August 2026: rewilding
Each month, we break down our topic into four weekly modules. Catch up on previous editions here.
This week's module: REFLECT
- ✅ DREAM | imagine the wild world of the future
- ✅ LEARN | learn about movements to rewild the world like depaving and more, including rewilding in urban spaces
- ✅ ACT | actions you can take asap for a wild future no matter where you live
- 🎯 REFLECT | Art, poetry, and commitments
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Here's what we'll learn today Reader
Super late Changeletter today because I was running around sending way too many emails for our gala which is in a month from now! If you live in Seattle, or have any family/friends/coworkers here, please invite them. They will thank you for it later.
Today's Changeletter is short and sweet: a way to close out our month on rewilding.
The goal is for you to take a moment this week (or a day, or a weekend) to rewild yourself.
You'll have a poem, a song, and a quote.
Take what you wish and share the rest.
NEW: I did the math on our donations and this is what I found
If we had 350 people donate at our default $28/month tier (or $350 a year), we would fully fund our annual general operating costs!! This is huge, especially because there are 8,000 of you on here! If you've been enjoying these Changeletters and want to support the larger movement of building joyful community spaces for climate action, I would love your support. It is so cool to have a path for a fully grassroots nonprofit so I can spend my time on doing the work instead of begging funders for money. (Get your work to match it too.) If you have a donor advised fund, it's extra easy to contribute <3
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Your bite-sized action plan Reader
Today, your task is to rewild yourself.
Heads up this is going to take a bit of a less joyful turn before we get into the silly goose stuff!
I want to open tonight's reflection with a quote by queer activist and writer Dan Savage. It reminds me that humans have already lived through the apocalypse. The AIDS crisis was world-ending for millions of people who watched their loved ones suffer from the disease. Gaza, today, is apocalyptic.
There's something breathtaking (in a literal, can't breathe way) about the scale of suffering we've already been through as humans.
These Changeletters are about finding joy and bite-sized actions, but they're also my best attempt to be clear-eyed about what's ahead. The ones of us lucky enough to be present in our lives will be burying our loved ones as the world gets worse before it gets better. We will be protesting. And we will need the strength to carry on.
Dancing, together, has been essential throughout protest movements. So, this weekend, find some ways to move your body and stay in the fight.
(Thank you Sarah for the inspiration for dancing as an anchor for rewilding. "Anything is possible on the dance floor!")
“During the darkest days of the AIDS Crisis, we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon and we danced all fucking night. The dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for.”
If you want a song to kick off your dance party, here's a beautiful one called Follow the Sun by Xavier Rudd (thanks Tessa for guiding us through our dance party last night at Soapbox Seattle via this songs)
Finally, I'll close with our customary poem. This is your call to be a silly goose, because silliness (and gooseness) is what will get us through.
I'm signing off now; enjoy the poem <3
"Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
A lil note 💚
Hello hello! If you enjoy the work we're doing at Soapbox through these Changeletters and more, pleeeasse consider contributing. This is how I make my livelihood and pay my rent (and my team!) and I would appreciate any support you can give. Thank you for being here!
Love,
Nivi
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