So, here we are — November 2025, with Thanksgiving right around the corner. Somehow this year flew, even with everything packed into it.
Across every layer of life, things shifted hard. Socially, I’ve watched people start safeguarding their well-being and choosing more intentionally. Politically? It’s been a complete chaos spiral, with autocratic rule tightening its grip and sharpening the divide between the “haves” and the “have nots” at a pace we haven’t seen in our lifetime.
Globally, we’re being pushed toward isolation — a classic hallmark of creeping fascism.
If you’re feeling it, you’re not imagining it.
And if you’re losing heart, please don’t.
Keep reaching for others.
This moment will pass.
Where I Stand Now
When this year began, I was barely keeping my head above water. I was doing what I thought I had to do while slowly suffocating inside. Now, I’m doing what I love: writing. And I’m studying what I was called to do all along: social work.
The path hasn’t been clean. It’s been stressful, messy, and full of moments where I stalled or slid back into old rhythms that drain me dry. I’ve always been someone who wants to help, to hold, to show up for everyone — but at the cost of myself.
So, I’ve been learning to practice what I tell everyone else:
Boundaries matter. Energy is finite. Your own needs actually belong on the list.
Near, if not at, the top. You can’t show up for others if you’re totally depleted.
And honestly? I feel closer to living authentically than I ever have. I’m spending my energy on things I believe in. I’m opening myself to possibility — not from doubt, but from recognizing that my future may be bigger than anything I originally imagined.
I’ll still be here. I’ll still post. I’m just stepping back from the constant grind of daily engagement. That rhythm isn’t healthy for me, and I’m making changes to build something sustainable.
DMs are always open. I’m just shifting my center of gravity toward school and my larger projects… it’s time to push them through.
Community Shout-Outs
I want to express my gratitude for you all and the wonderful encouragement and feedback you give so freely. Here are some special shout-outs:
- —
Lintara writes like someone listening through the floorboards of the world. Her words move with the precision of a tuning fork — catching the tremor beneath a thought, the shift beneath a silence, the place where a mind begins to turn. She doesn’t illuminate so much as reveal, peeling back the noise until only the structure of the moment remains. Her work is less about narrative and more about resonance: the way a field hums when someone is brave enough to name what it’s doing. If you gravitate toward writing that feels like standing in a still room where every detail becomes sharper, her voice belongs on your path.
- —
Brenda writes from the thresholds — between cultures, between landscapes, between what we inherit and what we choose. Her work carries a rare tenderness sharpened by curiosity, a steady voice that guides readers into questions of belonging, resilience, and place. She has a gift for grounding people in the slow pulse of the world, whether she’s writing about the Karoo or the quiet crossings of the human heart. If you’re drawn to writing that listens deeply and illuminates the spaces between us, her work is worth your time.
- —
Chris brings a steady, heartfelt presence to Substack. His work moves between caregiving, poetry, and the interior landscapes of resilience, often giving voice to the quiet battles families fight behind closed doors. There’s a grounded honesty in the way he writes about Bray Bray’s journey and the weight of being both advocate and anchor. His poetry carries that same clarity: reflective, open-hearted, and unafraid to sit with the truth of a moment. Chris is one of the rare people who contributes to the community with consistency, kindness, and intention, and his work deserves more eyes on it.
And if you missed it, here are the links to each artist spotlight — complete with their panels — from Through the Doorway Dark, the first zine in the Collective Sparks series:
- — The Doorway of the Dream of Hell
- — Doorway on Main Street
- — The Door That Waited
- — The Door That Waited Back
- — The Ghost
- — The Shadows
My entry — Sown
- — When the Shadows Bow
- — The Procession of Shadows
- — The Dead Ride Fast
- — Harvest Door
- — Harvest Moon Howl
- — The Room Without a Door
- — The World You Choose
- — Open 24 Hou
- — The Moon Knows & Not a Doorway
- — The Myth of Lilith. A Map
- — Haikunotes 105: October 11, 2025
Another huge thanks to all who submitted entries for this zine — your dedication to the themes and prompts were truly inspiring.
