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HELLO!!!
It’s been a long time since I’ve communicated with Junket‘s original email list. We’ve all been through a lot these last few years, and at a certain point, it felt wiser to pause and be silent until I felt moved to connect…
I'm feeling moved -- but also, this is the first message I’m sending from Junket’s totally rebuilt ecommerce site! I’m still working out some kinks, but it’s time to test the engine. ;) The discount code FAVE10 will get you 10% off your order – and if you find glitches, I’d welcome feedback at shopjunket.com/pages/contact. Hellos are great, too – it’s been a while.
I’d *welcome* orders (and I may also welcome help getting orders out the door if things get out of hand - I no longer have a team to support this audience!). 😁
This site represents junket’s ecommerce brand and platform. I’m also building a new site to differentiate my climate/community/solutions work - but until that’s ready to launch,, I’ll reach you here, and you can reach me here, as well. I’ll let you know when the other site is ready.
As most of you know, Junket began as a healing journey – an active response to trauma following the death of a dream. Moving beyond the chasm of uncertainty that had replaced my happily ever after expectations was a process that involved deep grief and ample patience.
Before losing the shop in 2018, I already had some practice navigating trauma and reconstituting new world views from psychic upheaval, and yet it’s taken time for this next dream to emerge from the shards and ashes of other lives I had expected to live.
Adaptation is about responding effectively to new realities - but no matter what comes of election results or stochastic violence, there are new dreams to build, and communities to repair and reconnect.
My energy has returned to engagement because I’m motivated to build something that works no matter the state of American democracy.
Our future is hyperlocal. Together, we are able to build more resilient & enduring systems. The opportunity to tend thoughtfully to damage -- and to cooperate as we respond to emerging realities and rapidly shifting conditions is one we should embrace -- because that’s what the world has to offer us right now.
The last four years have given me time to dream about what comes next for Junket, and to lay the groundwork for building something of substance, together.
In the same four years, I’ve returned to that which soothes: sorting, organizing, and ruminating as my hands bring order to chaos. It was neverending maintenance task at the shop, but now, it’s dialectic and healing in another way: replacing and repairing systems that were disrupted en masse in 2018, and focusing on one pile at a time to create cohesive solutions, logical sequences, and beautiful collections.
I have let my energy lead me, sorting everything from beads to old Junket paperwork to the financial chaos of an abruptly ended economic engine. Slowing down to focus on the work of repair has been necessary and healing.
Putting the pieces back together - metaphorically, tactically, functionally - has become ritual practice with clearly defined outcomes: the development of processes ready to test & scale, enough product to see which solutions work, enough content to permit repetition and the training of new hands.
I'm motivated to engage because I have a business model that works at scale. It does not, however, work well when it’s operated out of my bedroom. 😂.
What Junket becomes next will require an imperfect village (a stroke of good fortune, seeing as COVID has relieved most of us of the notion that perfection was ever possible). If we’ve learned the pandemic's lesson, we understand the necessity of agile thinking and responsive adaptation – having the option to contract when necessary, and the opportunity to expand with enthusiasm as we’re able. Building this into business models makes room for whole lives and real human circumstances in ways our current systems aren’t designed to do.
Next Wednesday (November 16th) marks the 10th anniversary of Junket’s first day on Minnehaha. I’d like to mark the occasion by hosting a gathering to explore what it could look like to convert Junket: Tossed & Found to a cooperatively owned and operated social enterprise.
We’ll meet in South Minneapolis, tour the facility that Junket moved into last fall to understand what’s available to us as we figure out next steps, and I’ll come prepared with a road map and some basic parameters. I will put out an event invitation within the next day or so, and I’ll give some thought to virtual options, as well. Stay tuned.
I hear there may be kids playing dodgeball in the basement while we meet (how great is THAT?!), so we’ll gather upstairs before walking through the rest of the building (though if you want to play dodgeball, I imagine you would be welcome to do so).
My goal is start building out solutions that repair and regenerate, to have more fun than we’d imagined possible, and to figure out how to make a more rapid economic cutover to the post-carbon economy, together.
Love and light to you all, and may democracy prevail.
Julie
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