February 2026
Happy Black History Month; reading roundup
Welcome to every thing changes, a newsletter with tools to help guide you through non-linear journeys. I’m Aja. By day I’m deep in environmental work. By night I coach, read tarot, and am training to be a psychedelics facilitator because the world needs more different kinds of people who can hold space for hard stuff.
I’m trying something new with my monthly posts. I want to create more community in my life and on Substack. We also need some levity. This time, I’m sharing all I read in January, including the Substack articles that made my heart sing.
Happy Black History Month!
Around Substack
This moving piece by Tasha H. about joy amidst oppression.
This dream tending exercise by Aja - The Spirit Guide Coach.
This textured sensory journaling exercise shared by Farai of the Hillbilly African Substack.
This tarot journaling exercise about female strength as we age by Claire Brown of the Moon Shed Tarot Substack.
A Sinners Resource Reading and Resource List by Trey Walk of the Reviewing the Record Substack, so you can study up before it wins all those Oscars.
And I consumed a stunning 9 (!!!!nine exclamation points!!!!!) books in January.
I’m a big reader but often don’t have time to read as deeply as I’d like. I started January on vacation, so got a really good head start. I feel like I cheated because I listened to a few of them. However, this allowed me to go on long walks, wash the dishes again forever, etc. The books that made the greatest impression show up in recent posts. Please support your local bookstore or library if you choose to read any of them.
Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self Recovery by bell hooks - I wrote about one bit of this for a recent post, but can’t fully cover what this book meant to me. I imagine bell hooks would be both honored and saddened that her words continue to be so resonant to someone born 30 years after her.
Killer of the Flower Moon by David Grann - I was reminded to read this after watching One Battle After Another. Paul Thomas Anderson, who directed One Battle After Another, contributed to the script for the film version of Killers of the Flower Moon. Reading the book let me linger on the bullshit absurdity of the guardianship the U.S. government imposed on the Osage people:
After Osage people were driven from their land into parts of Oklahoma that were poor for farming, a treasure of crude oil was discovered. The Osage people negotiated mineral rights, and some tribal members became among the richest people on earth for a time. But under federal law, many Osages were not free to do as they wished with the wealth. Under a particular system of guardianship imposed by the government, Osage people without some white ancestry were deemed “incompetent” and assigned a non-Native lawyer, businessman, politician or rancher as a kind of financial manager. The guardians were empowered to say yes or no to purchases as small as a tube of toothpaste. It was paternalism at a grotesque level. In the book, Grann refers to a guardian who viewed an Osage adult as “a child six or eight years old, and when he sees a new toy he wants to buy, he buys it.”
Radical Healership: How to build a values-driven healing practice in a profit-driven world by Laura Mae Northrup - I expect to return to this book a lot as I build my coaching and psychedelic facilitation practice. I love the support Laura provides for building a spiritually-led business in the healing arts, while still valuing yourself and the healing work you provide.
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy - This absolutely gorgeous book made me deeply cry, made me horny, AND touchingly explored the fear of raising strong, aware children on a planet sick from climate change.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - This has been on my list for a long time. This is a climate change / end-of-world science fiction story narrated by a middle school science teacher. The impending movie raised it in priority. My son is now reading the book, then we’re going to see the movie together!
Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital by Elise Hu - This is a good one to listen to. Elise is a bright and relatable narrator. I went in hoping to understand the Korean beauty products my daughter is increasingly interested in, and left with a greater understanding of the geopolitics that led to Korea’s dominance in culture and cosmetics.
Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change by Olga Khazan - Olga puts effort into improving herself across the big 5 personality traits - openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. I recommend reading this rather than listening. I didn’t love Olga’s narration, but did like the research she presented to support her approaches to change herself.
The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans by Maya Shankar - Maya Shankar wrote this book to synthesize patterns she identified in her own life, research, and podcast A Slight Change of Plans, regarding resilience after life-rocking change. This book just came out, so Maya is appearing for interviews on a lot of podcasts now.
Black Psychedelic Revolution: From Trauma to Liberation by Dr. Nicholas Powers - I covered my reflections on this book in another post.
Take care of each other until next time. 💞
Thank you for sharing my post. Thank you for sharing the books you've read. I value Laura Mae Northup's work and her book. I love that you are building a medicine practice.