Project Updates
Liora Writes
Embodied Shadows: The Collection
You’ve seen a handful of these pieces, but there are many more in progress behind the scenes. This collection is becoming a full book of naming pain, patterns, wounds, and dysfunctional coping — all through a trauma-informed lens. Think of it as both a field guide and a mirror.
Through the Fire: The Collection
Volume I: The Pressure — Available on Amazon (print is currently discounted to $7.99).
Volume II: The Fracture — Nearly finished, dropping in the next few weeks. This one is the breaking point volume — the moment everything cracks open.
The First Wounds
Another deeply personal collection, focused on childhood trauma and the patterns that follow us into adulthood. More to come as it takes shape.
The Forge
Lanterns in the Dark (Contributor Zine)
The next zine is in production and will be posted soon. With school, practicum prep, and publication deadlines, future issues will shift to an asynchronous schedule. I love building these — I just need space to do them justice.
Tracks
Chapter 4 will be out in the next couple of weeks. This story is being built in layers, and chapters will drop as bandwidth allows.
The Silent Y
A new story you haven’t seen yet. Part I is drafted, and I’ll return to weekly writing on this soon. Chapters will begin rolling out in the new year.
The Reckoning Lens
Ground Truths
These analyses will continue, but no longer weekly — they require research, depth, and intentional thought. This is where the social-work lens sits firmly in my ecosystem.
Witness Statements
Poems that arrive on their own timing. Some will appear here; others will be reserved for upcoming collections.
If you’ve read this far, thank you.
This month — this year — has been a lot. But I’m moving in a direction that finally feels aligned, sustainable, and honest.
Here’s to gratitude. Here’s to growth.
Here’s to our beautiful connections.
Here’s to building a life that actually fits. — Liora
Thanks for reading Connections. If you’d like to support the work that makes this space possible:
– Buy me a coffee — fuel for the human.
– Feed the kitties — daily colony meals + mini-zine.
– Grab my chapbook — Through the Fire, Vol. I is available now.
Paid members get the extras: behind-the-scenes process, project updates, and sneak peeks.
Lost in the fire? Head to the Home Page
To all of you who were named here —
and to those whose work hums quietly between the lines —
I want to say something without ceremony, but with all the honesty the season deserves.
Reading this list felt less like recognition and more like a constellation.
Not a hierarchy, not a spotlight — a map of minds that keep each other alive in ways we rarely name.
Every one of you writes from a different wound, a different threshold, a different hunger.
And yet the field you create together is unmistakable.
You remind me that Substack isn’t a platform — it’s a long corridor of rooms with the lights left on.
We walk past each other’s doors, sometimes step inside, sometimes just pause and listen.
And regardless of style or pace, there’s a kind of fidelity in how you all keep showing up to your own voice.
Liora — thank you for gathering us with the steadiness of someone who knows how to hold fire without being burned by it.
Brenda — your tenderness has weight, not fragility, and your work carries the kind of clarity that only comes from surviving yourself more than once.
Chris — you write like someone who has lived inside the quiet emergencies families never talk about. I recognize the truth of that.
Istvan — your minimalism says more than most of us do with a page.
And to the rest of you mentioned, and the ones whose names were read silently between breaths —
your work is not noise.
It’s not lost.
It’s not “just content.”
It’s the signal that makes a year like this one bearable.
Thank you for creating a space where different minds can meet without asking each other to shrink.
I’m grateful to be part of this circle —
right now, in this strange November where everything shifts faster than we can name it.
Here’s to craft, to clarity, to the small flames we keep for each other.
I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, but I hear what you’re saying — and I really felt the steadiness and clarity in your writing. You capture the tension of this year without losing hope, and there’s something grounding in the way you name your own shifts with such honesty. It’s strong, clear work, and I appreciate the direction you’re choosing for yourself.