Happy New Year!
a quick hello and the results of the raffle.
New Year’s Day Raffle.
What a great way to start the year: counting up the mutual aid funds we raised together for Palestine and Western North Carolina ($730!), and getting to pull names for a stellar raffle full of sweet art and services. And the winners are:
If you want to learn more about the raffle, all the details can be found here! Thank you again so much! I can’t wait for the next one.
Walnut Family Bakery Traveling Bake Sale.
Yesterday’s bake sale to benefit Western North Carolina was a huge success. Thank you to Camille Cogswell and Kampar Philly for hosting! I made about 4 dozen thick slices of gluten free strawberry pound cake with strawberry cream cheese icing and lemon curd filling, and stuck around to plug in and hang out with some amazing chefs/humans during the bake sale. It was so much fun, with lines around the block all day and impeccable vibes. You can learn more about Camille, Walnut Family Bakery, and the traveling bake sales here.
Proceeds from the sale will benefit Community Housing Coalition of Madison County: “an immensely important organization in helping the residents of our community recover from Helene and thrive beyond it.”
And finally, some writings from New Year’s Days past.
This one from 2020, early in my sobriety (I just celebrated 5 years alcohol-free this past September! I am incredibly thankful for the magic, power, grace, and relief I have found in not drinking.)
And this, my first ever Home + the World essay from two years ago:
and finally last year’s dispatch with thoughts about breaking vs. branching, and satsumas.
I’m wishing for everyone a Happy New Year. I know things are bat-shit-bananas right now and only getting worse, but that also means we don’t have much to lose. Why not throw caution to the wind and go all in on community, love, and freedom?
⚔️❤️
Jodi
Home + The World is an occasional newsletter by Jodi Rhoden featuring personal essay, recipes, links and recommendations exploring the ways we become exiled: through trauma, addiction, oppression, grief, loss, and family estrangement; and the ways we create belonging: through food and cooking, through community care and recovery and harm reduction, through therapy and witchcraft and making art and telling stories and taking pictures and houseplants and unconditional love and nervous system co-regulation and cake.
Home + the World observes the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, and Jodi Rhoden is a proud signatory of the Writers Against the War on Gaza statement of solidarity with the people of Palestine.
Visit Home + the World on Bookshop.org, where I’m cataloging my recommended reading in the genres of memoir, fiction, and—of course—healing, self-help, and social justice. If you purchase a book through my shop, I will receive a commission and so will an independent bookstore of your choice. Find it here!
⚔️❤️ Jodi