🪱 Cultivating Compassion in Polycrisis — Preparedness & Self-Publishing with Kailea Loften & Kate Weiner

Amelia HrubyHello, and welcome to Off the Grid, a podcast about sharing your work and making money online without relying on big tech or social media. I'm your host, Amelia Ruby. And when I started this podcast in the trailer of the show, which you can still go back and hear, I made a joke that Off the Grid was a podcast about being off the social media grid, not off the societal grid. And I said that if you were here for resources about off grid life and living in the wilderness and disaster preparedness, this was not the show for you. And since I said that in the trailer, it has now become very evident to me that, of course, this show is also about some of those off grid themes.

Amelia HrubyAnd today's episode is one that will blend our conversations about being off of the social media grid, about creative business, and the self publishing that we've had so often, it will blend those themes with the very real realities that many of us are living in where we are seeing an increase in climate hazards. We are experiencing political crises and violence, and we have to confront the realities of poly crisis in our lives while also running our creative businesses. So today's episode is really a beautiful weaving of the many meanings of being off the grid. And I am so excited to share it with you. Before I introduce our guests, I do want to share a brief announcement, which is that next week, I will be opening doors to the interweb for forty eight hours only.

Amelia HrubyI'm really excited to invite folks in for our summer programming, which is actually quite on theme with this episode. And I'm just gonna do a super quick open cart this time. So if you want to join the interweb, you will need to get on the interweb wait list. If you're wondering what the interweb is, it is our online community for creatives, small business owners, writers, healers, content creators, anyone who is sharing their work, who wants to make money online, and who doesn't want to rely on social media in that process, you are invited to the interweb. And if you love this show, I think you'll really love our community.

Amelia HrubyWe have multiple calls a month. We have a community Slack channel. We have plenty of opportunities for live and asynchronous support and conversation. And, honestly, the interweb is my favorite place to be these days. So if you want to join us, you need to head to the link in the show notes and get on the wait list.

Amelia HrubyAnd then I will be opening the doors to you next week, again, for forty eight hours only. So I'm planning to open them the morning of Monday, June 15, and they will close at the end of the day on Tuesday, June 16. And I'm doing that because we have some really fun events coming up in the second half of June. We have a workshop with Selka Lane on nature as your creative mentor and how to build a sit spot practice. And then we have two workshops on zine making, one with Maz George, all about zines one zero one, everything you need to know to make a zine, and then another with Carolyn Yu about how to make an about page zine for your business.

Amelia HrubySo today's episode is all about nature and preparedness and contemplation and independent publishing. And our events in the interweb this month are about those themes as well. So if you want more of that goodness, head to the show notes, get on the interweb wait list, and you will get an email from me next Monday morning inviting you in. So that's my plug for the episode. Thanks so much for being here interweb members.

Amelia HrubyIf you're listening, I love you and I'm so grateful for you and I can't wait for the rest of June together. And now let me tell you about today's guests. In this episode, I am joined by Kailaah Rose Lofton and Kate Rose Miner of Loam Publishing. Kailaah is a mother of Taltan, Kaska, and black American ancestry who grew up off the grid down a long dirt road on a ridgeline that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. She's a writer and organizer and the co editor of Loam Publishing, which she runs with Kate.

Amelia HrubyKate is an environmental writer and student of community herbalism. She's devoted the past decade to creating work at the confluence of culture and climate justice as an artist and activist in residence in so many amazing organizations. I'm thrilled to have Kaila and Kate here today to talk about their new book, which is called compassion in crisis, building disaster resilient communities. As you'll hear in the episode, they actually self published this book through Loam in 2019, and I have a copy of that first edition of the book that I have cherished for the past few years. And now it's being republished in a brand new, totally redone second edition that just came out with Heyday Books yesterday, honestly, as you're hearing this.

Amelia HrubySo it is brand new. You can get a copy anywhere books are sold, and it is such a beautiful grassroots guide to disaster preparedness and community resilience. I love Kate and Kailia's work. I love this book, and I'm so grateful and honored to bring you this conversation today. In this episode, we talk about the meaning of poly crisis, why it's important to think about preparedness, ways to prepare without slipping into hypervigilance.

Amelia HrubyWe also get into the complicated role that social media plays in both community building and community surveillance. We talk about why we still turn to social media sometimes for resource sharing and rapid response during urgent events, as well as how misinformation and disinformation spread online during disasters. Toward the end of the conversation, we talk more about publishing and printed matter as a way of getting off the grid, and there is just so much goodness in this conversation for you to enjoy. So I'm so glad that you're here for this episode. And without any further ado, let's dive into my conversation with Kate and Kileyah of Loam Publishing.

Amelia HrubyHi, Kileyah and Kate. Welcome to Off the Grid.

Kailea LoftenHi. Thank you for having us.

Kate WeinerYeah. Thank you for having us.

Amelia HrubyI am so thrilled to have you both here and to facilitate maybe one of the first, like, three person conversations I've had on the show. This is a rather monumentous occasion for the podcast. I was hoping that each of you could say hello and introduce yourselves to listeners so they can learn a bit about you, but also attune to your voices.

Kailea LoftenHi. All the listeners out there, my name is Kaila Lofton. I am a parent to a very wily, almost eight year old now. And I am Tahltan and Kaska First Nations, as well as a black American. And I currently live in Northern British Columbia.

Kailea LoftenSo I'm I'm calling from the Snowpeak regions.

Kate WeinerHi, everyone. I'm Kate Weiner. Along with Kalea, I'm the co editor of MALM, a community powered publishing project, as well as the publishing branch of the Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education. I'm a lifelong student of community herbalism.

