Clink, Clink!

A Martinelli birthday toast to the baddest.

A quick note: On The Cusp will be transitioning to a seasonal frequency (4x a year) in 2025 to keep this work sustainable. Thanks so much for your support this year: it truly does not go unappreciated.

Lessons from the Heart

1. Moving seasonally is a form of consistency. Ask the trees. (Thank you, Theo)

2. The natural world would be so deeply unsustainable if every element was the same. Diversity keeps us alive. (Thank you, Cumberland Falls)

3. Conflict helps us work towards the worlds we want to see. (Thank you, Qua)

4. Asking for help is a practice but wouldn’t you believe it? Sometimes people do want to help. (Thank you, Dru)

5. Being outside with loved ones really is a gift I can’t take for granted. (Thank you, Lauren Metlock)

6. Dancing with people you love will never, ever get old. (Thank you, Sarai)

7. Sit your ass down. (Thank you Po’/Jenn)

8. So much can blossom from a small community of likeminded leftists. (Thank you, Blue Mountain Center)

9. It’s okay to say what you feel. (Thank you, Yaritza)

10. Talk your shit. (Thank you, Kehmoh)

11. It’s okay to be seen. (Thank you, Hoochie Mane)

12. Trust that showing up authentically is meaningful and enough (Thank you, Shireen)

13. Mothering is worldmaking. (Thank you, Jasmine)

14. There are years that question and years that answer. (Thank you, Zora Neale Hurston)

15. Be nobody’s fool. (Thank you, June Jordan)

16. All that you touch changes. (Thank you, Octavia Butler)

17. People like your weird ass mind. (Thank you, Patricia Smith)

18. What would life be without the friends who make you laugh with your whole body? (Thank you, Mohwanah)

19. Assert your boundaries and let go when its time to let go. (Thank you, Taraji)

20. Tell your own story. (Thank you, Meg Thee Stallion)

This Scorpio season, what parts of yourself are you willing to shed to make room for something new?

The Earthseed Kit is a monthly assortment of offerings for your astrological season toolkit. In the tradition of Parable of the Sower protagonist Lauren Olamina, we believe in staying ready so you don’t gotta get ready.

Recommended Listening

The Death Playlist was curated by yours truly. Once, a beloved joked with me “How do you want a Death card tattoo and you’re afraid of dead bodies?” Babes, that is the everlasting oxymoron of existing as Scorpio-stellium baddie. We love transformation and starting anew, but can get so stuck in our fear of messiness that we avoid change all together. To me, the death card has the subtitle “The only lasting truth is change,” and holds a reminder that death in its simplest understanding is a transformation. After a spicy eclipse season and exhausting political season that still hasn’t resulted in a permanent arms embargo, I hope the tunes soothe you and spark you to burn some shit down.

Recommended Reading

Neighbors as Lifelines: The Power of Mutual Aid in Asheville x Kelly Hayes - The storm in North Carolina is a devastating tale of how our climate catastrophe continues destabilizing communities. This piece by Kelly Hayes explores how Asheville residents created mutual aid hubs to find and support each other in the storm’s aftermath.

When abolition and parenting intertwine - Birthing and parenting have been recurring conversation topics in my life lately. I’ve had the great honor of watching a close friend during her birthing journey, and have been in a deep “will they/won’t they” dance about having children myself for years. This interview was a nice reminder that others once held the same tensions around having children in the time of collapsing empire and decided to do it. I’m definitely adding their book to my reading list.

Media Against Apartheid & Displacement (MAAD) is a collaboratively curated media hub site and project by the Movement Media Alliance that gathers and presents news and analysis on the ongoing genocide in Gaza, Israeli apartheid and the occupation of Palestine, U.S. complicity, and resistance movements fighting for Palestinian liberation from a growing collective of media organizations and platforms.

Use this Time Zone Converter if you are outside of the central time zone.

Hands on Chicago - First Aid Training | Sat, 11/2 | 12-2:30pm | Free - This free, 2.5-hour workshop is your chance to learn critical life-saving skills that can make a difference in your community. With gun violence on the rise in certain areas, we are committed to empowering residents block by block with knowledge that can save lives.

Palestine Cinema Days Screening: Aida Returns | Sat, 11/2 | 5-7pm | Free (donations welcomed) - The film, Aida Returns, is a poignant, sometimes sad, sometimes painful, sometimes humorous, often absurd story of a multiple journey: the journey of loss as the director’s mother Aida struggled with losing herself to Alzheimer’s disease, but finding solace in her repeated “returning” to the Yafa and Palestine of her youth; the journey of the loss of a parent; and the ultimate return journey back to Yafa where Aida would finally find rest and be herself once more.

Breaking Chains: Collective Action Against Incarceration | Sat, 11/9 | 5-8pm | Free (Donations welcomed) - Join us this November for an important evening of learning, discussion, and hosted by the Coalition to Decarcerate Illinois. On November 9th from 5:00-8:00 PM at Walls Turned Sideways (2717 W Madison St, Chicago, IL 60612), we will be holding a political education and discussion event centered around the realities faced by currently and formerly incarcerated people.

Rattling the Cages: Until All Are Free | Sat, 11/9 | 6-7:30pm CT | Free - In this Rattling the Cages panel talk, former political prisoners Eric King and Jason and Jeremy Hammond discuss state vs. federal prisons, solidarity inside and out, and readjusting to life once released. These three antifascists were imprisoned for very different actions and faced very different circumstances and environments, and yet all three came out of prison determined to fight back against the carceral system until all are free.

Imaginary Power, Real Horizons: Dreaming the Enemies’ Nightmares | Fri, 11/15 | 6-8pm | $0-$45 (Sliding Scale) - This is a seminar for those who dare to dream of a society organized by a different logic than that of capitalism. Gilman-Opalsky will discuss the value of creativity and utopianism in relation to historical struggles for decolonization, emancipation, and revolution. Gilman-Opalsky challenges the notion that imaginary power is cut off from real power, arguing instead that the radical imagination is born from the material conditions of life.

D’Jada is our community jade plant. What started as a singular plant has exploded into smaller clippings (named the D’Jadettes, of course) that have found themselves in different corners of the city. D’Jada was a gift and through her babies, we hope to share her gift with others.

One year of: ripping and running across the city in a UHaul for Lauren’s Day, leaving Washington Park covered in paint, collaging our way through confusing times, making finance spreadsheets and celebrating doing scary things, research, and virtual workshops, practicing care through talk therapy, Bringing Chicago Home and working towards Treatment Not Trauma, screaming for a ceasefire, drafting and writing and making a bedroom of Canva’s front page, loving each other through conflict and staring in awe at moonbows together, weekly Mars offering meetings and growing this little seed called Generative Chaos into whatever plant they are meant to be in this world.

Cheers!

four images showing the growth of our elephant ear plant throughout the year.