permission to Actualize Audacious Desire
This week I want to return to the Seeda School newsletter originally published on December 4th, 2023 titled, “What is Your Creative Offer?”, subtitle: “A Questionnaire to Oneself”. In it I share why worldbuilding has been such an essential method for me. But “Why Worldbuilding?” is a question I’ve been getting again lately so I wanted to revisit the question inside this podcast in order to invite you to join me in building worlds as containers for actualizing our audacious desire. How? Stay tuned for the strategy, tip and affirmations to remember towards the end of the episode.
Resources:
- Download the Creative Offer Questionnaire to Oneself
- Subscribe to Seeda School Substack for weekly podcast releases straight into your inbox
- Follow Ayana on Instagram: @ayzaco
- Follow Seeda School on Instagram: @seedaschool
- Revisit Newsletter — ”What is Your Creative Offer?: A Questionnaire to Oneself”
- Audre Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power” (1978)
- Toni Morrison’s Nobel Lecture from December 7, 1993
- Cover Art: Wangechi Mutu, In Two Canoe, 2022. Bronze, 180 × 68 × 72 in (457.2 × 172.7 × 182.9 cm). Courtesy the artist and Gladstone Gallery. © Wangechi Mutu
040. How to Breathe Fire, Watching Discipline Melt into Devotion
I’m watching the sharp edges of the second hand turn into a feather here. Here in the space between the real and the infinite, feeling real infinite these days. Working alongside you, body doubling — I am elsewhere, I am here, WE ARE HERE. Emphatically here and the air is heavier. Our breathing is heavier. Our breathing is like fire now. Weightless and heavy with life. Tune into this episode for a strategy, a tip and invitation to remember how to breathe fire.
Resources:
- Download the Creative Offer Questionnaire to Oneself
- Subscribe to Seeda School Substack for weekly podcast releases straight into your inbox
- Follow Ayana on Instagram: @ayzaco
- Follow Seeda School on Instagram: @seedaschool
- The quote, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution" is by Emma Goldman
- Cover Art: A screenshot from HBO's Love Craft Country created by Misha Green. In this still from "Rewind 1921" (S1:EP9), at the 42:40 timestamp, Hattie grabs Leti’s hand to pray as she holds the Book of Names and the house around them burns. During this scene there is audio of Sonia Sanchez reading "Catch the Fire" amidst the backdrop of the Tulsa Massacre.
039. Reclaiming The Power of Our Belief, Faith, and Trust
Okay so I’m making twice as much as I was making with much more control over my income but I still don't feel as secure as I felt with my salaried position, when I was working for a company I had no control over. Why is that? Because I am so used to, have been taught to, have been socialized and expected to relinquish the power of my belief, attention and faith to sources outside myself.
- Creative Offer Questionnaire to Oneself: Download Here
- Subscribe to Seeda School Substack: https://seedaschool.substack.com/
- Follow Ayana on Instagram: @ayzaco
- Follow Seeda School on Instagram: @seedaschool
- Mariame Kaba in an interview on the Seizing Freedom Podcast with Kidada E. Williams
038. Choose the Role You Can Sustain Not the Role You Think We Need
Instead of the “What should I do?” question, here are 3 questions I want to leave you with:
- Which role will you choose?
- What container will your practice it in? Will it be through a creative offer, the garden or the 2 hour container in the morning you have before the house wakes up?
- Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, who will you practice this role WITH?
These are questions we ask in the Seed A World Retreat and I want to pose them to you here. Let me know by responding at info@seedaschool.com.
Resources:
037. The Grief Work of Composting Past Selves
Suddenly, my job no longer worked. I put in my resignation letter September 2020. Suddenly, my romantic relationship no longer worked. I ended it the spring of 2021. Suddenly, the non-existent boundaries in all of my relationships, family, friends, community members had to be reflected on and invented. This is because my job, my romantic relationship, my lack of boundaries were all oriented around me trying to get my unmet needs from childhood, met externally.
