Sweet reader,
The meadow grass has officially grown taller than the deer, and the Nootka roses have opened their shining faces to the sky once more. Bite-sized golden peaches swell on the branch, and the feverfew buds will burst any day. It feels like daylight gifts us three days in one, with dusk and dawn nearly holding hands.
The world keeps turning, and so does Baila. Welcome to part 2 of 2 of Baila turns one, where we’ll continue to reflect on this newsletter’s solar return, this time exploring learnings from a year of committing to this creative practice on Substack. No matter when you’ve joined this community of readers, I hope the themes resonate with where you are right now.
Missed Part 1? Take a bird’s eye view of the rhythms from the past year. Peruse them all at-a-glance, or take a deep dive into one that catches your eye. See you when you get back!
This month’s issue will still connect to the season, of course, as is this newsletter’s way. Or rather, the season will reveal itself through what naturally arises in this writing. The metaphor is never forced; my idea is never first. It is never some quasi confirmation bias insisting that Nature adapt to my agenda. It is partnership. It is hollowing myself. It is listening, allowing, and becoming still enough to let it move.
Most every newsletter of the past year began as something else entirely. For example, the August issue, A conversation with a coastline, began as scribbled notes about wildfire, drought, and the scorching belly of Leo season. My mind declared “heat” as the month’s theme, and I am positive this is why it rained nonstop on my summer backpacking trip down the coast. “My” – ha! Turns out what I actually needed to write about was exactly what I got—water.
Interestingly enough, I recently learned that this time of year often falls during the month of Tammuz in the lunar-based Hebrew calendar. Tammuz is elementally symbolized by water. Your Knowing will come to you—come through you—whether you are conscious of it or not. There’s something so relieving in the way ancestral wisdom moves. There is nothing to do except remember.
This is just one of the many ways this newsletter has changed my life. I now don a constant radar antenna for noticing the patterns that emerge in my daily life, patterns that tune me into a kincentricity that makes “my” daily life not mine at all. (I suppose the real significance is not that this newsletter gave this awareness—we all have it—it’s more that I now have a container for sharing it publicly.)
When the radar antenna blips, I then wear [said pattern] as a filter, and continue to go about my days just a teency bit more aware. It all rushes in, and I scribble thoughts in a thousand different places—iPhone notes, journals, text messages to myself, Google docs, conversations with loved ones. When I sit down to finally weave it together, it comes alive. It shape shifts, it speaks, it reaches, it wanders. It needs attention, nourishment; it is something that is born, and that I mother.
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.”
― Praying by Mary Oliver, Thirst
While the content of this newsletter focuses on inner and outer landscapes, the practice of writing it, too, offers infinite exploratory terrain.
To put it in the simplest terms: It is a gift.
And it is something I can only receive by doing. By putting one foot in front of the other, which in this case is putting thoughts to paper and hitting “publish”—over and over and over. It is emptying myself, so that I may fill up with the world again.1
In publishing 27 newsletters since last May, I can confidently say I’ve learned a thing or two. Or seven. That is how many lessons I’d like to share with you in the remainder of this newsletter.
It is my hope, always, that my experiences resonate with you in the unique way that I can never predict and only you can know. I suppose that is the audacity of writing the personal—trusting in the reverberations of your own story, and refusing to believe that it is selfish.
“I could say that sharing our experiences, our struggles, is a generous offering to others. I believe that. When we read about someone else’s life, we’re invited to see ourselves and our own lives in new ways…and we’re made braver and bolder in the process…less inhibited, less isolated, by shame. If they can do it, we think, we can do it. If they can tell their story, I can tell mine.” –
, Pep TalkSome things I’ve learned so far
1. Find a container.
The best thing I ever did for this newsletter was start it.2 A container will ground and stabilize whirling creative energy. Finding, or creating, a home for your passion will give it just that—a home. A space where it can be nourished and protected, where it can grow and play and rest. A place where it can live every day. It may even come with a literal address—a URL, a P.O. box, a studio space.
Hot tip: Pick a size up—something that your practice can expand into. You will fill it. A container can be catalytic.
