Choosing CARE in a Time of Chaos
What do you turn to to help you hold on when things around you seem grim? (Truly, I'm earnestly curious. Comment and let me know.)
Change is constant. Nothing remains the same. Science tells us. Religion tells us. Literature tells us. Literature that includes religion tells us.
This has been much on my mind of late, as I try to find my way through this Chaos Moment that is perhaps best summarized by the ineffable song stylings of Just Penelope (age 7 1/2, with assist from her dad, Cory).
I read a lot, so that's one direction I've been turning. If you're also a reader, here are a few quotes about change I've found comfort in of late.
“Prepare to be uncomfortable in service of transformation. If you want to thrive in a new life, you’re going to have to change, too. It may feel like you’re breathing different air, but trust that you can adapt. Press on. Keep moving.”—Maggie Smith, Keep Moving
"while the changes were jarring they were not the end, and life went on, and people found things to do and ways to be and people to be with, and plausible desirable futures began to emerge, unimaginable previously, but not unimaginable now, and the result was something not unlike relief."—Mohsin Hamid, Exit West
“The Great Question before us is: Are we doomed? The Great Question before us is: Will the Past release us? The Great Question before us is: Can we Change? In Time? And we all desire that Change will come.”—Tony Kushner, Angels in America
“Stop thinking of change as interruption to a story. The story was always going to change, many times. It was never guaranteed. In fact, only change is guaranteed. Expect it today and from now on. Keep moving.”—Maggie Smith, Keep Moving
I've turned toward friends and family and nature and moments of exploratory joy like a recent trip to the Museum of Ice Cream with fellow independent museum professionals.
I've turned away from social media and its endless scrolls full of rants I either deeply disagree with or deeply agree with but don't need to see hashed out again.
I've also found myself returning over and over again to Deepa Iyer's Social Change Ecosystem Map (also linked in the pirate articles section of my website). If you're new to it, may this be your introduction to an enormously helpful resource.
The top-line summary idea is that none of us can be changemakers toward justice by trying to do—as the movie title goes—everything, everywhere, all at once. Instead, Iyer's framework lays out 10 roles, all of which are needed, and invites each of us to figure out which one or few of them is ours to contribute to the whole.
She defines these roles as follows. See which one(s) gives you a little ping-fizz of rightness:
Weavers: We see the through-lines of connectivity between people, places, organizations, ideas, and movements.
Experimenters: We innovate, pioneer, and invent. We take risks and course-correct as needed.
Frontline Responders: We address community crises by marshaling and organizing resources, networks, and messages.
Visionaries: We imagine and generate our boldest possibilities, hopes and dreams, and remind others of our direction.
Builders: We develop, organize, and implement ideas, practices, people, and resources in service of a collective vision.
Caregivers: We nurture and nourish the people around us by creating and sustaining a community of care, joy, and connection.
Healers: We recognize and tend to the generational and current traumas caused by oppressive systems, institutions, policies, and practices.
Disrupters: We take uncomfortable and risky actions to shake up the status quo, to raise awareness, and to build power.
Storytellers: We craft and share our community stories, cultures, experiences, histories, and possibilities through art, music, media, and movement.
Guides: We teach, counsel, and advise, using our gifts of well-earned discernment and wisdom.
What role(s) are you playing right now? Which of these archetypes are you embodying? (again, feel free to comment and let me know).
In 2025, My Ballast Year—and in my work in general—I'm leaning into being an experimenter, a guide, and a caregiver.
As Q1 rounds out, I'm looking back on how I dreamt broadly and held space (my two guiding pillars for the season, to embody the dichotomy of ballast by being my own ship and being others' anchor).
I experimented and held space at the much-appreciated Inauguration Transformation workshop series that I co-ran with Michaela Ayers of Nourish Events, providing folks with low-cost chances to focus their energies on creativity and connection instead of anxiety or uncertainty at the incoming USA presidential administration.
My dreaming broadly came to fruition as I guided the folks at SEED:Management in New York, where my dear SEED Trio collaborators Rebecca Shulman and David Bowles succeeded at offering the management training we built to be what we wish we'd had before working independently.