- Subscribe for weekly love letters: https://seedaschool.substack.com/
- "We Will Not Innovate Our Way Out Of White Supremacy: A letter to my 19 year old self" newsletter mentioned in episode
- How to Start Working for Yourself, with Bear Hebert podcast episode
- Pre-order: "Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde" by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
- Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself by Melody Beattie
036. But…"I’m Scared": Being Unafraid Isn’t a Prerequisite for Transformation
Enrollment closes on January 29th at midnight! Enroll in the Seed A World Retreat Here: https://www.seedaschool.com/program
Your creative desire makes space for our collective imagination. Join us inside this creative retreat and attend 9 weekly workshops and 9 weekly office hours based on Seeda School's worldbuilding framework. You'll be developing your creative offer alongside a committed community of fellow worldbuilders who will offer feedback and accountability. Seeda School's Worldbuilding Framework consists of nine critical action steps with three major milestones: Deciding on your creative offer, developing the framework for your offer and releasing your offer. Leveraging the worldbuilding power of storytelling the framework takes the form of a story circle, invoking a circular practice you can return to for years to come.
035. But…"I Don’t Want to Monetize": Public Practice Beyond Capitalism
What irresistible portals are the people you dream of serving waiting on? Offers as containers that might bring the two worlds spinning away from each other a little closer, if only for a moment, but just long enough for us to experiment with inventing new models of belonging, cooperative economics and mutual aid that build on the old ones. Generating money that will go to mutual aid request flyers and loved one’s Venmo accounts instead of the stock market and the distance between the two worlds spinning away from each other decreases little by little. Using our time, art, ideas, sweat, tears, spit trying to pay back a social debt that can never be repaid we dream up creative offers with the full hearted belief that this is just one strategy of millions to help us collectively divest and make more space for our liberatory quilting.
- Register for free upcoming workshop: https://www.seedaschool.com/workshop
- Enroll in the Seed A World Retreat: https://www.seedaschool.com/program
- Read this week's newsletter: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/making-goals-for-a-future-we-dont
- Follow me on Instagram & Threads: https://www.instagram.com/ayzaco/
034. But…“I Don’t Have the Capacity”: Recovering from People Pleasing
The number of things we have to unlearn is unquantifiable, but I know the one thing we must set fire to is continuing to allocate an ounce of our power and meaning making to systems that are only satiated by our death. When we slow down we understand the new year goal setting frenzy is connected to our longing to control the chaos and to carve out meaning in the spacetime of the abyss. The gift of acknowledging this craving with compassion, grace and the full awareness of our power is we get to direct this species-wide compulsion toward something much more intentional and aligned with our aliveness.
- Register for free upcoming workshop: https://www.seedaschool.com/workshop
- Check out the framework and download the syllabus: https://www.seedaschool.com/program
- “I do not set goals in January!! I am GERMINATING” by Ismatu Gwendolyn: https://www.patreon.com/posts/i-do-not-set-in-96189999
- Uses of the Erotic, The Erotic as Power by Audre Lorde: https://stilluntitledproject.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/audre-lorde-sister-outsider-the-uses-of-the-erotic-1978.pdf
- Read this week's newsletter: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/making-goals-for-a-future-we-dont
- Follow me on Instagram & Threads: https://www.instagram.com/ayzaco/
033. But…"I Don’t Know My Purpose": The Year of Childhood Curiosity
In search of our mother’s gardens we found a path. Keeping that path “well-trodden” so others may find it too is our only assignment. What’s your purpose? That’s impossible to know and that’s okay because we’re following the truth of our desire instead. What does this look like? It looks like releasing control of the project and signing up for the practice, laying perfectionism to rest. “The form will find itself”, is what the abolitionist science fiction writers, mutual aid practitioners also known as aunties and working class folk who carve out enough softness from the abyss to sing on Sunday, told me. The facts will make you lose your mind so on the well-trodden path, paved with black feminist praxis, we pick up feeling instead. Insisting on only what feels good, pleasure becomes an organizing framework for the practice. The truth of our desire becomes a compass, the practice is trusting it’s leading us in the right direction.
Register for free Worldbuilding Workshop to learn more about the Seed A World Retreat: https://www.seedaschool.com/workshop
Download the Creative Offer Questionnaire to Oneself: https://www.seedaschool.com/questionnaire
Subscribe to Seeda School Newsletter: https://seedaschool.substack.com
Seeda School Website: https://www.seedaschool.com/
Seeda School Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seedaschool/
Mentioned in the episode: Zoé Samudzi (https://www.instagram.com/babywasu) & https://www.instagram.com/deathworkwithshiv
032. Season of Surrender: Writing a Love Letter to Our Fear
All that running, until 2020 when I finally ran out of steam. Unhealthy work habits and a total lack of boundaries kept me distracted for years. In the absence of that distraction was nothing but the stillness, the silence, the darkness, the eyes patiently waiting for me to finally choose myself. On September 2nd, 2020 I submitted my letter of resignation and a 3 month sabbatical turned into two years. The season of surrender.
