As we wrap up 2024 and the Year of the Dragon, I’m doing some housekeeping in preparation for the Year of the Snake.

The inauguration approaches, and the horrors are sure to multiply. We’ve got to work more efficiently than ever, conserving our energy for a strong defense and precise initiatives.

In the Year of the Snake, my goal is to help our members get clarity on issues and build capacity for action. Like a snake emerging from old skin, we’re releasing old patterns, commitments, or habits that keep us from growing.

So, I’m retiring our regular LBT Updates and shifting the notifications and content normally included in these updates to the Ignition Notes Newsletter.

To be clear, the Luminary Braintrust is still up and active, and our LBT Member Portal remains the same. I am just integrating the regular emails I send to LBT members into the monthly cycle of Raising Luminaries Ignition Notes Newsletters.

So this is our last LBT Update. But I will still be publishing all Luminary Braintrust news, events, and features over here.

If you are an existing LBT member but not yet a member of the Ignition Notes newsletter, you don’t have to take any action. You may receive a ‘comped’ email letting you know that I’ve unlocked some bonus resources for you on Substack.

It’s 2pm, and I still haven’t gathered enough spoons to get out of bed today. But my window says it’s a lovely sunny day, and I’m trying to convince myself to go for a walk.

So, instead of wasting time writing some convincing reason why you should keep scrolling and clicking and exploring the stuff below, I’m gonna trust that you’ll keep scrolling and clicking and find at least one delightful thing that will get you out of bed and into the sunshine this month.

This month, we wrapped up our Transitions Collab Lab and started the new Trickster Resistance Lab. I hope you’ll join the chat group; I’d love your thoughts!

(please don’t try to catch up on old conversations – leap in, and we’ll catch you up!)

Aside from that, our only urgent deadline-esque item is that enrollment for the Winter Incubator closes on 12/31/24, and we have one spot left. Members who registered early got to pick the schedule, but we have a good range of gathering times, so I hope you can join us this year.

I want to kick this off with a pithy “Welcome back, flood of horrors!” or “It’s time to buckle up for another bumpy 4 years.”

But we all know these past four years have already been far too bumpy.

The only difference is that now we’ll also be fighting off deportations and loss of medical, education, and climate protections. As a majority of our voting population has chosen the route of fascism and supremacy, many of us won’t make it out of this alive. More climate disasters. Another pandemic. Probably dinosaurs who shoot flames out of their mouths along with the intensification of more McCarthy-style raids and a new world war. Same old, along with new depths only our ancestors could fathom.

Luckily – we’ve been preparing for this. We have the tools of resistance. Democracy and equality is fragile – but so is fascism and white supremacy.

Our opposition is smarter, stronger, and better positioned than they were before. And we are tired.

But we know how to get into formation. We’re better prepared than we were eight years ago, and eight years before that.

Well, the good news is that we no longer have to claw our way past the smoke-screen of a Democrat-led administration. We no longer have to start every initiative by flailing our arms in the air screaming “HEY, PAY ATTENTION! BAD THINGS ARE HAPPENING!”

The past four years’ false claims of ‘protecting innocent children,’ spreading conspiracy theories, and accusations of division are now laid bare. Radically progressive caregivers who have been working tirelessly these past four years are ready to fight.

We have new technology, have built decades of cross-movement solidarity, and many more everyday people understand how to support an mutual aid infrastructure for resistance and survival.

So now we can share what we’ve learned with the new folks about to realize they’ve made a terrible mistake.*

Let’s turn to our ancestors for lessons in survival and resistance, and then turn our shoulders into building the future we want for our kids.

We know how to keep going – even when the horrors turn from a trickle into flood.

*Yeah, no j/k. We will never learn from our mistakes. That’s what scapegoats are for! ::Deep resigned sigh in preparation for the storm to come::