Hi!
I'm Sharon. I'm an essayist tethering art, wonder, magic, ecology, spirituality, and culture together through frameworks of animism, philosophy, enchantment, and cultural theory. Other more personal perspectives and experiences I work from are that I live in the PNW among the lands that raised me; I'm queer and genderfluid; I'm neurodivergent, chronically ill, and disabled; I'm a high school dropout and worked the stoves in restaurant kitchens for 17 years, but have a bachelor’s degree now and have spent the last 16 years working in the arts as a curator, arts writer, and educator; I haven’t been connected to my blood relatives in many years so their names are a sadness but I've spent a lifetime researching to better understand my multiple, varied, and complicated ancestries, working mostly within my white-identified Irish- and Scottish-American lineages. My interest is in the way these deeply interconnected themes form confluences and expressions of both life and knowledge that shape our contemporary lives; especially when nurtured in community, conversations, and connectivity. My most recent projects, various works, formal accolades, and curriculum vitae may be found on www.dimensionsvariable.org. I’m not really that fancy—to see me ranting and raving with Steller’s Jays in the early morning while they peck at their hazelnuts and I drink my coffee and the squirrels chide us both is to truly know me.
Dimensions Variable is a periodic essay delivered to your inbox that offers you a window into what I'm working on. Here, I share my works-in-progress and streams of thought, research, resources, and reflections on the themes shared in the paragraphs above. Each topic I choose will be illustrated through a series of essays on issues or ideas that I find timely and relevant on intersecting artistic, philosophical, political, spiritual, and cultural scales. This project actually began in 2022 with a discussion-based seminar series hosted on Discord titled Beyond the Altar. The seminar series was a way of sharing bits of the research I was using for my writing, which I posted on Patreon, and we would discuss in depth in Discord (the Discord still exists for those interested!). These essays on Substack are now meant to offer the writing and conversation in a more accessible and open way with occasional prompts and an invitation for further research for those who are looking to dive a little deeper.
My hope with the writing on Dimensions Variable is that in pulling together seemingly disparate threads across a broad spectrum of disciplines, social spheres, and platforms from essays, books, and academic papers to podcasts, movies, television, and memes; these patterns of connectivity become apparent and exciting to you too, and that collectively we can all begin to bring together a multitude of ways of thinking, living, and being that modern and postmodern systems and structures have severed and set apart. It is in the bringing together again, and coming together to do it (in my opinion) that we will truly begin to see the work of liberation come to fruition.
Why subscribe?
I've been thinking hard about what it means to be a person who values resource sharing and ideas exchange, and the problems of putting the conversations I want to have behind a paywall. So now, all my essays are available to everyone, whether a paid or a free subscriber. But! Your paid subscription, whether monthly or founding member, lets me know you value and have faith in my work. That motivates me because the more paid subscribers I have, the more able I am to set aside the time to do this work—as a freelancer to pay the bills, I often have to choose between working for someone else and researching and writing on my own topics, which are featured here. But mostly, offering this content for free and putting my faith in you to support me outside the producer/consumer binary, and pressure to create even at the cost of quality, means that I’m living up to my ideals and ethics to create as much good thoughtful work and access to idea and resource-sharing as as possible, and that we are on good standing with each other in conversation and community.
At some point, I’d like to open up a Library tab, where I’ll be adding a living list of resources, and a worksheet for the monthly topic with journaling prompts for reflection and self-paced study.
Stay up-to-date
I’m doing my best to write something at least twice a month, but full disclosure, I dwell within the space of crip time and I will miss a post here and there—but you won’t have to worry about missing anything. Every essay I publish goes directly to your inbox.
Join the crew
Be part of a community of people who share your interests, and a few who are different, too! We are artists, writers, craftsmen, musicians; thinkers, teachers, construction workers, tradesmen, philosophers; technologists, coders, and engineers; witches, sorcerers, and magicians; activists, abolitionists, social workers, and anarchists; kids, parents, aunties, niblings, piblings, grandkids, and grandparents. We’re here together because we’re just all curious about everything, and we like sharing about it. If you’re shy, don’t worry, you don’t have to join the discussion. But you’re welcome to, when/if/ever you feel ready to.
To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this publication visit Substack.com.
I can also be found on Instagram and Threads. I have a Blue Sky account but I don’t know how I feel about it yet, especially after the more expansive character count on Threads and Mastodon where I also am but couldn’t quite pick up. We’ll see where the social media dust settles but for now the first two are my main digital social spaces.
Four times a year, 10% of my earnings go to local and national Indigenous-led direct action, and once my paid membership grows to $100/month, I’ll start sending contributions on a monthly basis. I encourage you to seek out similar donations, rent, tax, or land trust programs and initiatives in your own areas!
Indigenous Climate Action
Native Governance Center, Beyond Land Acknowledgment: A Guide
Native Land Digital
Native Land, Territory Acknowledgement Resources
Nii’kinaaganaa Foundation
Partnership with Native Americans
Public Resources for Land Acknowledgement Learning
Real Rent Duwamish
R.I.S.E. Indigenous
Seattle Urban Native Nonprofits
yəhaw̓ Indigenous Creatives Collective