Download the Creative Offer Questionnaire to Oneself: https://www.seedaschool.com/questionnaire
Subscribe to Seeda School Newsletter: https://seedaschool.substack.com/
Seeda School Website: https://www.seedaschool.com/
Seeda School Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seedaschool/
031. Discover Your Creative Offer: A Workshop Podcast
What are our tools, frameworks and creative offers for helping each other navigate this wide open expanse? Worldbuilding is my framework, the Seed A World Retreat is my offering and “The Creative Offer Questionnaire to Oneself” is the tool I want to share today. Download your very own copy of the questionnaire using the link below! Inspired by “The Audre Lorde Questionnaire to Oneself” created by Divya Victor, “The Creative Offer Questionnaire to Oneself” walks you through four key questions whose answers intersect in ways that allow you to discover your income generating and values aligned offer. The offering that allows you to refuse severance inside your interdisciplinary practice by practicing surrender, spiritual alignment and relation instead.
Download the Creative Offer Questionnaire to Oneself: https://www.seedaschool.com/questionnaire
The Audre Lorde Questionnaire to Oneself: https://divyavictor.com/the-audre-lorde-questionnaire-to-oneself/
Subscribe to Seeda School Newsletter: https://seedaschool.substack.com/
Seeda School Website: https://www.seedaschool.com/
Seeda School Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seedaschool/
030. Toni Morrison was in my dream yesterday...
Learn more about the Retreat: https://www.seedaschool.com/program
Read this week's newsletter: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/refusing-colonial-categorization
What if we are making appeals for our “humanity” to empires whose very colonial conception of “human” was given form by excluding certain members of the same species? To put it another way, let’s consider we are asking the same people who invented the word “human”, in order to dominate other members of the species and the planet, to include us in the project. Perhaps the only way to go about complete domination over a land and it’s species (including it’s people) is to invent a word that creates a delination between “man” and “nature”. The word is born out of contridication, an attempt to separate us from all there is when we are all there is.
029. Our Mission, Vision and Values Keep Us Possible
Subscribe to the Newsletter: https://seedaschool.substack.com/
See this week's newsletter for more links and footnotes: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/fear-cant-survive-a-radical-love
Learn More About Seeda School: https://www.seedaschool.com/program
028. Overlapping Catastrophe Calls for Overlapping Creative Action
Overlapping catastrophes like to flirt with your apathy, whispering into your ear with empty promises about the safety of solitude. The safety of silence. The safety of avoidance. The empty promises are dark and cavernous, without light and without ground. The darkness wouldn’t be so bad if I could at least smell soil — some possibility of change, emergence, growth. But that’s the thing about this empty promise — the option we have in the West to look away — we cut ourselves off from the generativity of letting grief and rage transform us. Inside collective grief, rage and study the walls are pulsing with life, the green electricity charges our movements and this dewy microclimate allows us to drink from the air; hydrating our hope for one more minute, one more hour, one more day. There is nothing but the smell of soil here. Plenty of ground to root inside of, eager for the seeds of our collective imagination and all the empty promises powered by fear — the whispering status quo — is drowned out by all the life buzzing around us.
See this week's newsletter for more links and footnotes: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/our-job-is-to-make-revolution-irresistible
Learn More About Seeda School: https://www.seedaschool.com/program
Subscribe to the Newsletter: https://seedaschool.substack.com/
027. Invitations From Inside Collective Grief and Study
I want to call in all teachers, writers, artists and business owners to take a close look at what we’re “normalizing” in our practices. What cultural examples are we using to teach that feel apolitical? What references are we pointing to in our art that feel “neutral”? What narratives are we normalizing in our writing? What topics are we avoiding on our business accounts on social media? What are the employers, organizations and institutions we’re connected to authorizing as the “professional stance”? What ideologies are we upholding in an attempt to be apolitical? Whose politics are we re-inscribing when we “leave politics out of it”?