Amelia HrubyBeautiful. Thank you both for saying hello and sharing a bit about your work. We're here today to talk about this beautiful book, Compassion in Crisis, that you published together in 2019 in its first edition, and then have completely revised, rewritten, recollected releasing or has just released as this episode comes out. I was wondering if you could take us back to the beginning of the project a bit and tell us where did this book begin and how did you decide to create it together?

Kate WeinerSo this book really began as an open invitation. Kaileigh and I had been working together maybe for a year at that point. I had always just loved working with Kailaia felt so inspired by her as a writer, as a thinker and the same time was interested in stepping into something else alone. We had been putting out magazines every year, but was really interested in what a longer form narrative project might look like. And so I think I just, like, texted Kylie and was like, we worked on a book together.

Kate WeinerYou know, what kind of book would that be? What kind of project feels alive for you right now? And I'll let Kalea share more about what her response was and how that seeded this project. We've now been tending to for almost eight years.

Kailea LoftenI've been reflecting a lot over the last few weeks as the book is, you know, starting to make its way into the world. And I really do actually remember the exact thing that I was doing when Kate and I first got on the phone and started to talk through what this project could be. But I think partly because I was very postpartum, I was just a few months out from having my son. And also because at the time, I was living in Northern California, and I was going through my second very intense fire and smoke season. And so what was most top of mind for me at that moment was how is it that I can create a safe environment in my home for a very small baby, in terms of just smoke exposure?

Kailea LoftenAnd is there anyone else out there that is wanting to talk about this moment in time in a really honest way? And so when Kate had reached out, we had, you know, at that moment in time already been in, yeah, as Kate had shared, at least a year long conversation, which so much of it was actually oriented around resilience and what actually creates resilient communities. I said I would be most interested in putting together a long form project where we can dive into the topic of living during, through this changing time and really try to invite readers into reflection, active reflection, and I think also discernment around how it is that they wanna be showing up here on Earth right now through climate change, but also larger systems and and political change as well. And so that was the seed of this project.

Amelia HrubyI think one of the things that stands out to me about the first edition that I know continues through into the second is that the books start with interviews. And speaking to many different people about their approach to these questions that you're asking, questions of disaster, questions of natural hazards, of community vulnerabilities, and how we construct resilience among all of that. And so I wanted to ask, with the second edition, who did you speak to? Could you tell us maybe the stories or some of the people that you included and how their voices come into the text?

Kailea LoftenI'll start, and then I'll pass it over to you, Kate. So, you know, with the second edition, we really wanted to dive even deeper into the power and the potential of mutual aid and community based organizing. And so when we started thinking about who is it that we wanna invite into the conversation and who is it that ultimately we wanna be listening and learning from and giving readers the opportunity to listen and learn from, it was organizers. And so, you know, we've been, you know, saying that this book is really just a love letter to the work and the, the challenge of people that are really just embedded within their, their community doing oftentimes invisibilized labor, but necessary labor in terms of ensuring that our neighbors and our community members are cared for with respect and dignity. And so I'll just say, like, that was the overarching framing of what we were considering when we thought about who we wanted to invite in.

Kailea LoftenAnd I'll pass it over to you, Kate, in terms of just kind of bringing in some of the the names and a little bit of the stories around who ended up in the pages with us this time.

Kate WeinerYeah. I mean, it's such a rich tapestry of voices. We were so fortunate to connect with so many incredible people. I'll say one of the things that's special is it opens up with a conversation with Linh Mi Wan from Field Meridians about being a good neighbor. And it's a really grounded and practical and accessible interview that explores what it means to show up for one another in a way that I hope readers will find really orienting because, you know, one of our our deeper visions with compassion and crisis is that it can be invitational rather than alarmist, that we can bring conversations on disaster preparedness to one another in a way that isn't jargony or academic or exclusionary.

Kate WeinerAnd so I love that there's this the book really opens with an orientation to to being a good neighbor. And that's a thread that carries us through. And the story section closes with a beautiful conversation with the desk tool, actually, Michelle Carrera, and we talk about grief during these times of poly crisis. We talk about the ways that this work asks us to reflect in our mortality, to think about who we care for, what we care for, where we care on. And I think that that arc from welcoming you into this work as a neighbor towards moving towards reflections on death and mortality feels really important.

Kate WeinerAnd then we've talked to so many more folks and I'm very excited for people to read the book and get to encounter these voices.

Amelia HrubyI think that's such a beautiful arc. And as you're sharing it, it's it's really resonating for me personally. You know, when I got the first edition of your book, I was living in Chicago in an apartment building where I didn't know anyone else who lived there. I was there with my partner and we had our cat and, like, we were pretty disconnected from the neighborhood writ large. And it was early in the pandemic, and that disconnection felt more isolating and alienating than ever.

Amelia HrubyAnd through that process, we decided to relocate to live close to my family. And in doing that, I, through the magic of the universe, ended up moving on to a block with my mom's second cousin. No one knew she lived here. We moved in, and she walked down the street and was like, we're related. I was like, you're a stranger.

Amelia HrubyAnd she was like, but we're also related because she had seen me on my mom's Facebook profile. And now, you know, through these, like, magical synchronicities and also just intentional choices I've made, I'm pretty woven into the fabric of my block and the space where I live. And it's a night and day difference in terms of the degree of resilience that I feel. And at the same time, so many of my closest friends are still feeling very isolated in urban environments. They're feeling very unsure of their futures.

Amelia HrubyWe're all seeing the escalation of crises on almost every level, whether that be interpersonal, local, regional, international. And, Kate, you already brought this word into the conversation, and I wanted to ask about it specifically, which is poly crisis. I think that many of us have the sense of, like, there are a lot of crises happening. But I'm almost wondering, like, why not title the second edition, Compassion and Polycrisis? Or, like, how do you think that word is jargony?

