ELENA'S CREATIVE UPRISING - 2025 No. 01

A Bold Blend of Creativity, Wellness, and Activism

Elena Greco

Jan 26, 2025

In this issue:

Introduction: The Renaming; A New Relationship to Journalism

UNITY and COMMUNITY
Strength in Unity, Support in Community

* Elena's Creative Community - NEW!
* The Creative Women's Group

CREATIVE CORNER
Behind the Scenes

WELLNESS
* Fly Like an Eagle: A Clear Vision for Your Year Ahead - free video class!

CREATIVE ACTIVISM
* Future contents
* Advice for being a healthy and effective activist

RECOMMENDATIONS
Entertainment and inspiration

January 22, 2025

The Renaming. The Newsletter is sporting a new moniker! As I mentioned in the last Newsletter, the previous name didn't reflect what the Newsletter was about. Henceforth, it is Elena's Creative Uprising! And I've added a new tagline to more accurately reflect its contents: A bold blend of creativity, wellness, and activism. You'll see the change in my Substack, as well. And in a grand renaming frenzy, I've also renamed the Community I just inaugurated last month to Elena's Creative Community.
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A New Relationship to Journalism. Now I move on to less cheerful news, that of the decline of our country as it moves toward full-blown fascism. (How's that for a segue?!) Call it oligarchy, call it authoritarianism, call it the Rise and Fall of America, but what has happened in a matter of days is a trashing of our democracy and our Constitution and the appropriating of our country by immoral scoundrels. It is painful to watch. But watch it we must, if we're going to save our country.

One of the primary foundations of our democracy is freedom of the press. And one of our essential sources of information about our country and its government has been media, especially the foremost institutions of journalism, which have been the likes of The Washington Post, The New York Times, and a handful of other grand old media outlets. Formerly existing primarily as paper newspapers, our mainstream media now exists online and in streaming channels.

Unfortunately, almost all the formerly great journalistic outlets have quickly and publicly deteriorated into mouthpieces for authoritarian propaganda; this will only get worse in the next four years. I feel saddest of all at watching the decline and demise of the formerly great Washington Post, winner of 68 Pulitzer Prizes in journalism and bastion of great journalism for decades. Now, under its owner Jeff Bezos, who has partnered himself with others in the anti-democracy Project 2025 alliance and inserted himself into the newspaper's editing process, the best journalists have fled the publication, and it now publishes dreck that would embarrass anyone with a minimum of journalistic sensibility or common sense. We can expect nothing from WaPo and other major digital newspapers but misinformation and lies going forward.

What to do? First, stop reading them! Seriously, once you know their integrity is compromised, reading them is a waste of your time because you'll have to question every word. And your clicks on their links entice their supporting advertisers.

Second, stop buying them! "Vote with your pocketbook" has long been my motto, and this is a great time to put it into practice. Every dollar you give to these organizations provides them more support for the destruction of our country and what it stands for. Do you want to pay for that?

Third, find other sources of journalism. This requires a change in thinking and a change in habits. Most of us grew up reaching for a mainstream newsletter, or clicking on the link of one, in order to read the news. Now we need to find and choose new sources. In coming issues of this Newsletter I'll offer a few sources that are currently reliable. I say "currently" because, as we've seen recently, even reliable sources can be co-opted and corrupted quickly with the new regime in place.

My own choice for my daily news is a collection of Substack posts (Substack is so far untainted by corrupt CEOs, filtering or censoring) written by about fifteen journalists, reporters and historians I admire, many of whom were previously employed by the great newspapers of the past. They're top of the line. A few others are talented newcomers. Some report and shed light on the news, some are informational, and some provide opinion pieces. Every morning I open their posts (which come to me via email, although you can choose other options) in a browser tab. I also quickly peruse Substack's Home page for more pertinent information, plus a few websites whose news I mostly trust at present, such as The Guardian.

Then I use Microsoft Edge to organize the open tabs instantly into a group (Tab Actions button on top left --> Organize Tabs). The posts will remain in that tab group until I'm ready to read them, even if I close the browser. That's my routine. What will your routine be now?
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For me, my activist focus for the year 2025 will be journalism and freedom of the press.

Why? Because the one thing that will help us fight what is being done to our country is to know what is being done to our country. If all media has been co-opted, how will we know the truth? Answer: we won't.

Journalists have always been our watchdogs. Now that role is truly essential to our country's survival as a great democracy.

