Grokkist Newsletter #69

Hey friends,

I’m writing this from Copenhagen, where the days stretch luxuriously long and the light lingers late into the evening. I’ve come here for the European summer — part sunshine, part sabbatical.

I usually live in Aotearoa New Zealand, which means I’m also escaping winter. But the real reasons go deeper.

I’ve been building relationships in this timezone that want more texture and presence. I’m staying with a friend whose company nudges me toward the next version of myself — the one who’s ready to take the most audacious shape of Grokkist seriously, out loud, and in the world.

And of course, there’s the simple pleasure of sunlight on skin and the quiet joy of chasing a dream I’ve had since I was little: to live in a different place for a season, just because I can.

Mostly, though, it’s about marking a transition.

I’ve reached a new chapter in my life, and I’ve learned that changing my environment is one of the most powerful ways to inhabit that truth. Like a well-placed punctuation mark, it helps me catch my breath — and begin the next sentence with intention.

Because it really is time for a new set of moves.

What got me from A to B won’t get me to C. I’ve internalised that lesson many times. Now I’m choosing to live into it again.

And that’s true of Grokkist too.

We’ve built a playground. Now we’re ready to host the party.

You’ll start to see that shift in many places. We’re deputising more roles, making it easier to find your flow, and opening up fresh ways to step into co-creation. More people are arriving not just as curious visitors, but as co-conspirators — here to help shape what happens next.

To support this season of emergence, we’re introducing something new: Realms.

Realms are like neighbourhoods within the Grokkist world. Each has its own mood, its own tempo, and its own kind of invitation. They’re a way of organising our spaces around shared rhythms of participation — holding the wild variety of ways people come alive here. They help honour the different energies of inquiry, emergence, embodiment, and action.

And they make it easier to find your people, your questions, and your sense of forward motion — wherever you’re at.

Alongside that, you’ll start seeing new experiments — like Campaigns, our time-bound invitations to make something together, and the upcoming Salt & Seeds launch, which marks the beginning of our Writing Salon and a deeper dive into world-building through speculative fiction.

All of it is part of a larger shift — from infrastructure-building to ecosystem animation.

And maybe, for you too, there’s a shift in the air. A season ending. A sentence waiting to begin.

So let this be your invitation to mark the moment. Revisit what lights you up. Reach out to someone you admire. Change the scene. Start the thing.

We’re not just building things. We’re building the conditions where doing the thing becomes possible — where someone else’s spark animates your own, and where collective momentum carries us further than careful planning ever could.

With curiosity and care,
Danu

Fresh from the Press

What if Learning were a Quest?

By Richard Bennet (8 min read)

A personal invitation to bring, build, or become your own curriculum — from the Flame Keeper of Grokkist’s BYO Curriculum Campaign.

Read the article ↗

Happiness and Ancient Egypt

By Peter Gilderdale (6 min read)

What I saw in Egypt taught me that happiness isn’t about comfort — it’s about connection.

Read the article ↗

More from the Press

• Handel-ing Compliments (Peter Gilderdale, 3 min read) – Graciousness is a small gesture — but it holds the power to honour someone else’s joy.

Upcoming Events

🟢 Writing the Future: celebrating Salt & Seeds, speculative fiction, and the launch of the Grokkist Writing Salon

🗓️ Tue 24 Jun | 7–9pm UK time (view in your timezone)
Facilitated by Nathan Dufour Oglesby and Alan Raw

Join us for a celebratory gathering to mark the publication of Salt & Seeds by Alan Raw — the first book published under the Grokkist Press imprint — and to open the doors to the Grokkist Writing Salon, a new space for shared creative exploration.

This isn’t just a book launch. It’s a call to community. A chance to imagine how stories — especially those rooted in care, connection, and creative resistance — can help us navigate the great turning of our times.

Event Details and RSVP ↗

🟢 PhilosophyGyms @ Grokkist

🗓️ Thur 19 Jun | 7pm–8.30pm Central European time (view in your timezone)
Facilitated by Jessica Böhme

What if you’re already living a philosophy—whether you realise it or not? And what if you could train for that philosophy, the way you train for fitness?

PhilosophyGyms are communal workouts for your ethical imagination. They’re not about mastering theories or reaching agreement. They’re about strengthening your capacity to sit with complexity, speak from curiosity, and make space for wisdom to emerge in good company.

This 7-week series hosted by Jessica Böhme is for anyone seeking to live with more coherence, more aliveness, and more conscious participation in the systems we’re part of.

Just like a real gym, it’s great if you come every week—but no pressure. Drop in when you can. You’ll still feel the stretch. 

Event Details and RSVP ↗

Other Upcoming Events

• 1 Jul | 🟣 Grokkist Members Meetup [Jul '25]
• 8 Jul | 🟢 Grok Cafe [#5 in 2025]
• 12 Jul | 🟢 BYO Curriculum 1 | Setting the Hearth
• 26 Jul | 🟢 BYO Curriculum 2 | Makers & Visioning

Groksmithing is our in-house approach to project work. It blends coaching, collaboration, creative delivery, and strategic sense-making — all held in a container of curiosity, care, and practical momentum.