Amelia HrubyHow do you define it and approach it through this process?

Kate WeinerAbsolutely. So poly crisis really refers to the way that different crises overlap and intersect and compound one another. So the housing crisis, for example, compounds economic crisis, The crisis in terms of big tech and the construction of data centers exacerbates water crisis, you know, throughout our countries. So it's really a way to talk about how at any given time, the different crises that we experience socially, politically, economically, ecologically are always intersecting and compounding one another. They're exacerbating their impact, our communities, and on the lands that we love and hold so dear.

Kate WeinerAnd so I think that in some ways it can feel jargony, like, and I do think it's a really succinct way to capture this moment we're in when there really is so much happening. And I feel like it does address that sense of overwhelm and as a reminder that that exhaustion is real and it's rooted in the reality of all of these crises coming together at the same time.

Kailea LoftenYeah. I wanna echo Kate. And I think the word and the framework of polycrisis is still very new for people. And so we are using the book as an opportunity to introduce, you know, I think what can be a helpful way to understand the context of this moment in time. But that being said, in terms of like putting it in the title, I don't know if people would get it right away.

Kailea LoftenSo all to say, we do an introduction of this book provide a little bit of a, a grounding and, and a, a short kind of definition of this is how it is that we understand what polycrisis is. But more importantly, the book itself is really oriented on what it is that we, we would call natural disasters, but also how it is that we're trying to help people understand and situate themselves in this moment in time. The resources we provide are applicable for social and political disasters as well. And so more than anything, we're wanting people to understand the systems are collapsing. And the reason why things are crumbling altogether is that they're, they really are intersecting all the time with each other.

Kailea LoftenWe live in an interconnected world. And so we actually just can't, we can't remove ourselves from that truth and that reality of it. And so it's both a, a beautiful thing that we live in an interconnected world. And I think as we're going through this moment in time, it's important to understand just that concurrently, things will be are falling apart, will and are. So I hope that the framing of of polycrisis for people can help to also kind of remove shame or stigma for also some of the ways that people are experiencing in their very intimate and personal life, ways that it is that they might be experiencing, yeah, major economic insecurity, potentially houselessness.

Kailea LoftenI think once we start to kind of you start to kind of trace how these systems are working together, all of a sudden you understand it's not personal to you. It's not personal to your life.

Amelia HrubyI really appreciate both of you kind of grounding us in that. And I think that's something for me that, you know, was elucidated in the first edition of this book and also comes through in the term polycrisis is almost, the affirmation and validation of what I'm actually experiencing or what the communities I'm a part of are actually experiencing in the face of, you know, a US government that is actively denying that there's anything wrong even as it goes to war and these, like, horrible atrocities are perpetuated. I also think that, for me, polycrisis has become a word that helps explain why the stock market is higher than ever and wages are lower than they have been in decades, at least comparatively to inflation and etcetera. And I think that as that gap widens, I'm just noticing it's harder and harder for people to bridge, like, their lived experience with what they're being told is so great about, I would say, particularly life in the so called US where I'm located. Right?

Amelia HrubySo I'm grateful that you're, like, using that term and bringing it into the conversation in a way that both recognizes the immediacy and intensity of it without that very alarmist and even isolationist tone that can come with it, without, like, competitive. Like, well, it's bad now, so, like, everybody's out for themselves ness that can come with some of these preparedness conversations. I wanna ask my next question for anyone who's, like, hearing me say all this and they're feeling stressed. They're like, that's a lot. I love how you weave nervous system support into your conversations around preparedness.

Amelia HrubyI mean, this first edition of the book does end with five ways to calm the nervous system down, and I know there are these types of resources in the new edition as well. A question I'm always holding for myself that I would love your thoughts on is, like, how do I prepare for disaster, prepare for collapse, poly crisis without living in what feels like a constant state of anxiety and hypervigilance? And then I ask myself, is that even the right question to ask? But I'm curious how you think about that. Like, how do we tend to the importance of being prepared that the higher stakes we may face without just always being panicked, vigilant, and on edge fight or flight mode?

Kate WeinerWell, first, you know, I wanna credit Tayla Chenay. She's a friend of ours, an incredible somatic practitioner who brought so much of her wisdom to both editions of Compassion in Crisis. And one of the things that's special about this new addition that's coming out is we really expanded that section on nourishing the nervous system precisely in response to community members over the year who reflected how meaningful those practices were. And Tayla, in this upcoming edition, weaves in some really important framing around regulation and resourcing ourselves in this moment. And one of the things that I really appreciate is she talks about how the idea being regulated is not necessarily the goal.

Kate WeinerIt would be difficult. Understand it'll be very difficult to be well adjusted to a society as sick and heartbreaking as the one we're living through. And there's a way to find moments of grace, of generosity, of connectivity, of embodiment. And she talks about finding that balance between not being so protective of ourselves that we become fragile and unable to take in information and developing practices for resilience and restoration such that our capacity to presence with discomfort and difficulty can increase. And it's so important to name that this is an experience that shapes by a million and one factors.

Kate WeinerYou know, it's not just the kind of disaster we're facing, but the kind of familial support we have in that moment, our financial resources. Like, there's just a lot of factors that go into our ability to resource ourselves, and they fluctuate in moments. And so all to say, I think that a fixed nervous system state is an elusive goal, one of the gifts of Taylor. She helps us presence with that fluidity. And I think that there are no really wrong questions to ask of ourselves in this moment.

Kate WeinerWe're all figuring this out together. And I think that the invitation is to be in a practice together. And that's what I hope these nervous system exercises offer people as an opportunity to just practice and to ask other questions of themselves, their capacities, their communities, and these ever changing times.