See this week's newsletter for more links and footnotes: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/being-apolitical-is-political-beloved
Join The Seed A World Retreat Waitlist: https://www.seedaschool.com/program
Subscribe to the Newsletter: https://seedaschool.substack.com/
Ashlee Marie Preston's Post: https://www.threads.net/@ashleemariepreston/post/CywDoHiPYo8
Sonya Renee Taylor's Reel: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CyycxkqA4eC/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
026. Our Right to Release and Generate Income
It’s Monday morning at my favorite coffee shop and I’m mesmerized by the freedom I’m witnessing. A toddler is freestyle dancing to electronic instrumentals in the middle of the busiest section of the establishment. The line wraps around her, the towering members of her species are careful not to interrupt her flow, everyone collectively ensures she has enough space to be. To dance. Enthralled by this scene, time slows and I take a sip of my black coffee with two pumps of vanilla syrup. The usual. And I try to hold back tears of joy. As usual. I realize we’re collectively making space for her to dance and that’s probably opening up space inside us too.
See this week's newsletter for more links and footnotes: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/our-right-to-release
Leave a Voice Message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/soft-where/message
Learn More About Seeda School: https://www.seedaschool.com/
Register for Workshop: https://www.seedaschool.com/workshop
Enroll in The Seed A World Retreat: https://www.seedaschool.com/program
Subscribe to the Newsletter: https://seedaschool.substack.com/
Subscribe to the Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/soft-where
Subscribe to the YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SeedaSchool/
025. 3 Lessons from A Decade of Creative Practice
Like I said, mistakes? I can name plenty. There is no way to be in a generous practice of producing public facing projects without them. Some of these mistakes were essential, they were carrying divine lessons, and honestly some of them weren’t. The attempts to flatten in the face of the “jack of all trades, master of none” myth (who wants to be a fucking master anyway?), the workaholism unsustainably powered by a sense of unworthiness, solely relying on funding resources coming from outside my work instead of implementing strategies for the Creative Ecosystem to fund itself and the moves made out of fear, the fear, the fear, so much fear, are all mistakes that have cost me time, money, energy, opportunities, unnecessary suffering and even some relationships.
See this week's newsletter for more links and footnotes: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/3-lessons-from-a-decade-of-creative
Leave a Voice Message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/soft-where/message
Learn More About Seeda School: https://www.seedaschool.com/
Subscribe to the Newsletter: https://seedaschool.substack.com/
024. Your Desire Is More Powerful Than Your Fear
Healing from years of childhood trauma, where pleasure meant threat of punishment and desire meant danger. My Element X beckoned, “What if your desire became more powerful than your fear?”
See last week's newsletter for more links and footnotes: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/you-will-not-be-punished-for-your
Leave a Voice Message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/soft-where/message
Learn More About Seeda School: https://www.seedaschool.com/
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Enroll in The Classroom: https://www.seedaschool.com/classroom
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023. When Life Hands You Bugs: An Invitation to Release
This letter is dedicated with gratitude to the bug in my code last week. It appeared as I was building a project using React in order to introduce the learners in Seeda School’s Module 4 how to build their own Community Directory using the popular library. I reflected on the library’s name, React. An invitation to be mindful of how we respond to the bugs and blocks which are inevitable in our code, as they are in our life. An invitation to tune into the buzzing with curiosity and react with compassion. If we release, the incomplete metamorphosis is a gift. Oh, you’re trying to teach me how to fly? I’m listening.
See this week's newsletter for more links and footnotes: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/when-life-hands-you-bugs-learn-from
Leave a Voice Message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/soft-where/message
Learn More About Seeda School: https://www.seedaschool.com/
Book a Seeda School Consultation Call: https://www.seedaschool.com/offers/Vq4DxgZf
Enroll in The Classroom: https://www.seedaschool.com/classroom
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Subscribe to the YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SeedaSchool/
022. Lavender Software Centers Our Body and Belonging
What happened? I was so focused on building the tools for belonging that I forgot to actually practice belonging. Call my family, show up for my friends, support the art shows of the brilliant folks in my circle, volunteer at the community garden, attend the programming at my local library, walk down to the bar that was literally underneath my feet. This is the slippery trap of building software for deepening connection without actually being connected. Existing on a social media platform doesn’t mean we’re engaged in a social practice, showing up on Zoom does not mean we’re present and increased awareness of all the potential events you could attend this weekend might actually increase your felt sense of loneliness. The church of techno-optimism would have us believe that software can solve suffering but there’s no solution for that, only a salve. The salve is the practice of returning to each other, ourselves and our local ecosystems again and again. Most of the time it requires a knock on the door, a phone call, handpicked herbs from your garden in outstretched hands smelling of rosemary asking for permission to hold you.
