Good Seedlets #23

Watch to nurture…….

• Arts in Motion: (La) Horde I love when people dare to create something entirely new, and this dance company does exactly that. Watch this video and see how they're redefining what dance can be;  you might just walk away feeling inspired to push your own creative boundaries.

• It's Not That Serious- A Dance Film by Ricky Ubeda : Great choreography in music videos feels like a lost art, which is exactly why this one is such a joy to watch. It's fun, inspiring, and guaranteed to make you want to move. Hit play and see if you can sit still…..

Follow to grow………….

• @consciouslykay activism through where your money goes and to whom this supports- part of the deep work I am currently embarking on, and Kay’s insights are tremendously helpful 

• @jkb.journal herbalism, storytelling, becoming your own healer in a world that wants to keep you sick 

 Read to root……. 

• Males are the Secondary Sex by Gabrielle Blair: If you read one thing this week, make it this substack. She reframes matriarchy not as a fringe idea but as the evolutionary norm, walking through biology, mitochondrial DNA, and cross-species behavior to argue that patriarchy is a brief, destructive deviation from how nature actually works. It gave language to ideas I've been feeling but couldn't articulate, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. Required reading.

• Late Blooming by Roxanne Gay: This essay beautifully captures the experience of living in a body society deems unacceptable, exploring how external definitions of womanhood can keep us waiting for life to begin. Her honest investigation into menopause, writer's block, and self-worth resonates deeply with anyone who's felt relegated to the margins, and her lyrical prose transforms these supposedly marginal experiences into profound truths about what it means to stop waiting and start living finally. The essay is both heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful as she discovers that real womanhood isn't about meeting society's standards, but about being treated as worthy of care exactly as you are.

• Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy: If you loved the beautiful landscape writing in Once There Were Wolves, this book delivers that same transportive power, immersing you in an eerie island setting that feels both haunting and vivid. Every character harbors secrets that immediately spark suspicion, and the revelations are far more unexpected than you'd anticipate. It's a dark, atmospheric read elevated by gorgeous prose that makes the darkness feel strangely beautiful.

• Weyward by Emilia Hart: This book weaves together three women's lives across different time periods, their stories braiding together beautifully to reveal how generations of women with extraordinary gifts have been failed and othered by the world around them. Emilia Hart crafts a powerful narrative that feels like a remembering; a haunting call to recognize the truth of how women have been marginalized and persecuted for millennia simply for being different.

• Ugliness as Resistance by Tressie McMillan Cottom: This NYT piece on body modification and ugliness as resistance is a perfect tandem read with Tressie McMillan Cottom's "In the Name of Beauty" from Thick. Both explore the idea that beauty has always functioned as a means of control, and that refusing to perform it is one of the most radical things you can do. I've been sitting with these ideas, and they've completely reframed how I think about bodies, compliance, and power.

Listen to expand……

• Why Women Are Taught To Feel Shame in a Codependent Society: What's the Juice?: Olivia's conversation with Vanessa Bennett on this episode of her podcast reframed how I think about codependency, not as a personal failing but as something woven into how women are taught to love, perform, and abandon themselves in the process. She connects shame, the fear of abandonment, and the "pick me" wound in a way that had me pausing and replaying whole sections. If you've been following along with what I've been sharing lately on beauty, control, and reclaiming yourself, this is the perfect tandem listen.

• Scott Galloway vs. Heated Rivalry: Who Will Save the Men?: This episode takes on Scott Galloway's masculinity-in-crisis framework and methodically pulls apart where the analysis falls short, from cherry-picked brain science to a suspiciously selective reading of economic hardship that somehow forgets women are also people who need homes and jobs and childcare. It's funny, it's sharp, and it asks the questions I wish more mainstream conversations about masculinity would bother to ask. If you've felt something was off about the "boys are falling behind" narrative but couldn't quite name it, this episode will do the naming for you.

• Ballad Lines: I haven't seen Ballad Lines yet, and I don't know the book, but the music from this new folk musical out of the UK has a singular hold on me. It weaves Scottish, Irish, and Appalachian ballads into an intergenerational story about motherhood, storytelling, and what women carry forward and choose to let go. This is a folk musical I can FINALLY get behind, and I believe there is something really special here.

Support if you can…. 

Stand With Minnesota: Sometimes you have to put your money to your belief system.