Kailea LoftenWe're so grateful to Tayla and deeply resonate with the way that she provides, you know, the introduction into the nervous system, but also helps to situate our bodies living in our bodies in this exact moment in time. And I think just very transparently, I definitely approached, you know, starting out on this project and continuing it as a way to channel a lot of my own anxiety. We're all different in terms of what I think helps us process, what helps us move, overwhelm of information. I would say like high, intense experiences. And, you know, as Kate had said in the beginning, we're writers.

Kailea LoftenI didn't add that into, like, the introduction about me, but writing has always been a way. And also because we bring in so many contributors into this book, there was also the opportunity to be in conversation with many people who are, again, wanting to have the harder talks and are also doing really hard work. So I'll just say like the privilege of even embarking on a project like this for someone who is actually pretty high anxiety naturally, and who's needed a lot of support, needed to find ways to figure out how to support themselves. I'm talking about me. The privilege is that I had something to channel, you know, all of my questions, all of my years into, which is like a really tangible offering.

Kailea LoftenSo, I mean, I think as Kate had said, in terms of one of the ways that we have grounded into the nervous system work that Taylor provides is just that we're not actually trying to be the most regulated. I think we're trying to show up in the most honest way to what is happening. And I will say that I am an ocean of emotions in terms of I show up to my own life. So I have moments where I I feel really peaceful. I feel like I'm able to really sink into what is working.

Kailea LoftenAnd then I also have days where the news is is highly stressful. I don't think I'm alone in that. I think probably most of us are experiencing something like this. But also to say why we wanted to continue to hone in on the nervous system and bring that into the material is that we have both found that when we're going through a highly stressful or traumatic experience, just having a few little tools, easy to remember tools about how to get things moving and or grounded in the body, honestly help you to figure out mentally the best next step. And, you know, the this book is sup you know, we're trying to get people to feel like they're supported before something major happens, but also during.

Kailea LoftenYou know? So if you're in the midst of an evacuation, if you're in the midst of watching something really horrifying unfold, how it is that you can maybe help your body just process in real time so

Kate Weinerthat you can figure out how

Kailea Loftento stay safe or help others is a part of the support we're trying to offer.

Kate WeinerAnd I also just wanna name that as someone who's very anxious as well, I have found that dissonance and avoidance in particular exacerbate my anxiety. So when I feel that there's like a misalignment between what I'm experiencing in the world and how people are communicating about it, or when I feel nervous about looking something for fear of what reckoning with it might conjure that in fact, it's the encountering that eases some of that anxious energy. It's the naming or having language for, or realizing, okay, someone else's experiencing this. So just to say for listeners who are anxious, both Kylie and I are anxious people and and we really have so much compassion and understanding for what it is like to experience that in our bodies. And I think because of that, hopefully there will be a lot of truly practical tools in this book that can be a bomb for the ebbs and flows and spirals of anxiety.

Amelia HrubyThank you both for sharing so honestly about your experiences. It is, I think, always I don't know if helpful is the right word, but at least I feel less alone when even the people writing the book on this are, like, writing the book on it does not get rid of any of the feelings or fear. It just allows a different encounter with them perhaps, and I really appreciate that. And I also am just really struck by how the book is a community building process for you both in bringing in the interviews and bringing in many voices and the way that not only encountering, you know, these topics or experiences ourselves, but with other people is a big part of constructing a book like this and moving through living within crisis, I think. And, you know, the book is a place where you get to choose your conversational partners If you're living through a local crisis or natural disaster, quote, unquote, you don't always get to choose the people you're living through it with.

Amelia HrubyRight? Just whoever is on the block or nearby at the time. And I also personally have found nervous system practices very supportive, not just when I'm struggling with my own anxiety, but in a high pressure situation where there are a lot of people having a lot of big feelings at once. And I've found that, like, resourcing or a resourced nervous system can actually be a really vital thing to bring to a community organizing effort anytime, but especially in the face of a crisis or disaster. And so I appreciate that you highlighted that those resources are meant to carry us through those moments before, during, and after them, which I think is really supportive and necessary in these times.

Amelia HrubyBecause this is off the grid, I would love to talk a little bit about social media. I'm really curious, like, what role social media plays in your daily work or lives at this point? And maybe we'll just start there. Like, what's your relationship to social media like right now as you're preparing to release this book because you've been working with the contributors for it? Are you active on the platforms?

Amelia HrubyAre you not? I would love to just hear a bit about how you are aren't using it these days.

Kailea LoftenSo Kate and I, we came across this show when we decided we wanted to take a break from social media. It was, like, after the fact, I think we both had lost. Just, you know, for transparency, Kate has held the keys for the loan account over all these years. And then I have my personal account, and we have used both accounts as a way to share about the bodies of work that we're publishing and putting out into the world. And there have been moments where Instagram specifically, that's really where we have focused our our time.

Kailea LoftenIt felt like there was real community building happening. Kate and I actually met each other through Instagram. So I'll just say, like, to find, you know, like, the creative collaborator of your life through that platform is such a gift. And there have been countless other individuals that I think we've been able to encounter their art, their work, their philosophies, and world views because of that space. So real high points and then real low points, low points for both of us individually, I think in terms of how it has felt for us to be in that space.

Kailea LoftenAnd then there is major, major issues with who owns the platforms, the way that our data is obviously being harvested and used. And then at this moment in time, straight up political surveillance and the way that it's become really scary to use the platforms to try to reach a broader audience and share about pertinent, potentially life saving things, try to raise up issues because people are dying. So we we got off of social media in 2023. We both decided we wanted a break. And then let's see.