See this week's newsletter for more links and footnotes: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/lavender-software-and-the-smell-of
Leave a Voice Message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/soft-where/message
Learn More About Seeda School: https://www.seedaschool.com/
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Enroll in The Classroom: https://www.seedaschool.com/classroom
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Subscribe to the YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SeedaSchool/
021. Frameworks for Care-full Software?
What new values and commitments do we want to seed the next generation of software inside of? How do we want to collectively tend to this soil? No, software will not solve racism, sexism, ableism and classism — only plain ol’ revolution will do that — but given the fact that software has made all these -isms exponentially worse, I do wonder how building technologies of care might be a salve in the meantime. A fractal expanding toward belonging, not fear.
See this week's newsletter for more links and footnotes: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/what-are-technologies-of-care
Leave a Voice Message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/soft-where/message
Learn More About Seeda School: https://www.seedaschool.com/
Book a Seeda School Consultation Call: https://www.seedaschool.com/offers/Vq4DxgZf
Enroll in The Classroom: https://www.seedaschool.com/classroom
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Subscribe to the YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SeedaSchool/
020. Interdisciplinary Permission: Dancing > Fear
Being an artist is a commitment to indeterminacy. It asks, “are you prepared for a life long practice of improvisation?” In many ways, the word asks you to consent not to be a single being. Upon surrender, you join the beyond human swarm in an emergent choreography, a commitment to interdisciplinary practice and collective study. When you release control, another energetic current has room to flow in.
See this week's newsletter for more links and footnotes: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/interdisciplinary-permission
Leave a Voice Message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/soft-where/message
Learn More About Seeda School: https://www.seedaschool.com/
Book a Seeda School Consultation Call: https://www.seedaschool.com/offers/Vq4DxgZf
Enroll in The Classroom: https://www.seedaschool.com/classroom
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019. College Saved My Life: What's Up w/The Shit Talk?
While under a tree older than my great grandparents providing the quiet grace of shade, a spider the size of the bread crumb from my morning pastry is my only companion as I read the words of Magdalena Zurawski’s essay, “Being Human Is an Occult Practice”. Inside she reminds us, “Neoliberalism requires us to limit or suppress much of what is human in us because much of what is human in us serves no economic purpose”. As I read this essay I think about how much Neoliberal policy has paved the way for so much of the software we use on a daily basis, software created by white men celebrated for dropping out of college, never having to question their position in a world they create and dominate. College didn’t teach me how to code, this much is true. But college gave me the politic of black feminism and the practice of interdisciplinary study with others. And it is the politic of black feminism and interdisciplinary study with others that has saved my life.
See this week's newsletter for more links and footnotes: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/college-saved-my-life
Learn More About Seeda School: https://www.seedaschool.com/
Book a Seeda School Discovery Call: https://www.seedaschool.com/offers/Vq4DxgZf
Enroll in The Classroom: https://www.seedaschool.com/classroom
Subscribe to the Newsletter: https://seedaschool.substack.com/
Subscribe to the YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SeedaSchool/
018. Writing With the World: We're Writing More. Why?
Over the summer I’ll continue gathering seed data, collaborating with computer kin, and thinking about why we’re all turning to writing at the same time. Meditating on what affordances, shelter, breath, code allows inside this practice. In September, I plan to invite you into a creative coding for writers offering and that’s when live virtual programming inside of Seeda School will resume. In the meantime, if you have any thoughts on creative writing alongside code or would like to collaborate around this topic — please get in touch. I would love to hear from you and continue thinking through this together. Consenting not to be a single being, the carrier bag theory of fiction explodes when non-humans are also the authors.
- See this week's newsletter for more links and footnotes: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/writing-with-the-world
- Leave a Voice Message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/soft-where/message
- Learn More About Seeda School: https://www.seedaschool.com/
- Book a Seeda School Consultation Call: https://www.seedaschool.com/offers/Vq4DxgZf
- Enroll in The Classroom: https://www.seedaschool.com/classroom
- Subscribe to the Newsletter: https://seedaschool.substack.com/
- Subscribe to the Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/soft-where
- Subscribe to the YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SeedaSchool/
017. It Comes in Waves: The Ceremony of Feeding the Black Interior
What are our collective ceremonies?