2. Commit.
I was intentional about publicly committing to publishing two newsletters a month, and intentional about monetizing it. Accountability is a tremendous support to discipline. I know how ecstatic it feels to write when I’m inspired. And I have now learned how it feels to write when I don’t feel like it at all. What it feels like to say “no” to something so that I can say “yes” to writing. I am learning the texture of dedication. I am learning that dedication is a barometer of truth.
3. We are what we practice.
I am a writer, I am a writer, I am a writer. I am in the daily practice of claiming this identity. Of releasing the false and toxic beliefs about what does or doesn’t make someone something.
We are what we practice. Simple as that.
This is a foundational teaching of embodiment.3 I am a surfer because I get on my board and paddle out. I am a gardener because I put my hands in the Earth. I am a writer because I write.
It doesn’t matter if I catch the wave, harvest the fruit, or publish the book. It is the act and the devotion that forms these identities—and it something that no one else can give or take from you.
Contain → commit → practice. Some days I am utterly dumbfounded by how much time and energy I invest in this offering given everything going on in my life. To hustle at a communications agency by day and get back on the computer to write by night (or by weekend, or by early morning) for basically free is a special kind of lift. Thing is, I know exactly why I do this, and that is what keeps it going.
4. Root in your why.
Nothing can flourish without healthy roots. It’s what holds you steady and allows you to uptake nourishment. Your roots are your why—your reason for doing all that you do—and it’s what keeps your offering alive.
I write this newsletter because I love writing. I write because I need to free and honor my voice. I write to stay mentally and spiritually healthy. I write to co-create with the world around me and share that creation back with the world wide web. I write to deliberately step into my truth that I am a writer. I write to get better at it. I write to build community, one that I hope will receive me when it is time to spread my wings even further. I write for a thousand more reasons that tether me deep into this fertile ground.
“What might you say, if someone asked you why you wrote about your life? I answered in the most succinct way I knew how: ‘Because I’m a writer.’”
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5. Clarify the who.
The narrative will shift depending on who is at the center. This lesson applies to everything—whether it’s writing, drawing, cooking, or the clothes you’re wearing. I’m doing a dance that involves pulling away from centering a specific audience (Will they like this?), while trying to speak as directly to you as I can. In my day job as a communications strategist, every word I write has a specific audience in mind. Out here, I sometimes wonder if I write for me or for you or for the both of us. Who’s gratification matters? (Return to your why for the answer.)
“When my students are afraid to make their art I don’t tell them - don’t worry people will love it. I tell them - you have to make your art because you don’t even know who needs it yet.”
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6. Marketing is an invitation.
Promoting your own work on a self-publishing platform is weird. No one’s taught me more about how to navigate this than
. (Subscribe to their newsletter, take their classes, listen to their podcast.) Long story short—most artists love creating their work and detest promoting it. What might shift if we treated marketing as a creative practice itself? If we practiced promotion as an invitation into rather than a pushing onto?“....people are going to hate it. People are going to think you’re annoying, unfollow, unsubscribe, tell their friends you’re weird and make bad art. How freeing. How freeing to not make art in hopes that those people like it, but despite their dislike for you!” – Cody, continued from above
I’m experiencing mixed success with this framing shift. I’ve yet to experience the same depth of pleasure that I feel while writing while drafting promotional content. And yet, joyful and creative moments do arise. I think the answer is to play more, and keep going. Usually is.
A fun little side effect I’m experiencing from ramping up the marketing dial involves increased thoughts of “enoughness” with a tinge of imposter syndrome. Good enough. Original enough. Smart enough. Political enough. You name it, I have thought it.
I recently hung a window sign with a QR code to sign up for this newsletter (it has not worked yet), sat back in my chair, and immediately thought, “Oh shit. I hope that this is worth it to people. How humiliating to promote something that’s bad.” As soon as I type these words, I know that they are untrue. Self-doubt is sly like that. Sometimes you just need to tell someone your thoughts in order for you to realize your true feelings about them. Thank you for holding the mirror for me, right now.
I mean it when I say this newsletter is a gift. It is a gift that helps me confront that which does not serve. It is a gift that shows me the inner work I still have waiting for me. It is a gift that illuminates my growth edges. More on that next.