Kailea LoftenI went back on in it was, like, unannounced. We both could did did kinda well, I think on loan, we, like, shared. We're gonna take a break. I just did the thing where I just ghosted and just, like, pulled my account down. But I ended up actually going back on after the 2023 fires in Maui on which took place in August because I grew up on the island of Maui.

Kailea LoftenAnd so it's my home community and I was still on Facebook. And so the night that the fires happened, I was on Facebook, like, the whole night watching things happen in real time and just it felt like a way to be able to just track and, yeah, kind of understand what what was actually going on in this place that I deeply care about. I went to the island immediately. I think it was, like, within two days, I went back home and supported just, like, on the ground very lightly with some volunteer work. And social media was so necessary at that moment in time be for just rapid response, sharing of information, and kinda understanding what had burned, where what was open, where were people gathering volunteers, things like that.

Kailea LoftenAnd then I went off of it again maybe, like, two months later or something and took a nice long break and then went back on it, I think, like, a year later. So I'm currently we're currently both our accounts are active there again. And there's so much more I could say, but I want to pass it over to Kate.

Kate WeinerYeah. I mean, I think our relationship to social media still feels like an open ended question for, you know, all of the reasons that we've shared. Yeah. I feel two minds of it because I have a personal relationship to it. And then I also think about it in the context of resource sharing during intense moments.

Kate WeinerSo in terms of the personal, you know, I can say that I'm someone. It took me a while to draw the links to make the connection between social media and my mood, because I didn't feel that I was somebody who, you know, blacked out and found myself scrolling on social media for hours. You know, I'm a, I'm a triple earth sign. I'm pretty disciplined. I would set my timer, you know, for five minutes.

Kate WeinerAnd I was like, that's my time. But what I came to realize is I'm also someone who struggled throughout my life with obsessiveness and compulsiveness and seeing such dissonant images. It didn't matter if I was only on the app for five minutes. It impacted me for the rest of my day. Like I couldn't put it down.

Kate WeinerAnd I think the juxtaposition between, you know, social media will take you from a video of collapse to buying something. And I think that that experience of dissonance was so painful and it stayed with me. Like I truly cannot put it down. And I think that was a big reason that I realized it was not about the time on social media. To me, it was about the way that it infected my thinking and yeah, required something different for me just in terms of how I'm wired and what affects me.

Kate WeinerAnd so all to say, like personally, I've had to do more work around how to relate to something that can trigger a certain kind of behavior that can be really difficult for me. And I also have been sitting with the role it can play in sharing information when, especially the moment when it can be very hard to get information on what to do. You know, I think a specific example might be that I lived through this was a few years ago now, but my community lived through an urban firestorm. And at first they did not have sufficient resources and multiple languages to share with community members, which is a huge oversight and something that, you know, local officials, state officials should really be prepared for is that making sure they're putting out material in multiple languages. And so I appreciated that social media, that there are people that were translating, you know, these resources in real time so that people could connect on the ground.

Kate WeinerSo I see, you know, from that standpoint, the value. And I think also we're in a moment right now where I think Kylie and I are just both naming the uneasy tension we hold with social media. Like we're living in the question, I think, with our community. And we're also really and have always been really passionate about print as a way to offer an alternative. And so, you know, that's part of the reason.

Kate WeinerI mean, we're first and foremost a print publisher. That's part of the reason we recently launched a print newsletter, for example, as a way to just connect with people one on one through snail mail every month with the goal of just being in the practice of finding new ways to connect. And it's part of the reason that it was so important to us that Compassion in Crisis exists as a book because we need material that can be shared hand to hand, heart to heart. You know, we have this idea that what we put on the internet is forever, but servers can go down. They do during disasters and books, printed matter is a really direct route to connecting with another in times of crisis that I think is actually just as important as having social media tools.

Amelia HrubyThank you both for sharing sort of your current perspectives on social media and the journey of taking breaks, going back on. I think that there's certainly a lot to reckon with in the role that these platforms play in distributing, like, urgent of the moment information alongside the depth of the surveillance that's happening there. As you mentioned, Kailiah, like, we we saw this certainly at the start of 2026 where you had organizers in cities across The US trying to organize in the face of ICE presence and realizing that ICE is surveilling all of these social media platforms and moving conversations into signal chats, like realizing that the way that there used to be able to be mass mobilization on an app like Instagram or Twitter, Now it's, in my opinion, and I think many people's beliefs, just not safe to be doing that work there because the same government organizations that we are mobilizing against are very active there and are using that as information to deport people, to arrest them, and things like that. And so I think that at the same time, it's like getting in the signal check is it can also be a barrier, finding the people to speak to.

Amelia HrubyYou know, I had my own experience since leaving social media. I live in the Midwest where there are plenty of tornadoes, and there was a very large tornado in Lincoln in April 2024 that destroyed a place where one of my family members worked. And, you know, during times like that, often, cell phone signal is down, you can't figure out what's happening, and I was out of town. So I was like, me, social media less, trying to figure out how to, like, get back on Twitter for the first time in forever to be like, can I see anything? Where's the of the moment news?

Amelia HrubyYou know, in those moments, it's like the storm chasers are more present than the news coverage. How do I find these people? How do I see? And she ended up being fine, but there there was so much damage. And it was this moment of personal reckoning for myself just realizing that choosing to remain often outside of these platforms also meant sitting with the panic and anxiety of not knowing in that moment.

Amelia HrubyAnd that wasn't even a you know, my about my personal access to resources. That was just about a family member's safety and understanding what had happened. And it it was an interesting moment for me to think about, like, am I willing to be on social media for a certain type of access or information in these moments? And, I ended up just not being able to get on Twitter because you can't see Twitter things if you don't have an account. And I was, like, stressed and failed to make a new account and, like, didn't get it set up, and then we got it figured out.