I decided I didn’t want to disrespect the question by providing an answer.
When searching for the “official language” to address the question, the only thing that came out was a poem. A poem about how poetry has saved my life. How it preserves life and provides oxygen when suffering is the ground and time is a trickster. Maybe the poem is the collective ceremony? The reading, the gathering, the singing, the sound, the performance of the poem. Maybe the poem is the only ceremony we need?
- See this week's newsletter for more links and footnotes: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/it-comes-in-waves - Leave a Voice Message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/soft-where/message - Learn More About Seeda School: https://www.seedaschool.com/ - Book a Seeda School Consultation Call: https://www.seedaschool.com/offers/Vq4DxgZf - Enroll in The Classroom: https://www.seedaschool.com/classroom - Subscribe to the Newsletter: https://seedaschool.substack.com/ - Subscribe to the YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SeedaSchool/
016. On Public Practice: What Are Our Collective Ceremonies?
This week's episode is about the practices that help us remember the world we need is the world we have. What came up is the realization that I am more skilled than last year at tending to the garden of my internal and eternal possibility — no longer a captive to external validation — I have cultivated practices that return me to myself, my body, and my values again and again. What also came up in this letter is the realization that I am craving more practice inside collective ceremonies that require somatic engagement both online and off (if there is a such thing as “offline”). In the next few newsletters I am looking forward to swimming underneath the question, How might software (in)form somatic practices of collective ceremony that deepen belonging? What are our collective ceremonies?
- See this week's newsletter for more links and footnotes: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/what-are-our-collective-ceremonies
- Leave a Voice Message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/soft-where/message
- Learn More About Seeda School: https://www.seedaschool.com/
- Book a Seeda School Consultation Call: https://www.seedaschool.com/offers/Vq4DxgZf
- Enroll in The Classroom: https://www.seedaschool.com/classroom
- Subscribe to the Newsletter: https://seedaschool.substack.com/
- Subscribe to the YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SeedaSchool/
015. The Ecosystem of Creative Practice: What's Your Mother Tree?
This week's episode is about the ecosystem of creative practice, mycelial media stewardship, and it’s containers. When I think about the next decade of my creative practice and how I imagine making room for my breath — I want to continue to move away from content creation and launches and move toward mycelial media and stewardship where my writing practice is the mother tree. What's the mother tree in your ecosystem of creative practice and study?
- See this week's newsletter for more links and footnotes: https://seedaschool.substack.com/p/the-ecosystem-of-creative-practice
- Learn More About Seeda School: https://www.seedaschool.com/
- Book a Seeda School Consultation Call: https://www.seedaschool.com/offers/Vq4DxgZf
- Enroll in The Classroom: https://www.seedaschool.com/classroom
- Subscribe to the Newsletter: https://seedaschool.substack.com/
- Subscribe to the YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SeedaSchool/
014. Every Body’s a Teacher Now: Education as New Media
I’ve been thinking a lot about how our body is an interface for learning and creating alongside our ecosystems. In the Future Organisms workshop that I attended in Colorado last week, while in conversation with a cheese maker, ceramicist and computational biologist, I reflected on how “craft” is another word for using our body as an interface for engaging with the material of our ecosystem and how “technology” is often the trace of that transformative engagement.
- Learn More About Seeda School: https://www.seedaschool.com/
- Book a Seeda School Consultation Call: https://www.seedaschool.com/offers/Vq4DxgZf
- Enroll in The Classroom: https://www.seedaschool.com/classroom
- Subscribe to the Newsletter: https://seedaschool.substack.com/
- Listen to the Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/soft-where
Mentioned in video
- The Black School: https://theblack.school/shop/ (link to shop)
- The Studio Museum in Harlem: https://store.studiomuseum.org/collections/apparel/products/the-black-school-bell-hooks-vintage-tee (link to t-shirt)
013. Suprise! They're Late: Black Feminism and The Whitewashing of AI Ethics
Timnit Gebru is fired and Geoffrey Hinton left. Read Timnit's story here and read Geoffrey's story here then reflect on the contrast.
I also invite you to read the Seeda School newsletter referenced in this podcast, Surprise! They're Late: No surprise, black feminism is right on time.