7. Detoxing internalized capitalism is difficult.
My entire life there’s been someone—or some institution—to validate the things I create. For the first time, at age 30, there’s no teacher here to give an A+, no boss to impress, no authority figure to deem me and my work worthy. It is literally just me (and you, who I love so very much for being here.) This is new territory and so very anti-capitalist in that my worth has nothing to do with the external validation of my work.
I’d be lying if I said I never tried to fill that void with shiny objects like engagement metrics, number of subscribers, or dollars made. (For context, Substack immediately brings you to a metrics dashboard the moment you log in. Blegh.) I’d be lying if I said those numbers don’t affect me, be it highs or lows. It’s not every day, but when you’ve just poured your heart out and spent over a dozen hours on a piece that gets no engagement, a piece you really loved but got no little Substack ♡’s—it can get to you. Turns out—I am human!
Turns out that feeling like you’re screaming into the void makes you want to scream at other things too. At times, I’ve found myself activated by others’ “success” (what do I even mean here?), then I immediately judge the quality of their work against my own. My ego either deems it “not even that good,” at which point all bets of being a decent human that day are off, or it’s deemed lightyears ahead of me and I shrivel. I am, on my best days, moderately annoyed by Substack sending me articles on how to go viral and make so much income with them (for them) that I can quit my 9-5 and finally become a full-time writer and pick up a sourdough bread hobby with my loads of spare time. And I swear, if one more successful writer tells me to “just trust,” I may just totally lose it.
[Does a curtsy.]
I know, I know, I already know.
I know that when these thoughts arise, it means it’s time to take a break. I know it is a space I should never create from, ever. I know that those who tell me to trust are exactly right. I know that comparison to others only distracts and distances. I know that my Substack (and the offering of anything of my own creation, really) is still brand new. I knooooooow that growth is slow. I almost deleted this entire section because I already know. I know that likes and shares have nothing to do with my why and that performance has nothing to do with my worth, but the capitalistic devil on my shoulder can be a real schmoozer sometimes.4
It wants success fast, despite having no idea what it means, or where it ends. It wants quick hit after quick hit yet never pauses to enjoy it. It acts as though another’s success inhibits my own, even though that’s the opposite of how it really works. It looks around for the answer, rather than within.
I grant myself permission to acknowledge the difficulty of living within this system. I grant this newsletter permission to grow as slowly as it would like, including moving backwards. I grant myself permission to redefine my metrics as truth, integrity, and joy. I grant myself permission to take breaks, to write a short newsletter, to even write a bad newsletter! I grant myself permission to ask for financial support for this work, and to not feel guilty for receiving it, nor thirsty for not.
“When I was a kid I wanted to be famous
because I couldn’t imagine anything
more wonderful than being loved by the world.
You know what feels a million times better
than being loved by the world—
LOVING THE WORLD.”
–
No one asked me to start this newsletter. But here we are, anyway. That is miracle, to me.
It is an honor to be in a practice of writing to you, for me.
It is an honor to grow every single day from what this practice teaches me, especially on the hardest days.
It is an honor to receive your attention; it something I will never not take seriously.
REPRISE will be back in action later this month for paid subscribers, which you can become for 25% off right now. Yay! Net profits support Mother Nation and my continued education.
More poetry, more prose, and an exciting announcement coming soon.
I love you! Keep growing!
“Other people might not understand who you’re becoming, or why you’re choosing what you choose, or what you’re doing during your seasons of emergence. The good news is that you don’t need anyone’s understanding to live into your truest next chapter. You don’t need anyone’s permission or validation. You don’t need anyone’s green light. You get to go. You’ll find those who can meet you there.”
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• Email: izabellazucker@gmail.com
I originally intended to always write and release Baila on a waning moon, and collect ideas on the waxing moon. I've learned that Life holds many rhythms.
Thank you to my friend, Gabe. Thank you, Thaddeus.
I like to use Prentis Hemphill's definition of embodiment—the understanding of what is habituated in us; the process of becoming more aware of and practiced in our behaviors.
“Schmooze” derives from the Yiddish “shmuesn”, which in turn derives from Hebrew “shemuah,” meaning “rumor.”