Holy fuuuuck… the last time I substacked was in July.
Damn, that’s 3 months ago.
A whole season ago, in peak summer.
“See, Alex. You will never stick at something consistently enough to make it work. You are destined to start, stop, and not complete. There is no point doing anything, just sit down and give up / die.”
Familiar, well worn inner critic stuff.
We did not come through all those eclipse portals to tell ourself the same old shit. So - let’s reframe:
I am a HUMAN BEING with a LIFE and I have been fully occupied with: deciding to move to another continent (YES, I did it! I am tapping this out to you from North Carolina USA), throwing a small farewell festival in West Wales (hello & love if you came!) packing up my life, saying goodbye to many people I love, and setting up here… a new place.
We are just shy of two weeks into the new move.
We have joined the gym, made new friends, revamped our website, got a dog walking job, and spent a fun few hours yesterday helping out our neighbour with her contribution to the neighbourhood ‘skeletons at play’ halloween scene.
I think it’s strong.
So.
That’s where I’ve been! It’s been a lot.
Why do we find it so hard to congratulate ourselves for our achievements and reach for the whip instead?
WELL DONE ME.
What are you congratulating yourself for?
GO ON.
There’s something.
I want you to say it out loud.
BLEED TRACKER YOU SAID?
Yes! Obsessively drawing this thing whilst transitioning out of Wales and staying with my father & at the airports & on the planes… London. Iceland. Raleigh, NC.
This is based on a tracker that I found in the back of Maisie Hill’s excellent Period Power book.
In that book she encourages you to track your cycle. Note what’s happening for you physically. Emotionally. You might have a longer womb-autumn run up (‘pms’, reframed as ‘please make space’) and for the perimenopausal woman (hey sis!) it is helpful to track how these hormonal phases are shifting around.
When do I have social go-out-and-get-it energy?
When do I need to be left the fuck alone?
When are my critical editing powers at their sharpest?
These strengths & vulnerabilities are all informed by my hormonal, menstrual cycle. So I inform myself with a tracker that I journal on.
If I know myself then I am better equipped to do the ‘big out there stuff’, the acts of service, the activism and the community building, etc.
And I wish this for you too! So - from me to you - here are the free printable downloads.
If you’re up for it, I’d love your collaborative input on this.
Is it clear what this is?
What else do you need to know about it?
Thoughts, suggestions - all welcome.
I Am A Globally-Facing Artist
I’ve been getting into Sarah Wilson recently and her writings on Collapse (book due to be published in 2026) - you can read her serialisation of it in her substack This Is Precious.
She writes about moving from Australia to Paris because “the chairs face outwards.”
I have had quite a few friends ask why TF am I moving to the USA now, in these times, with this government?
Why would I want to leave my gorgeous hobbity life in West Wales, with wonderful friends, a fun-loving and creative community, beaches and waterfalls and ferns and fairies… why would I leave all of that behind, and move here?
It’s a good question.
Because… I can’t ignore what is going on in the world any more, and for me that means leaving the safety zone and getting out and into the world.
Got to get these little trotters onto new soil.
And, indeed, as soon as I left those Preseli lands, the noise of the world and the St George’s flags and the hyper consumerism rushed in to greet me.
(Many people live in West Wales and are politically tapped in and active. I’m not saying this is the only course of action. It’s quite extreme. But something does happen when you change the environment, change the conversations. I needed a shake up.)
Things are changing, rapidly. It’s hard to keep up. It’s heavy out there. The killing and the war is hard to hold and to look at.
It’s a heavy knowledge that we’ve passed the 1.5 C threshold.
Climate chaos. Civil unrest. Genocide.
That’s the heavy stuff that I’m spending more time with. I’m also asking myself what am I going to do about it? What can be done about it?
I’m following my passions and my internal sense of what is interesting and sparky, and trusting it as best I can, even though it’s all alarming and overwhelming.
What is interesting and sparky to you?
What part do you have to play?
So. We are out of the eclipses. I am writing to you from another continent, and I wish to re-introduce myself to you, as who I am now.
I am Alex Crampton. Artist, Illustrator, Storyteller.
I’m here for change, and the kind of collective creativity that is going to push us all in a better direction.
You will note that the ‘My Magic’ section of the website is ‘under construction.’
That’s all the Colouring In Quests stuff. The journal templates, moon calendars & illustrated guides I’ve been plugging away at for the last 4 years.
This is the accountability space, where I pull it together…
…where I keep coming back to it.
Fall off the horse and prove to yourself how resilient you are by getting back on again.
Have the fight, and discover how robust your connection is by repairing it.
Feel the fears and think the doubts, and then just do it anyway.
And so I wonder… what horse are you battling with? And - are you inspired to introduce you, as you are now?
Feel free to do so in the comments below.
I’ll write to you at the next moon, because we are back on this thing.
Kisses,
Alex