Due to the commitment to care rooted in the research of Dr. Ruha Benjamin, Dr. Safiya Noble, Timnit Gebru, and many, many others, powerful white men like Eric get to perform “thought leadership” in a cultural and media landscape where concern around AI and algorithmic bias is normalized thanks to the work black feminists cared enough to share while simultaneously being attacked.
I'd love to hear your thoughts! Email me at info@seedaschool.com.
012. All That You Touch: JavaScript x Octavia Butler
Reflecting on the possibilities of JavaScript and how one might teach it, I returned to Octavia Butler, and in returning to Butler, I returned to consent and in returning to consent I returned to my body savoring all the ways I have finally given myself permission to change and be changed. Read the entire newsletter and footnotes here.
Register here for this free JavaScript workshop on Tuesday, May 23rd, 2023 at 6pm EST where you will bring your favorite website, get introduced to JavaScript concepts like the DOM and learn how to change your favorite website using HTML and JavaScript.
011. Aspiring Software Engineer, Freelancer or Entrepreneur?
Are You an Aspiring Software Engineer, Freelancer or Entrepreneur? I want to invite you to join us for the upcoming Discovery Workshop where we will get clarity on your coding curiosity, story, and goals, in order to learn how Seeda School can help with all 3.
Register here: https://www.seedaschool.com/discovery-workshop
010. Learn How to Build a Black Feminist Coding Project in One Month
Plant the seed of your curiosity in nutrient rich soil. I hope you’ll join me in this upcoming discovery workshop, Learn How to Build a Black Feminist Coding Project in One Month, taking place over Zoom on Tuesday, March 28th, 2023 at 6-7PM EST. Register here and together we will explore your curiosity in code, uncover the stories that have stopped you from learning how to code, and learn how Seeda School can help you build a black feminist coding project in one month. You can read this invitation for yourself inside this latest Seeda School newsletter.
009. How Much Does A Dollar Cost?: The Gift of Worthiness, Boundaries for Burnout, and Permission to Play
My biggest fear isn’t failure or Seeda School “not working” or “not meeting my needs” — the success of Seeda School is inevitable. I know I’m called to this work and there is no “failure” inside calling, only lessons. My biggest fear is actually being the creator of a job I hate, being the facilitator of work that is unsatisfying or exhausting. Which is truly only a failure in boundaries and the courage to maintain them. Back to acting out belief, it’s about the courage to believe in the worthiness of your work enough to create boundaries to protect the sustainability of it.
Here are your Soft, Where? prompts to workshop throughout the week:
- What actions are you committing to taking before the winter ends to gift yourself the felt belief of worthiness?
- Reflect on and name your max capacity for work behind a computer each week. How will you commit to holding this boundary with yourself, your team, or creative collaborators?
- Give yourself permission to play by protecting play time in your calendar. What are the time blocks in your calendar protected for play?
Soft, Where? is a podcast where host, Ayana Zaire Cotton, talks about their journey toward finding and creating softness inside technology. This podcast is presented by Seeda School, a skill building platform for learning how to code through a black feminist lens. I invite you to take a screenshot and share it on social media or with other black feminists who are also on a journey of finding and creating softness inside our relationships to technology.
Soft, Where? Episode 009 Podcast Transcript: How Much Does A Dollar Cost?
008. How Does Seeda School Code Coaching Work?
I only have the capacity for 12 more learners who are curious about learning to code through a black feminist lens so please book a free consultation call to see if this offering is aligned with your needs and ask any questions I didn’t answer in this episode.
Soft, Where? Is a podcast where I talk about my journey toward finding softness inside technology. This podcast is presented by Seeda School, a skill building platform for learning how to code through a black feminist lens. I am currently offering 1:1 coaching for black feminist looking to develop a coding portfolio of 5 projects in 15 weeks. Visit the Seeda School coaching page to book a free consultation call where we’ll hop on Zoom to discuss your web development goals and how Seeda School might be able to help.
Soft, Where? Episode 008 Podcast Transcript: How Does Seeda School Code Coaching Work?
