✨ Tiny Glimmers is back - Embracing Wholeness
I'm back and ready to reimagine our world together.
Hello lovely reader 👋,
It’s been a little while since I’ve written here and I want to share why.
When I started Tiny Glimmers I wanted to use my imagination as a tool to connect with other people who also want to build a brighter future.
I loved writing my letters from the future, but after a few months, I found myself overthinking a lot about what I wanted to write about.
Expanding Beyond the Original Format
I had lots of ideas and thoughts and feelings I wanted to share that didn’t quite fit the format I had sketched out for Tiny Glimmers.
Yes, I wanted to share ideas for a re-imagined future, but there were also heavier things I wanted to share. My feelings about a heating world; the fires, the floods.
And lighter things too, like the crafting I was doing, the books I was reading, the plants I was trying to grow in my garden. Everything.
I tried to fit all of that neatly into the format of my letters from the future but I couldn’t quite make it fit. It didn’t occur to me until recently that it was me who’d set up the format in the first place and that I was allowed and able to change it anytime I wanted to.
It’s funny how we can put ourselves into such tight little boxes.
My whole self, in all its messy glory
I recently had a co-coaching session with a woman who told me she wants her work to help people be their whole selves, to bring their wholeness to the world instead of ignoring big parts of themselves. It hit me that this was exactly what I was missing here; with Tiny Glimmers I was allowing only a small part of me to show up, the imaginative part, the hopeful part.
And while I still want imagination to be the essence of my writing and my work, I realised how unfair it is to restrict, or edit, myself like that. Instead, I want to bring my whole self in all its messy glory.
Let’s stop separating
I’m currently reading Active Hope by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone, where they talk about Gaia theory. The idea behind Gaia theory is that the world is all one interconnected system, it can’t be separated into its different parts.
That’s what the industrial growth society has done for centuries, and what almost all other institutions have been doing, like our education system, health system, agriculture etc.
This separation is contributing to the ecological breakdown of our planet. And the separation of people is the foundation of patriarchy, capitalism and white supremacy.
Interconnectedness and Balance
The future I’m imagining - and that I want to invite others to imagine with me - is one of interconnectedness and balance. One where people can be themselves, not some hyper-optimised version that is only measured by their productive output and financial success. In my work with self-employed women I have always emphasised that we are more than just our work, we are full human beings, no matter if we’re at work or with our families or friends. Sadly, it’s almost impossible in this world to allow yourself to be your full self.
Holding Multiple Truths
But here, in this tiny little corner of the internet that I am claiming for my own thoughts and feelings and ideas, I want to experiment with bringing all the different parts of myself.
In a way, this is a skill we all need to practice if we want the future to be different. We need to be able to hold multiple truths at once, to hold nuance and complexity rather than viewing everything through a binary lens.
Moving forward, perfectly imperfect
So that’s what I’d like to do with Tiny Glimmers going forward. Of course, I’ve been overthinking this for weeks, should I start a brand new newsletter? Or maybe even two? Or three?
But not only does that sound exhausting, it’s also unnecessary.
I’m aiming for “perfectly imperfect”, so I’ll stick with Tiny Glimmers. I love the name and it still represents what I want to share here.
Some of the things I’d like to explore:
🏘️ Local glimmers (what’s happening here in Frome, this weird and wonderful small town I call home)
🧪 Bigger thought experiments set in fictional settings, like some of my favourite places in pop culture (like Stars Hollow, Schitt’s Creek etc)
🌏 What it’s like to be “humaning in the anthropocene”…
🧠… with an ADHD brain in a neurotypical world
🧶 Crafting, upcycling and slow fashion projects I’m working on
🌱 What I’m learning about connecting with nature as a born and bred city girl and why I think it’s important for the future
✨ What I’m learning about imagination itself, and how we can hone it as a skill
📚 Relevant books I read about the future or climate change etc
💌 And of course my letters from the future too, I have many ideas already (about the future of golf courses, castles, trains and more!)
Anything else I learn about that feels relevant and worthwhile!
✨ Future Dreams
I’ve also been dreaming about starting a 📚 Tiny Glimmers book club (let me know if you’d be interested in that!) in the not-too-distant future and maybe even organising some in-person events one day!
Of course, I would love for you to join me in this next chapter of Tiny Glimmers, but I also know it’s not exactly what you signed up for last year. So if this doesn’t sound interesting to you, no hard feelings at all.
If it does sound interesting, then please come along for the ride!
Jenny
xx
p.s. I’ve got a brand new ‘Letter from the Future’ ready to go in the next few days, so stay tuned (spoilers: there’ll be trains, books and friends)!
In the meantime, here are some old letters in case you missed any:
It's good to have you back! All the ideas you put forth sound wonder- fun. The book club is a great idea. I look forward to your next post 😍
I missed this 🫶