Hello all,
This is Marc, with a short update. Some are wanting to know how things went with Hanna’s trip to South Africa, and some have asked about the event we announced in the previous update. Here’s a wee bit about those two things.

Successful landing in South Africa

Hanna, Seth and the kids have safely arrived in South Africa, They are now in the wide strong arms of family and friends there.

Thanks to the efforts of the “TLC team,” especially Erika aka “Goldie,” Hanna had a first class seat for the 17-hour flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg. Given the way her back troubles have been flaming up, this was really the gift that made the whole trip possible.

Report on “Design for the Inevitable” workshop

As we mentioned last time, Hanna and I held a conversation hosted by the Pittsburgh chapter of the Interaction Design Association. Our friends Raelynn and Ashley, partners in the design firm Dezudio, wrote a really great summary of the event.

Read Raelynn and Ashley’s report here.

Debriefing after the event, Hanna and I shared a few ways this evening felt important.

– It felt sooo good to be hosting these profound conversations together. This has been our work for more than a decade, and it still feels right.

– This exploration of how our collective creative work might embrace the “shadow” aspects of human experience is hugely important for our times. We’d like to engage more with these questions. And we will.

Thanks to Jack Moffett and the rest of IxDA Pittsburgh, and warm gratitude to Ashley and Raelynn for writing such a great summary.

More soon; ways to help

We’ll send a more detailed update soon. I know I’ve not said anything this time about symptoms (some progression), morale (usually high), or needs (thanks to soooo many). And there are announcements coming about publication of Hanna’s writing and work. (Preview: see the new main page of okaythen.net.)

Since Hanna is in South Africa, the Pittsburgh food train is turned off until her return. Meanwhile we continue to collect and save against future expenses. You can find links for that here: okaythen.net/hanna/hanna-help.

Thank you all. Here’s wishing you good flow and an open heart in your dance with what life is bringing you.

Marc

“Establishing a relationship with grief, developing practices that keep us steady in times of distress, and staying present in our adult selves are among the central tasks in our apprenticeship with sorrow. This is the hard work of maturation. In the traditional language of apprenticeship, this would be called achieving mastery. In the language of soul, this is the work of becoming an elder. An elder is able to touch grief deftly and is able to craft sorrow into something nourishing for the community. Teacher and grief specialist Stephen Jenkinson says, ‘Hold your sorrow to a degree of eloquence, whereby everyone around you will be fed by your efforts to do so.’ Becoming skillful at digesting our grief makes us a source of reassurance and stability for the wider community.”

Francis Weller, Wild Edge of Sorrow