ENiD + RAD

Our business/party is growing, and giving. ENiD + RAD is becoming by doing and making. Offering ourselves to you is, as Cara put it in an insightful message to me, "the gift I needed". We are grateful that the first circle of you received our various offerings meaningfully and with grace. Thank you.

For me, this started with a citrus spark. I was preserving lemons and listening to some vintage Lemonheads (yes, I know, but I'm a Virgo, I like consistency), and heard Juliana's harmony come in, singing "Sunshine!" answered by Evan's deep "It's about time." Coming out of the darkest winter of many of our lives, there was something there: Food. Music. Solidarity.

But. Beyond that. . . what? When we first launched, Cara and I knew that whatever we might bring to the world, the last thing anyone needed was another mom blog. There are already enough recipes for preserved lemons and dried oranges, and no amount of sliced citrus will build the community we want to live in.

So as we build ENiD + RAD, right now Cara and I, and hopefully before long, with more of you, that is a fundamental question that we have kept ahead of ourselves. How do we, together, build the community we believe possible?

We started small, with a 'zine (we’re dropping some here!), and some select meaningful tokens of fun and comfort that we spread around our neighborhoods. More are coming, certainly not at the pace of capitalism. When the time is right.

We cannot leave this deeply transformational time behind without working toward changing it into something better, and we believe that a business/party can do this.

We shared these questions in our paper ‘zine, and we want our digital community to have them too. They're helping us take meaningful steps out of the long winter. We yearn for, and will surely take, some beach naps this summer. We are tired, and we need rest. We will celebrate the abundance of summer: ripe food, gathering with friends, dancing, music, art everywhere! And as we do this, we will store and reflect, like Frederic, tokens from this past year, and talk and plan for better, more just years to come.

We are slowly returning to the physical beyond our homes, and leaving some of the digital behind. Here are some questions to hold and use.

- What spaces did you create at home this year? What did you give space for? How did you create place at home?

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- Who did you meet remotely? What communities did you form? How did you form them?

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- What is the community that you now intend to build? Who will you be in community with?

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- How will you connect to the time you are now in? How will you remember the times you have been through?

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- What are the objects, the art, the tokens, the symbols, that you will carry from one time to another? How might they help you understand this next time?

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We hope they will help you build abundance and justice around your community, as we work to do that here in ours.