Amelia HrubyLike, it resolved itself. But I'm curious if either of you have any thoughts as well. Something that I heard about a lot during the wildfires in LA at the start of 2025 was how much misinformation was being spread on social media. The fake images, the resources that weren't actually legitimized or validated, that people were going to places to try to get supplies where there was nothing there. I'm I'm curious if either of you have encountered that or have any thoughts on, like, I guess, more on, like, how do we consider that?

Amelia HrubyI mean, I think it's also an aspect of poly crisis, but I'd love to hear what you think or how you're grappling with that.

Kailea LoftenI mean, we live in a time of scams. Like, of course, people have figured out how to and have been for a long time now, but continue to figure out how to be even smarter and how it is that they do scam people in instances like this. And AI, I mean, oh my gosh. How how to tell, you know, we're we are hitting that point. How do you know?

Kailea LoftenDuring the just this, gosh, I think this took place just in the last month, the Kona low storms that hit the Hawaiian Islands, the first wave of the storms, because then there was the second wave. Yeah, there, it was really bizarre. And I was trying to understand why, but there was was this AI generated image of flooding in one of the targets on one of the islands. And that target store had actually flooded. And there was real footage of what the floodwaters looked like inside, but it was, it was like a few inches.

Kailea LoftenWhereas this AI generated image, it looked as though it had flooded like maybe a foot and a half or two feet. Like it was just a more exaggerated visual. I'm not sure why. I don't know why someone decided maybe for the sake of creating more hysteria. And, and then all of a sudden it makes you question who even did that.

Kailea LoftenBut like, what, what is the, is there a bigger agenda here? Like, it's just, you know? And so, yes, I mean, all to say that it is a really big problem. I don't understand why at times in, you know, instances like this, people are choosing to put out fake material. And then of course there are really explicit goals other times to

Amelia Hrubyharm,

Kailea Loftenyou know, or to take resources. In the book, we had a conversation with one of the founders of this organization called Emergency Legal Responders, Amelia Hop. And it's all on her interview, and the work that Emergency Legal Responders does is about supporting communities and understanding and advocating for their disaster legal rights, which vary state by state, but we actually all have them. It's a really, yeah, misunderstood and, and kind of quiet field of law, but is so absolutely vital, especially right now. And so much of what ELR does or how it is that they use their channels is a way to try to ensure that the information that is going out to people is vetted and accurate, because there are so many instances where disaster capitalism swoops in.

Kailea LoftenAnd, you know, for instance, there are contractors that maybe come in and just take money from people because people are vulnerable and they're in need and they're operating out of like a highly aroused state. Like they're not really in their body. And so how can they read the fine print? You know, if your home blew down and you have children, you're looking for a place to, to make sure that your people are sheltered. And so a lot of what she highlighted in the interview is just the way that our communities are so vulnerable to disaster capitalism and how devastating that we live in a world and in a society where this is how people choose to make money is off of each other's pain.

Kailea LoftenAnd also we, we do firmly believe that the majority of people in the aftermath of disaster are not oriented in that direction. Most people actually want to help each other. So, yes, we need to be aware and look out. And also I try to keep my focus on more than anything. I, especially I think with the book, we tried to keep our focus on what are most people's natural inclination, which is to actually just be a good neighbor.

Kate WeinerAnd I think in terms of misinformation, one, it's an invitation to be in a continual practice of media literacy, which is a skill I think every one of us can strengthen is learning how to really read and to double check sources and to know who it is we trust prior to an event. And likewise, to what Kylie was sharing on being a good neighbor. I also think part of being aware of the reality of the possibility of misinformation being circulated of just how much happens in any moment of crisis is really building with your community before disaster. And I should say before acute disaster strikes, because in some sense, the disasters are, are always with us and we're always living through moments of intensity. But yeah, to be in the practice of being a good neighbor and that too is a really important tool, not just to preparedness, but also of living a good and connected and purposeful life is just to have people you feel you can share skills with, that you can organize with, that you can ask questions of, and be in that relationship together, I think, is one way to counter attempts from bad actors to capitalize off our vulnerabilities in the aftermath of disaster.

Amelia HrubyYeah. Absolutely. I appreciate you bringing in, I think, sort of different layers or locations of this conversation, because I think there is, like, the active, like, scamming or bad actors that can happen in a moment of disaster. And then there's the layer of, like, people from the outside trying to discern what's happening, and they're getting missed disinformation on the Internet. And then their perspective is very skewed.

Amelia HrubyAnd I also appreciate that distinction too, right, between misinformation and disinformation. You know, misinformation, people sharing things that aren't accurate, maybe unintentionally, maybe even with, you know, good intentions. But disinformation being, like, acutely targeted campaigns to limit resources, to paint a problematic narrative, to harm communities, you know, which, of course, we've seen so much throughout polycrisis. I'm thinking particularly of the way news is reported in and around Gaza often if you're looking at so many US news sources. And so the importance, yes, of all of the media literacies held you just spoke to, Kate, like, choosing our news sources wisely, not sourcing our news from social media, in my opinion, finding other trusted nontraditional sources that we can read or speak to and bookmark Al Jazeera and get get some news elsewhere.

Amelia HrubyAnd And that takes me back to something Kate had brought in earlier that I wanted to make sure we returned to, which is, like, the power of and commitment to print and your work and to circulating resources in, you know, more quote, unquote, off the grid ways. We're not relying on traditional media sources, nor are we relying on high speed Internet to share information and get it out. So I was wondering, Kate, maybe you'd like to speak to this again just a bit more about how you think about print publications and their role in poly crisis, and what is the information that we can and perhaps even should be circulating in these ways? I know you've made beautiful publications. Tell us about those.

