Dear community,

My maternity leave officially begins today (only one week out from when our daughter is due!) I will be back to work in November, recording interviews and writing this newsletter. Here's what you can expect in the interim.

Podcast

I've spent the past three months recording a backlog of new episodes. These will be released every second week, in between hand-selected episodes from the Planet: Critical archive. You don't have to do anything differently—an episode will land in your inbox every week, as it always does. The archive episodes I'm republishing are some of my favourites, and were instrumental in shaping the way I see the world today. The new episodes feature some really exciting guests, ranging from activists to writers, and scientists to filmmakers. Stay tuned!

Newsletter

The newsletter over the coming month will also feature a handful of pieces from the Planet: Critical archives, and I'll be very interested to read your astute takes on how Planet: Critical has evolved since they were initially published.

The vast majority of newsletters, however, will be brand new pieces, and I'm excited to report they won't just feature my writing! Over the past four months, I've been reading and writing with three stupendously intelligent, caring, learned and talented young people. I call this little writing collective 'The Grove', named as such because each of their styles remind me of a different kind of tree. Anya writes like a willow leans over water, creating new dimensions with her words the way a willow's leaves create a curtain between the world you know and the world that could be. Rishab writes like a pine stretching tall and straight to the sky, piercing the air without hesitation, fiercely reaching for the truth. Jess writes in the way a magnolia tree bursts into your perceptions, her descriptions as vibrant as they are delicate, petals creating a colourful path to follow as she weaves profound emotional insight into her conclusions. As for my own? Who knows. It was far more important I be the humus to The Grove's soil.

We did three cycles of reading and writing together before I clocked off for maternity leave. The first cycle, we read the introduction of Timothy Morton's Being Ecological and, after a lengthy discussion, chose the prompt: "What is being ecological?" Our second cycle, we read the essay Our Ancestors’ Dystopia Now: Indigenous Conservation and the Anthropocene by indigenous scholar Kyle Powys Whyte. Together, we chose to tackle the question: "What would our ancestors think?" For our final cycle, we read the last chapter of Alyssa Battistoni's Free Gifts and chose to interrogate: "What does it mean to be free?"

Next week, my newsletter opens the first cycle, "What is being ecological?" The next week features Rishab's piece, followed by Jess', then Anya's. At the end of every cycle, the newsletter will then feature a piece or two from the Planet: Critical archives, before beginning the next cycle, which will always open with my response to our prompt.

I am absolutely honoured to be introducing you all to these three incredible people. Each of them reached out to me of their own accord at some point over the past few years, and I was delighted when they each accepted my invitation to be part of this collective. I have been truly moved to watch their friendships develop in our bi-monthly meetings, and fortunate enough to now have met each of them in person. Working with them has been one of the main highlights of this year for me professionally, and I can't wait to pick it back up when I return from maternity leave.

Planet: Coordinate

For the past nine months, Robert has been working diligently on our first feature-length documentary about the anti-mining community we spent time with in Colombia. This has been a colossal amount of work—not only has he learned how to be a filmmaker, and how to use all the requisite software it demands, but has done it with footage in a language he doesn't speak. I am amazed at what he has successfully put together, and the quality of his hard work is evidenced in the fact that we have just received word that an international streaming platform wants to share the film with their global audience.

So, around mid-September, you can expect a big announcement from us that the film is available to be watched! Paying Planet: Coordinate supporters will have access to a preview in the days beforehand, but the film will be available for everyone to watch for free afterwards.

HER BODY, OUR CHOICE

The final manuscript is handed in and with the copy-editor and the legal team! Everything is on track for publication early next year, and I can't wait to share it with you.

Subscriptions, emails, and everything else

I am planning on being totally offline for a few months. I think it very important that Robert and I be present with our daughter and dedicate our time to getting to know her and welcoming her into the world. As such, I have no intention of checking my emails during these months. However, the info@ email address will be monitored by a close collaborator, and she will be able to help out with any problems regarding your subscriptions/memberships.

I have no intention of wading through all my emails on my return from maternity leave so if you have contacted me on my address about something important during the coming months, email me again in November and I will get back to you.

Equally, I likely won't be able to reply to your comments for some months but please keep commenting and sharing. It's a really important way to support Planet: Critical, and I'm depending on you all to spread the word in the months I'm offline.

We have worked exceptionally hard over the past four months to get everything ready for the next four months, and I'm sure you can all appreciate that the leave we have managed to carve out is less than I would be entitled to if I were employed. In no way do I feel short-changed—I would much rather come back to you all and do this work in four months than return to an employer in 12. But imagining what that return looks like is like groping around in the pitch black because this is my first baby and I have almost no experience about what to expect, and obviously cannot know the temperament or needs of my child before she arrives. I will do everything in my power to hit the ground running in November—but if I hit it only walking, please know that this is due to circumstances out of my control.

See you on the other side!

Thank you all so much for your support, compassion and care as I approach this milestone. I have been overwhelmed by this community's open encouragement for me to take this leave and not worry about work. Of course, I do worry, but am much less so than when I first announced I was pregnant. Enough of this community practices the values which I preach on this platform that I trust my taking this time to be with our daughter will not be considered a breach of our social contract—on the contrary, all of you who have written to me to express outright support, and upgraded your subscriptions to show that support, have deepened that contract, and our relationship. I think this is why this newsletter has become somewhat more personal over the past few months. I feel at home here with you all. Thank you for transforming this small internet platform into a genuine community.

With kindness,
Rachel