007. 3 Affirmations for Self Compassion: Money Mindset, Recieving Love, and Perfectionism
(Loose) Transcript: 007. 3 Affirmations for Self Compassion
Welcome to the Soft, Where? podcast where I talk about my journey toward finding softness inside technology. This podcast is presented by Seeda School, a skill building platform for learning how to code through a black feminist lens. I am currently offering 1:1 coaching for black feminists looking to develop a coding portfolio of 5 projects in 15 weeks. Visit http://seedaschool.com to book a free consultation call where we’ll hop on Zoom to discuss your web development goals and how Seeda School might be able to help.
When I reflect on my 3 “biggest” and most recent struggles, the core struggle beneath them all is grappling with a sense of worthiness. For most of us, struggles with worthiness are seeded during childhood and while I won’t spend a whole lot of time talking childhood trauma I will get into the 3 growth areas I’m currently working through: Money Mindset, Receiving Love and Care, and Perfectionism. I will also share the new stories I’m telling myself rooted in worthiness, creating fertile soil for surrender and a harvest as wild and emergent as the love we’re cultivating for ourselves and each other.
You can find this podcast in all major podcast apps. I invite you to take a screenshot and share it on social media or with other black feminists who are also on a journey of finding softness inside technology.
006. 5 Year Reflection and Projection (2017-2027): Multiple New York Moves, Job Transitions, and $350 Rent
Soft, Where? is a weekly podcast and oral journal where I reflect on finding softness inside of software engineering. I invite you to reflect on the questions at the end of each episode in the comments or via email. Below you can find a loose outline and essay version of the episode to read while you listen or share screenshots of on social media.
I also invite you to open this episode in apple podcasts or your preferred podcast streaming service. This makes it easy to take a screenshot and share it with friends, it also creates a private feed that is automatically updated when a new episode is released.
ALSO LOL at me saying all you need is to record a Zoom room meeting to make a podcast then me having spotty internet and glitchy audio at the end. The hubris! The arrogance! The comedy! Please extend grace y’all and I hope you enjoy.
Introduction
Hopefully this podcast episode will serve as a personal reminder to trust the timing in all things.
I’m currently in this business coaching program and one of the things they had us do is a check-in on our personal story and the stories we’re telling ourselves. This exercise is meant to emphasize we can CHOOSE the story we tell.
Because this is a business coaching program and not a life or spiritual coaching program they had us reflect on what was going on in our career or business at a series of checkpoints in the past, present, and the milestones we hope to hit in the future. Based on when I’m completing the assignment, here are the checkpoints and milestones I’m working with:
* 5 years ago (2017)
* 3 years ago (2019)
* 1 year ago (2021)
* This year (2022)
* 1 year from now (end of 2023)
* 3 years from now (end of 2025)
* 5 years from now (end of 2027)
5 Years Ago (2017)
* In January 2017 I attempted to relocate to New York for the 2nd time. I moved to New York. YAY! But not with enough money or a job to comfortably rent an apartment to support my mental health. Instead I was living in Bedstuy above a dive bar, inside a cluttered smelly apartment, living with a cat and a annoying roommate who didn't clean up after her cat.
* In retrospect I’m ultimately thankful for this time because I learned I could move to a new city by myself and figure it out while learning the city lifestyle I did and did not desire.
* From January to March 2017 I found a job as a restaurant manager, I was unknowingly incredibly depressed and was fired a few months later
* After being fired from my job and having to move back home with my parents, in the spring instead of spending the rest of the year feeling sorry and embarrassed for myself, I doubled down on my dream at the time of becoming a fashion designer and got orders from a couple of my favorite boutiques. One of them being Sincerely, Tommy.
* I took a chance and pitched the Brooklyn boutique on May 30th, 2017, on a wholesale partnership with Zaire Studio. I received an email back within minutes from the owner Kai, who wanted a lookbook, linesheet, and terms. My terms were accepted and I proceeded to cut, sew, and produce full size runs for their order from my parents living room and kitchen. I fulfilled the order by June 21st.
* I spent the rest of the year working retail part-time at another one of the stores, Redeem to support myself outside of the income from Zaire Studio. (Shout out to Lori who supported and encouraged me during this time)
3 Years Ago (BIG YEAR — 2019)
* In 2019, I was inside another dream of mine: Living and working in Brooklyn teaching software engineering full-time. I took the lessons from 2017 and made sure I had a job and stable income before moving this time.
* Toughest Moment: Once again living in New York and finding myself in the throws of overwhelming depression and anxiety, which came to a head when I had a sobbing mental breakdown in