Amelia HrubyAnd then maybe if you have any things that you're like, I wish other people would make these sorts of things. I'd love to hear about those dreams too.

Kate WeinerOh my God. Well, I love that question because I love all printed ephemera and printed matter. So I'm like, the more of it, the better. Kylie and I, one of the things we first connected on is our deep love of print. It's always been a through line in our friendship and our creative partnership in part because it's a sensory experience that invites you to pause, which feels like an important skill right now in these moments we're in to have places that get you to have, and I don't know, print as a place, but to have a tool that can help you return to your body and to connection.

Kate WeinerAnd I just think that, yeah, I have sat a lot with how there's so much that I've poured into the past few years that only exists online. And there's something so beautiful about looking now through a lifetime of printed matter that I've made both on my own and in collaboration with my friends that's survived moves, that survived living in particularly wildfire vulnerable regions. And and not that it will last forever because nothing does, but there's just something really powerful about looking through the archives that any one of us can create in our lifetime and seeing evidence of how print persists and holds all these different iterations of who we've been and the creative collaborations we've nurtured and the communities we've been a part of. So all of that is to say, one of the things I love about tending to LOM with Kailai is that we are building this library. That's just a testament to the changing times that we're in and being able to reference and share it feels like a huge gift, especially in a moment when, as I mentioned before, the internet is increasingly surveilled space.

Kate WeinerServers are especially vulnerable to climate change and just to have print, it actually feels like a more reliable mode of connection right now. And of course with print, right, you can't as easily go back and make edits and changes. But I do think that requires a certain kind of rigor, which is also important. You know, we really try to do everything we can before something goes to print to catch errors, to fact check, to be thorough, to think about how we'll live, you know, next month, next year. And I think the fact that print is a medium invites that kind of thoroughness and reflection is so important.

Kate WeinerAnd then in terms of what I would love to see more of, I mean, I just want to see people making more zines and decks and booklets, you know, little printed materials that share practical heart driven resources for meeting this moment in ways that are specific to the communities that they're in and also to the places that they live. Because I do think there's so much that the Internet's done to collapse difference and print, I think, offers a way for us to be really local in our recommendations and, you know, to be like here, you know, it could even be like, here's what I know of zoning in my community and how this relates to the construction of data centers and share that information with the people you are. And so I think there's a beautiful and powerful invitation in printmaking right now to be hyper local and specific in our recommendations and resource sharings in a way that I think can fortify neighborly bonds and also help us just feel more connected to those in our more immediate circles of care. And I I'll pass it on to Kaila because I mean, I always love talking print with you and I'm curious what's coming up for you with this question.

Kailea LoftenI would love to see more independent local newspapers with really quality written work. I wanna see a combination of journalism that is based on local issues. And then also some of the more artful components brought in as well, but definitely independent because even a lot of our local newspapers are owned by companies, big and small, that really don't have our interests at heart. And whoever publishes has power. I mean, that's really what it comes down to.

Kailea LoftenAnd that's why Kate and I work in publishing. I mean, you have the opportunity, you know, as we've reflected a lot in our own experience, but I think also with our readers, it's intimate. If you're reading something in long form, you're sitting outside in your garden. You're, you know, it's, maybe it's the first thing you read in the morning, the last thing that you read before before you go to sleep. It's sitting with you in a really different way, in a way that doesn't necessitate that you have to be in a conversation in that moment with someone else.

Kailea LoftenIt's really a conversation between you and the writer and, and, and then ultimately you and your own mind. And so having more independent news prints material or projects out there can start to actually, it can be one way, I think, to kind of shift levers of power in terms of where the information is coming from and the perspectives that get to be put forward. So, yeah, I, I have so many little ideas all the time, and this is one I've really reeled in and I've never said out loud before every month. This is what I'm like, should I just start that here where I live? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.

Kailea LoftenYou can't do that. Not right now. But just to say that I'm missing that, and I I think anyone else that might be missing that in their own community, I would really encourage you to do it. So that's what I wish for more of.

Amelia HrubyThank you both for these beautiful wishes and visions. I hope someone listening hears it and feels called to step into that space in their community, or many people do. Something that has become one of my, like, deepest simple joys over the past year is that I put a free little library in my front yard. And I am always distributing books and zines, and I have now, like, mapped all of the free little libraries that are walking distance

Kate Weinerfrom me. And I consider

Amelia Hrubymyself the local free little librarian because I transport the books around to different ones. And if one is too full, I'll move some things to one that doesn't have as many books. And a new one just arrived, like, six blocks from me, and I'm so thrilled. I took a huge box of books. I collect free books that, like, anyone I know is, like, getting rid of books.

Amelia HrubyI'm like, I'll put them in my basement. I'll put them in the libraries when there's time. I have them seasonally organized. Like, I've really taken this quite seriously. And it's been really exciting just to see though as well, like, see the zines move around, see things that I put in one library show up in another library, see these different resources, you know, during the start of this year, like, putting in flyers that have resources about where to get immigration support, like, distributing information in addition to, like, the cute literature that's going out, like the romance novels and the kids' books and the things like that.

Amelia HrubyAnd I think that it's just really reminded me how much infrastructure does exist that we can, like, be distributing and sharing through. And so many of the places that, you know, were originally these, like, grassroots, beautiful industries like publishing, like radio, even like TV, have become fully commercialized. They've been taken over by these media conglomerates. And, also, I'm like, what is pirate radio in 2026? What is independent publishing like what you all are doing in 2026?

