SALON 07: CHANGE
It's in the air
A note from Octavia Butler’s personal archive, which is now held at Pasadena’s Huntington Library
September heralds change. In the Northern hemisphere, few of us are immune to the shifting of the seasons and the palpable ‘back to school’ energy of this time of year. Galvanised by the slightly-cooler air and the rapid dimming of evening light, there’s an impulse to ground into routine and structure. My longtime morning ritual of lemon water-incense-meditation has reimposed itself with authority in recent weeks. My productivity has seen a (blessed) uptick.
This has been a summer of metamorphosis, at least if my and my friends’ lives are anything to go by. The past few months have borne witness to something tantamount to a cosmic shift – the kind that upturns your world faster than you can process. The quietening of September gives us a chance to finally catch our collective breath and let it sink in. In matters of life and love and vocation, change is underway. Can you feel it?
Octavia Butler wrote that God Is Change. Even as a spiritually agnostic person, this is a religious tenet I can get behind. Perhaps that’s because the pursuit of dramatic change and renewal has defined much of my adult life (a Scorpio thing?!) – at times to the detriment of my emotional and financial wellbeing. Learning to evaluate and regulate my desire to burn it all to the proverbial ground and start again has been one of the greatest challenges to my maturity. I’m happy to report that I’m making progress!
There’s a big difference, of course, between adjusting to the kind of change you choose willingly vs. the kind that is thrust upon you. There’s a chasm of experience between scary-but-still-positive change (a new job; a new city; a newborn) and the kind of change that renders life suddenly less than (grief; loss; the onset of chronic illness). The relentless acceleration of technology can leave even the biggest thrillseekers among us feeling breathless. All this without even touching on the biggest Change with a capital ‘C’ of our lifetimes: Climate Change. Learning to adapt and adjust to our rapidly changing world feels like the greatest challenge of all.
A few final notes on a theme: Some structural changes to this newsletter are underway. Moving forward, Salon and Deep Read Reading Lists will be shared with paid subscribers only, who will also get first dibs and discounts on tickets for my events (more info on the next IRL and digital (!) Salons coming next week). Everyone who buys a ticket for these events, paid subscriber or not, will receive the accompanying reading list in advance.
I’ll also be sending out a new monthly format called Footnotes, where I’ll share things I love outside of the realm of books and literature - think art, travel, food, style, music - and which will also be for paying subscribers only. I plan to explore more subscriber-only options (threads? Reader Q&A? Voicenotes?!) as I get going, and I’m very much open to your suggestions.
I hope you’ll understand why this particular change feels necessary. I’ve been writing newsletters, hosting events, and creating content and spaces for free, or almost-free, for over a decade now. Unfortunately, it’s just not sustainable for me to continue. (It actually hasn’t been for a very long time, but I’ve always wanted my work to be as accessible as possible while simultaneously struggling to assign value to it. More on that in a future email and/or therapy session!) Of course, some newsletters will still be available to all, Salon RSVPs will be open, and the podcast will always be free to listen to. New, exciting episodes of Deep Read are landing any day now.
Much love and sincere gratitude to everyone who has been reading my dispatches for so long – especially those who’ve been here since the pre-Substack era(s). I hope this new season of life is bringing change - of the good kind - your way.
Phoebe
SALON 07: CHANGE
Reading List
BOOKS
Rainer Marie Rilke
A book I’ve recommended many times. When I was navigating the aforementioned choppy waters of my twenties - a decade of perpetual flux for me - I returned to this book often. Particularly useful in times of creative confusion and transition.
“Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don't know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better.”