The three of us dared an experiment in holding space with our SEED:Provocation—What is DEAI when there is no 'DEAI'?, a collective space where over 100 museum workers gathered to develop a shared resource of ways to continue the work of equity and inclusion in our daily jobs, despite the culture of fear and threat fostered by executive order after executive order.
I'm still working on guiding the Boston Public Library's staff and tour guides through a re-envisioning process around what the newest iteration of public tours could look like alongside their new strategic plan. That project is calling for both broad dreaming and space holding in large doses.
I was a caregiver holding space as the third cohort of CARE wrapped up after supporting each other through a particularly turbulent November–February season. I was sad to leave behind our regular schedule of seeing each other that it spurred me on dream broadly about what a longer version might look like.
CARE is a community I've developed for other cultural entrepreneurs who, like me, enjoy the possibilities of working for themselves and miss the camaraderie of working with colleagues. I love having it in my life while it's running, and I miss it when it's not.
So in the name of dreaming broadly as an experimenter, I've rethought it and am shifting it into an annual cadence instead, to bud and grow along with the new spring life outside.
This beginning of Q2 has got snowdrops and croci peeking up through the grass and the air getting soft on my skin. It's typically the part of the year where I feel the most restored creative energy, but given the general "there's an actually a lot going on" state of things in the world, I'm having a much quieter than usual advent of springtime.
My guidance for this quarter of My Ballast Year is
I am ship: be unbounded
I am anchor: play host
What I'm perhaps most excited to play host and caregiver to is the new version of CARE. If you're new here and have no idea what I'm talking about, CARE (aka the Consortium of Arts Related Entrepreneurs) is a membership group I host for independent culture workers—as you define yourselves—to join virtually to learn, teach, support each other, and build entrepreneurial skills.
Like I said above, it felt wonky to say goodbye to the last cohort in a season where all of us were talking about appreciating the support. And since part of my ballast motivation is to help stabilize others in collective efforts at a time when we need them and each other even more than most, well, welcome to a revamped, ongoing version of CARE.
I've always set this community up to be a place where warm camaraderie and support can help all of us arts and culture workers through whatever part of our entrepreneurial journeys we're each on. That's not changing.
What is changing, though, is that I'm trying to "right size" this offering to match the hectic realities of members' lives.
Past cohort members have felt sad to miss out on some of the live facilitated sessions. I've lowered the number of them (it's 1 per month) to ease the schedule lift.
Folks have said they want more chances to hear about others' work. I'll be using some of our monthly live sessions for collective sharing, and we've got a more robust private community platform to share asynchronously.
People have been surprised at how helpful the virtual coworking sessions are (and others have said they don't need those as much). I've made co-working an optional add-on to base membership, so it's up to each person if you want in or not for our 2 co-working sessions each month.
And because it's a precarious time in the cultural sector, I've lowered the membership cost to match more people's wallets (it's got three tiers and you can pay quarterly or annually).
Basically, I've done just about everything I can to shift this community model to meet what its members and potential members might want, without losing the core of it: a warm, honest, open place where people working on their own don't have to work alone.
In this Chaos Moment, we, none of us can make it on our own, and we need human connection with people who can share ideas and emotions with us.
That's the caregiving work I'm leaning into and putting out in the world. I hope being a guide and an experimenter like this, publicly, is part of what makes that care work (and CARE work) resonate with others. And I hope, if it feels right for you, that you'll join me in CARE.
Join a space of CARE
🤲🏻
Join a space of CARE 🤲🏻
In the meantime, I hope some of our paths may cross as I play host and guide at SEED:Los Angeles in May, when the SEED Trio will gather a new cohort of museum education managers (there's still time to join us!) together in learning and support.
Or as I unboundedly protest unjust government overreach on April 5.
Or for a catch-up call or a new project idea (reminder to reach out if you need an outsider's or a collaborator's help getting something done. I'm in search of new/returning clients.)
Even if our paths don't cross directly, I wish you all the hopeful help of figuring out which of Deepa Iyer's roles are yours to play right now. I promise can all make a difference.
Creative Prompt Coda: Choose one shape and look out for it in the world around you as you go about your day.