That's why authoritarian regimes immediately take control of the media. It's already happening (remember the quick settlement by ABC for simply saying a few words that were true but displeased Dear Leader?), and it will become much worse very quickly. Please do read these two links for specific information about what we can expect with regard to the media.
1) Is Project 2025 a Roadmap for Media Repression? - Kettering Foundation
2) What would Project 2025 do for (or to) journalism? - Nieman Journalism Lab

I'll be determining over the next couple of weeks exactly how I'll share my coverage of journalism in the coming months. Expect to see more about that in a new section I've added to the bottom of the Newsletter called Creative Activism. I've added some advice about how to maintain sanity and also make a difference in the coming years to that segment, as well.
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Your comments are welcome!

UNITY and COMMUNITY

Strength in Unity, Support in Community

Elena's Creative Community

Please note: Going forward, the monthly agenda for the Creative Community will appear in this Newsletter, rather than in a separate email.

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ELENA'S CREATIVE COMMUNITY fosters real community, something we’ll all need in the next couple of years to stay strong and focused! It provides an underlying current of support and inspiration in expressing yourself creatively and manifesting your dreams in a sustained way, particularly for those who have big dreams and creative goals. This transformative online group is designed to provide meaningful connection with a like-minded community and support your inner exploration, personal empowerment, creativity, and productivity.

Update! REQUIREMENTS. Elena's Creative Community is now open to those 1) who have completed an Abracadabra! workshop or read the ABRACADABRA! Book, OR 2) who are creatives and have experience in similarly oriented groups. If you want to try out the Community, just send me an email telling me a little about your creative work and what you're hoping to get from the group.

COMMUNITY OFFERINGS

1. We have two free online work-together sessions each month.
Note: There is a work-together this Sunday at 2:00 pm Eastern. Drop me an email if you're interested and I'll send you the link.
Going forward (after this Sunday), they'll happen on the first and third Saturdays at 2:00 pm Eastern. For the month of February, they will be on February 1 and February 15. If you think you might be interested in attending any of the work-togethers, drop me your email address so that you'll always receive the link in the future. You only have to let me know once.

2. There's a short video class this Saturday, January 25, at 2:00 pm Eastern, that's open to the public and free! Please see details below under WELLNESS.

The Creative Women's Group

The Creative Women's Group is a community of creative women.
It utilizes elements of sharing, expressive writing, and encouragement,
together with a monthly online group chat.
It provides a powerful and enjoyable support for creative women.

It works like this: Everyone emails the group on Mondays to share about their creative endeavors and their lives as creatives (no writing skill required!). We have a monthly half-hour online group chat (the time works for all North American and European locations.) The rapport of other kind, creative women provides a wonderful support. There is no fee and no commitment. If you are creatively inclined, are a woman or plan to be, and think you might like to be a part of this group, or if you have questions, let me know by Replying to this Newsletter. Although you won't see another post about this for a while, know that the group is ongoing and open to joining at any time.

CREATIVE CORNER

All things related to creativity and the creative arts

BEHIND THE SCENES

BEHIND THE SCENES (click to read) is a peak behind the curtain of self-producing an album. The stories and information are relevant to almost any music production, whether recording or performing. Subscribers (it's free!) receive the latest series posts on alternate weeks.

WELLNESS

All things related to health, healing, and transformation

Fly Like an Eagle: A Clear Vision for Your Year Ahead

This transformative online series is designed to provide meaningful connection with a like-minded community and support your inner exploration, personal empowerment and productivity.

Join us for a video class on Saturday, January 25, 2025, 2:00 pm Eastern time.
You’ll get a bird’s eye view of your life and use expressive writing (no writing experience or talent is required!) and visualization to create a year ahead that manifests your current true purpose, the one closest to your heart.

Everyone can attend this class, even if you're not part of Elena's Creative Community. Prior registration is required, though. Click/touch HERE to sign up to attend this free mini-class, Fly Like an Eagle: A Clear Vision for Your Year Ahead (click for more info).

New segment!

CREATIVE ACTIVISM

You can look forward to posts and links about important current topics appearing here!

I'll be posting about my own activist focus, journalism. I'm also considering posting comments, stories or links from others about their chosen activist focus, either one-offs or as a regular feature.

Let me know what you think or if you'd like to contribute!
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Advice for Healthy and Effective Activism. On a related and equally important note, in this year in particular, with so many shocking and awful pieces of news coming at us in a barrage of unpleasantness, it can become hard to focus on anything at all. And the stress of absorbing all of this information unceasingly can render us unable to respond effectively in the moment and reduce the quality of our health.

For this reason, my advice to those of you who feel helpless or overwhelmed but want to make a real difference is to focus your activism on one topic for a specific period of time in order to be effective and in order to maintain your well-being. You can always cover other topics that are important to you later on; you're not abandoning them. Rest assured there will be plenty to do for the next four years! Restricting your focus will reduce the stress level and increase your resilience.
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And remember, Unity and Community are how we get through this: there's strength in unity and support in community!