January Connect, Create, Collaborate

The powerful relationship between friendship and freedom (that just might save us)

Hello.

I’ve missed you, friends! I hope this season continues to offer moments of peace, reflection, and rest. While taking a few days to visit the sea near Tybee Island, I was reminded of how powerful and beautiful this season can be.

Sunset on the beach, 2026

It seems right to gently ease into January with our monthly resource exchange– a place to connect, create, and collaborate in the spirit of generosity, trust, and mutuality.

If you’d like to jump straight in, scroll down for instructions!

Reflecting on 2025, one of the things I’ve noticed about myself is my hunger for something beyond despair. While my mind gravitates toward increasingly disturbing news headlines–proof that the fear I feel in my body is justified, my spirit is after something more.

What I continue to notice with curiosity is our proclivity to name the bad—the horrific, shocking, and inhumane on a daily basis.

But if we fill our hearts with nothing but evidence of violence and disconnection, if our movie trailers and music and journalists reflect a dismal, apocalyptic world back to us, how will we ever learn to pick up a paintbrush instead of a pistol? How will we learn to plant instead of bulldoze, to utter anything beyond a keening cry of grief?

The good news is our bodies know.

The natural world (which we are part of) knows.

Our monthly resource exchange is a strengthening of that remembering. A wide net cast across physical distance and space, threads of beauty, abundance, and care woven together as acts of resilience, humanity, and proof of life.

“When an economic system actively destroys what we love, isn’t it time for a different system?”

—Robin Kimmerer, The Serviceberry

The other good news?

These alternate systems already exist—like small streams flowing around large boulders, parallel waterways converging toward the sea, toward what we know is possible.

It’s the little free libraries scattered around cities. Free produce stands on country roads, neighbors exchanging childcare or a homecooked meal for a friend who’s ill. It’s a clothing swap organized among roommates or maternity clothes being passed down to the next expectant mother with a wish and a prayer.

It’s the seed exchange at the local library, food drives organized by schools and churches. Neighborhood parks as third spaces, bowls of clean, fresh water placed outside for the furry ones.

It’s the way the sun rises every morning and the moon communicates with the tide. The way children cry because they know it will bring comfort. The ways we celebrate our loved ones during their birthdays or special anniversaries with gifts that say, “Thank you for being here. For being you. That is all you ever need to be.”

From my journal, Jan 2, 2026

During the holiday, I had the chance to listen to a podcast by Dan Harris with Mia Birdsong, author of “How We Show Up,” who explained that the etymological root of friendship and freedom is the same. She went on to say that this is the opposite of the freedom we’ve been taught in America.

“There’s been this like hundreds year grift that America has been pulling on all of us telling us that freedom is a thing that’s actually the opposite of freedom.”

She goes on to ask:

“What would this country be like if we believed that to be free was to be in connected community? What would our economy look like? What would our school system look like? What would our healthcare system look like? What would our neighborhoods be like? How would we think about designing cities? How would it change the way that we, what we expect from each other and what we expect from government or other institutions?”

I’ll leave you with that hopeful call to action and the reminder that hope requires action—often messy, vulnerable, and imperfect, but that hope in action is easier and strengthened when we practice it together.

Heartbeats Resource Exchange 💞

Our monthly resource exchange honors the reality that our capacity shifts and changes day to day. It broadens the idea of reciprocity beyond the 1:1 relationship, trusting that when we all give and receive according to our needs, there will be plenty for all.

How It Works:

1. In the comments on THIS POST

   • Share your city in ALL CAPS

   • Under “RESOURCES OFFERED” list up to 3 free resources you’d like to share (examples: tarot reading, editing services, homemade meal, etc.)

   • Under “RESOURCES NEEDED” list 1-3 items you’d like to receive from the community (examples: a writing critique partner, 2 hours of childcare per month, an old typewriter, painting lessons, etc.).

2. Connect with others by responding directly to offers/requests that interest you

3. If you can’t directly respond to a request, but know someone who can, invite them to participate!

4. Check back periodically for new connections

5. This thread will remain active through January 31st, with a new thread starting February 1st.

My friends, I leave you with this powerful quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,

“The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.”

—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

May we be creatively maladjusted together.

All my love,
Mariah

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A message of gratitude 💗

Thank you for the unbelievable support of my debut novel, The Pattern Shop! Being able to share this story with you while choosing to keep it off Amazon has filled my heart with hope and the courage to keep going.

Here’s what people are saying so far:

If you’d like to purchase a signed copy of this coming-of-age novel about a young woman learning how to build home in a chaotic world full of beauty and possibility, I’d love to send it to you.

More ways to connect 💞

I’ve loved exploring Catriona Knapman’s theme, “Dancing in the Dark” with her creative “bothy” letters. I’m thrilled to be joining her in conversation this Friday to talk more about what dancing in the dark means as an individual and a collective! We’ll touch on:

• Facing uncertainty as a solo female traveler

• My decision not to publish The Pattern Shop on Amazon

• What the dark can teach us that the light can’t

Join us live on Substack this Friday, at 12pm EST!

🌱Help our resource exchange grow!

1. Share this post and invite others to participate

2. “Heart” the monthly exchange, so it becomes more visible

3. If you have examples of the gift economy in action in your life, city, or beyond, please share them in the comments.

4. Become our next co-host! If you’d like to co-host February’s resource exchange and share your own experience of building community, let me know by January 15th! Email thebarefootbeat@gmail.com or send me a message.

Thank you for being here.