We don’t do it to you. We don’t do it for you. We do it with you. It’s the kind of help grokkists need — and the kind grokkists love to give. Find out more.

Featured Menu Offering

Publishing Push-Off

You’ve got something to say — an idea, a story, a perspective — but the medium, the message, and the mechanics are all swirling.

Is it a blog? A newsletter? A podcast? A video series? Something entirely your own?

We’ll help you shape your intention into a publishing container that fits. Together we’ll choose the right platform, and then actually set it up with you, step by step. You’ll get your first piece out into the world, with a publishing space that feels right and works the way you want it to.

You leave with something live, a simple rhythm, and the clarity and confidence to keep going.

🍽️ 2–3 calls + async support
🔖 $280 (members) / $1,400 (non-members)

Enlist a Groksmith ↗

#1 - The Orange Feeling, unbottled

A day in the life of a bottle collector

Chasing the ‘Orange feeling’ and its dark side at northern Europe’s biggest music festival.

Eurozine

At Denmark’s Roskilde Festival — a week-long celebration so large it temporarily becomes the country’s fourth-largest city — everything runs on rhythm, revelry, and refundables. Amid the beer cans, bass drops, and boundary-blurring self-expression, another system quietly sustains it all: hundreds of bottle collectors, mostly from Romania and West Africa, who pay full ticket price to access the grounds and harvest the trash others discard.

This richly observed piece follows their daily grind — queuing for hours, hustling through mud, navigating tension and turf wars — and reflects on how second-order consequences shape temporary utopias. Bottle collection isn’t formally sanctioned, yet it’s essential. The “Orange feeling” depends on a layer of labour no one wants to see.

#2 - The new Swiss passport is a design marvel

The Swiss government recently issued a new passport, and the design studio behind it has treated the entire project as a chance to showcase both technical prowess and aesthetic vision. The result is a security document that’s also a love letter to Swiss topography. Even the most utilitarian objects can carry deep symbolism — and design, when taken seriously, can be both beautiful and legible.

Each page features 3D-rendered cartographic landscapes tied to the country’s geography, interwoven with elements representing Switzerland’s infrastructure, history, and natural resources. Under UV light, alpine contour lines and architectural landmarks appear, turning a bureaucratic document into a kind of national storybook.

#3 - There’s Something Unsettling About the Neighbours

There’s Something Unsettling About the Neighbors - Electric Literature

An excerpt from “Human/Animal” by Amie Souza Reilly

Electric LiteratureIntern Electric Lit

What do we mean when we say someone is prowling? Or that they hawk, badger, ape, hound, or parrot? Why is it that so many animal verbs in English describe things people do to each other—and not kindly?

In this sharp, unsettling piece, Amie Souza Reilly sits with the quiet discomfort of being watched, approached, unsettled—first by neighbors, then by language itself. She starts with a personal story and ends up somewhere deeper: wondering how everyday words quietly reveal who we fear, who we control, and what kinds of beings we believe deserve protection. A glimpse into how the words we don’t think about shape the world we live in.

#4 - The true size of...

Compare Countries With This Simple Tool

Drag and drop countries around the map to compare their relative size. Is Greenland really as big as all of Africa? You may be surprised at what you find! A great tool for educators.

The True Size

As you may know, Greenland is not the size of Africa. Africa is over 14 times bigger — but you wouldn’t know it from most classroom maps. That’s the problem with the Mercator projection, which distorts country sizes to preserve shape — exaggerating regions near the poles and shrinking those near the equator.

This interactive map lets you drag and drop countries around the globe to compare their actual size. It’s an instant geography lesson and a hands-on challenge to inherited worldview. In case you're wondering, the creators were inspired by that unforgettable West Wing scene where the Cartographers for Social Equality propose rethinking how we see the world.

#5 - Ceramics and the Art of Ma

The quirky ceramic sculptures of Japanese artist En Iwamura feel like emissaries from a parallel dimension — wobbly, cheerful, and deeply intentional. Rooted in traditional forms like haniwa burial figures, Zen gardens, and Jomon pottery, Iwamura’s work explores the Japanese concept of Ma — the negative space between things that represents an emptiness full of possibilities, like a promise yet to be fulfilled, and has been described as "the silence between the notes which make the music". His pieces invite you to feel into that space. Watch him build one of his figures with the coil method in this studio video — satisfying and meditative.

Membership Benefits

As a Grokkist Member, you’re part of a circle of active grokkists walking the grokkist path. Here’s what membership includes:

• 🟣 Member-Only Gatherings
• 🛠 Groksmithing Project Support at Member Rates
• 🚪 Unlock Your Grok - Self-Paced Course
• ❤️‍🔥 30% Discount on Courses and Ticketed Events
• 🎭 Featured Member Profile
• 📣 Post Calls & Invitations
• ✨ Early Access & Prototypes
• ▶️ Events Recording Library
• ⭐️ Digital Member Badge

Become a Grokkist Member - $75/yr

A pair of parting thoughts...

“It’s the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.” ― Robert M. Pirsig

“I'd like to live like a poor man - only with lots of money.” ― Pablo Picasso