photo caption: summer solstice in the Scottish Highlands, 2024

*January 1st, 2025 Update:* together we raised $730 for Many Lands Mutual Aid and Rural Organizing and Resilience! The winners are: #1: Khalil, #2 Victor, #3 Oki, #4 Oki, and Keia won two!, and #5 is Zoe. Thank you so much to everyone who participated!

TLDR: This is a raffle to raise money for ROAR (Rural Organizing and Resilience) in Marshall, NC for Hurricane Helene relief, and Many Lands Mutual Aid for cash and material aid to displaced families sheltering in an UNRWA school in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, surviving genocide. Raffle tickets are $5 each, and can be "purchased" by making a donation to ROAR here or Many Lands Mutual Aid here. Take a screenshot of your donation receipt page, and DM it to me or email it to me here, along with your name, contact info, and which item raffles you would like to enter. Raffle items currently include: #1 a tattoo from Kerry Burke, #2 a tarot reading from Jodi Rhoden, #3 an IFS session from Jess Begans, and #4 a letterpress and woodblock print from Nina Ruffini.
Names will be drawn and winners announced on January 1, 2025!

I love New Year's Day.

I love a reset, a clean slate, a fresh start: a celebration of intentions for the future and a conscious relinquishing of that which must be released in order to walk forward, unencumbered. I have spent many New Year's Days past hosting parties, making quantities of cornbread and hoppin' john and collard greens, offering tarot readings, clinking celebratory mugs of hot cider, receiving hugs and well wishes to call in the blessings of luck and love; and these rituals seem ever more vital in these times of collapse and catastrophe. The truism of all we have is each other becomes more tangible with each passing day as we try to absorb, metabolize, and respond to the ongoing horrors of our society's apocalyptic wars, nihilistic climate denial, and the resource extraction at the heart of it all.

Now more than ever, it is important that we--humanity; those with our humanity intact--mobilize our horror into action and leverage our grief into collective care; that we lean in to mutual aid as not just a way to survive, but a way to live with dignity and beauty into the uncertainties that lie ahead of us.

Mutual aid, as defined by wikipedia, is "an organizational model where voluntary, collaborative exchanges of resources and services for common benefit take place amongst community members to overcome social, economic, and political barriers to meeting common needs."

Mutual aid differs from charity in many crucial ways; most importantly, mutual aid disrupts the static power dynamic of giver and receiver. Mutual aid recognizes that our struggles are not separate--that in supporting you, I also invest in my own survival, and as I receive support from others, I weave an ever more secure and resilient web of relationship and care.

In the aftermath of the cataclysmic climate event of Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina, organizers at the ROAR (Rural Organizing And Resilience) mutual aid hub in Marshall, NC reflected in an instagram post: "through this disaster, a beautiful ecosystem of interconnected mutual aid groups has emerged, each one finding its place to pitch in and support the health of the greater whole. This emergent web of mutual support is in many regards, the model for the kind of world we are working towards. One where everyday people look around them, see what resources they have an abundance of, and get organized to ensure those resources get to where they are needed most. It is incredible how this web of connection has not only blossomed in the heart of the disaster zone but spread its tendrils out across the entire country. We are so much stronger, so much healthier, when we work in cooperation and solidarity with each other."

So too, in Gaza, where, despite Israel's unrelenting campaign of genocidal violence against children, women, men, elders, agriculture, water infrastructure, and the earth itself, Palestinians continue to teach life: to practice solidarity and community care. One example is Many Lands Mutual Aid, headed by poultry farmer Hussein Alzaq and his family, who "have been sheltering in an UNRWA school in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza since their home and farmland were bombed in October 2023. This was the 4th time that their family business - a chain of poultry farms in the Al Shujaiya neighborhood, was intentionally destroyed by the occupation. No strangers to mutual aid work, the Alzaqs used their farms to help support their community for over a decade- building wells for public use on their land, providing jobs, and giving away crops, eggs, and meat to their less fortunate neighbors. Despite their immense struggles, continuously losing everything and rebuilding, even now -in the worst situation imaginable- they’ve remained dedicated to helping others. On top of supporting his entire family, Hussein has worked non-stop to source and consistently distribute aid to as many other displaced people as possible. He works as a team with his younger brother Ismail who helps organize, translate, and make bank runs. While they’re handling all of the aid work, Hussein’s amazing wife Samah and mother Najah take care of his 6 children, his older brother Samer’s family, and injured or elderly members of the family."

For New Year's Day this year, I am honored to be able to organize a raffle to support the work of these two organizations, Rural Organizing and Resilience, and Many Lands Mutual Aid. From the French Broad River to Palestine, all our struggles intertwine!

Raffle items include (this list will be updated as new raffle items are donated):

1. A tattoo from Kerry Burke Tattoos at Terra Vasa Tattoo in Philadelphia!

2. A Tarot Reading from Jodi Rhoden!

I have been reading Tarot cards since I was 14, when my best friend and I spent days and nights at our favorite booth in our favorite Waffle House teaching ourselves from the booklet in the Rider Waite Smith Tarot deck. Since then it was my tradition to offer readings to friends who would visit our annual New Year's Day party. In that spirit, this offering is an hour-long, virtual (or we can arrange an in-person session in Philly) 10-card Celtic Cross tarot reading for introspection, reflection, and intention for the New Year.

3. An Internal Family Systems session from Jessica Begans, LCSW!

Have you ever wanted to learn about Internal Family Systems (IFS)? In a 75-minute meeting, Jess will guide you through getting to know a “part” of yourself — perhaps a habit, a reaction, or a persona you’re curious about. We’ll have 55 minutes to engage in this exploration and 20 minutes to process what that was like, and link that experience to the IFS method. Session includes phone calls and emails beforehand to set expectations and answer questions. Session will be virtual or in Jess’s Fishtown office. Jess has been trained in IFS level one since 2019. This is not therapy but may bring up big feelings so be prepared!

4. A handmade woodblock print from Nina Ruffini! This beautiful 12.5"x 19" letterpress & block print reminds you to call your friends! Specifically me. Call me.

How to enter:

Raffle tickets are $5 each, and can be "purchased" by making a donation to ROAR here or Many Lands Mutual Aid here. Take a screenshot of your donation receipt page, and email it to me here, (or text or DM, if we're friendly like that) along with your name, contact info, and which item raffles you would like to enter (#1 for Kerry Burke tattoo, #2 for Jodi Rhoden tarot reading, etc).

Names will be drawn and winners announced on January 1, 2025!