Amelia HrubyWhat is printing out a bunch of flyers? What is, like, one person on the block having a printer and printing out flyers for everyone and, like, distributing them through free little libraries in the neighborhood? Like, we don't have to start from scratch. We don't have to invent I mean, we can invent new technologies, but also there's so much available to us if we're willing to look locally as you both have been emphasizing, and just turn our gaze away from the traditional and institutionalized structures. Like, I don't listen to networked podcasts anymore, and it has totally changed who I'm hearing and what I'm doing because I wanna support independent productions like myself.

Amelia HrubyRight? And so I think that we're talking about media creation, but even for anyone listening who's not actively making media, you can shift your media consumption. You can shift your social media use. And, like, that also what you said, Kileya, like, whoever publishes has power, and we as readers have power too, or as listeners have power too. Like, they only have power because we're reading them or listening to them, and we can read and listen to other people as we resist those powers that be.

Amelia HrubyAnd to me, that's been, like, a way I've reclaimed some sovereignty during poly crisis, and it's been helpful to my nervous system and my anxiety in that process.

Kailea LoftenI love the reminder of looking for the infrastructure that already exists where it is that you live because the reality is that within every community, there is something, whether it be the little free libraries or, you know, there's generally a place where people can go and get access information on support services. There's the bulletin boards. There's being able to, yeah, make your posters and, and go and fly or whatever it is. But I think one of the things that we also encourage people in this book to do is they consider how it is they want to take their reading off the page is to remind them that you don't actually have to start from scratch so much of the time. And yes, maybe your community doesn't have x, y, or z project, but we encourage people to first take the opportunity to do their own kind of listening in on where it is they live and their own kind of mapping and then figuring out how to hopefully already work with what is support, what someone else's vision has been.

Kate WeinerYeah. I just wanna affirm. Yeah. The infrastructure exists and the reminder to work with resources we already have. I think, you know, it's funny when you brought up the community printer, I was thinking, already, I think we have a sense of who's got a printer that we can turn to.

Kate WeinerYou know, we have that one friend we might text and we need to print something for work. We can go to the public library and print, and we're like, it's there. Like we're already practicing these skills in so many ways. What can it look like to step more into that, to claim that role and to figure out what, yeah, we want to do in this incredible ecosystem of, yeah, making independent media.

Amelia HrubyAnd I also think like following our pleasure in that process, like I think often, especially in crisis, the, the volunteering, the showing up, the, the doing the work can feel hard and and tiring and exhausting. And we feel like we have to stick with it because it's so needed, but also we can find deep pleasure and satisfaction and connection in those roles. And I find that I have much more resilience in a challenging moment if I'm already in that practice in, you know, not an acute crisis so that I already have those connections. And I know where the libraries are, and I can go to them. And not just the free libraries, but the public library is often a great starting point.

Amelia HrubyIf anyone's listening to this, like and that you really don't know what is available in my community, what can I access? A public library could be a great place to just go talk to librarians, look at flyers, get Narcan. Like, I just saw that at my library this week. Like, there's so many resources there. And I know Miriam Cabo, who's a organizer I encountered first in Chicago, is always pointing us to the libraries and saying, like, look to the library, get on the library board, see what's happening at the public library.

Amelia HrubyIt's really important. So I was wondering if, as we ended, there was anything else you all wanted to say about the book or mention that's included there that we haven't woven into this conversation yet?

Kate WeinerI think one of the invitations throughout this book is that this is community work, which I think eases the burden. It's not something that we have to or should do alone. Throughout the book there's guiding questions and practices to help you integrate what our contributors have shared so generously with us into your life, into your community. Even the checklist themselves, a lot of traditional preparedness checklists are really oriented around the individual, but we were really mindful. And a lot of this, you know, we wanna thank Summer Star who helped us so much with developing these checklists and are really rooted in a project she has just of open source sharing around this information.

Kate WeinerBut all these checklists are really oriented towards community preparedness and towards thinking about not just of ourselves in times of crisis, but our families, our neighbors, unhoused community members. And so I think all that said, there's an invitation here to do this work in the book with your loved ones and to bring it to others and to make it a part of daily conversation and to know that you don't need to have the answers that you get to be in the question with your people.

Kailea LoftenYeah. Thank you so much for that, Kate. And to close, I would just add that the book could not cover everything. There are perspectives that are missing. There are scenarios and situations that are not included.

Kailea LoftenAnd we want to just say the book should not be viewed as an endpoint. It's it should be viewed as like a community opening, a conversation starter is how it is that we're kind of thinking about how it could situate in people's lives. And so we wanna remind readers that the most important thing you can do is figure out what is actually needed in your own neighborhood, what is actually needed where you live, what's your personal context. And if it's not touched on in the book, please, like we, we encourage and welcome you to think about what it is that you need to create for your own people.

Amelia HrubyThank you for that groundedness in the context and reminder that, you know, no one book, it has all the answers. No matter what a sort of, like, Christian approach to the Bible might tell us, there's not only one good book. There are many good books, and this is one of them. So I will definitely link Summer Star's work in the show notes as well because I know that those family preparedness resources are so valuable, and anyone listening can access those for free and explore them. But, listeners, I really hope that you will purchase a copy of Compassion in Crisis, whether you are brand new to thinking about preparedness or polycrisis is already a common word in your vocabulary.

Amelia HrubyI know that there's so much support and wisdom offered in this book, and I'm so grateful for how many voices you've woven into it. And I look forward to really exploring that web as well, looking up all of the contributors, finding their work, seeing what they're doing, and and learning from them. Again, not just only within the pages of the book, but letting it spiral and fractal out into so many other wisdoms and conversations. So thank you so much, Kate and Kalea, for joining me here on the show. I'm so grateful for you both and so excited to share this book with listeners.