RAISING LUMINARIES WINTER COLLECTIVE

Frequently Asked Questions

"I really, really need this! Buuuut..."
Do you have some... hesitations?
No worries if you're unsure how to weave the Winter Incubator into your limited budget, packed schedule, and distracted brain.
We built this just for you.

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How can you change the whole world without neglecting your kids - or yourself?

I don't have time!

How well is scrambling to keep up currently working for you? Using our strategies, members <b>save an average of 5 hours weekly</b> - even long after the winter incubator ends.

I can't afford it!

50% of members use our sliding scale, deferred payment plans, or reciprocate by supporting the group in non-monetary ways.

I'm not ____ enough!

While a few of us are Certified Badasses, none are Official CTOs of Activism or whatever. We're just caregivers who want to make a difference without melting into a puddle of goo.

I wouldn’t have had any idea how to make a space like that, if I hadn’t had the opportunity to watch Ashia make these spaces that are so welcoming and supportive and effective for people.

I adapted the way Ashia built community norms for the Winter Incubator to determine what my decolonizing research faculty group wanted. What would it look like to have a space that was just for us, rather than a space designed by and for rich white dudes?

We landed on green and growing things, warm drinks, and personal squishmallows. Our first meeting was yesterday and it was so exciting.

Alison L.

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RAISING LUMINARIES CAREGIVER WORKSHOP

Winter Incubator General FAQ

  • The Winter Incubator is an annual six-week workshop hosted by Raising Luminaries designed for parents, educators, and caregivers who feel overworked and untethered from the support communities they need to keep going.

  • In a society that divides caregivers with competition, production, and hyper-independence, this is our chance to connect, share ideas, and practice receiving what we need to care for others.
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  • Gathering for small-group discussions, we create the space and support you need to juggle advocacy, life, and care work. Learn how to weave your dedicated to social justice, equity, and decolonization into your care work.
  • Raising Luminaries hosts two seasonal collectives each year – the Summer Luminator and the Winter Incubator.
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  • What both collectives have in common:
  • > Run for 6 weeks and provide a member portal and resource library of bite-sized lessons and strategies.
  • > Connect like-minded caregivers so we don’t have to do this work alone
  • > Cover vital basics to sustain long-term activism without burning out, doing a saviorism, or making things worse for the people you’re trying to support.
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  • In both collectives, we create space for you to recognize what needs to change and provide strategies to make a deeper impact on the issues you care most deeply about.
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  • What’s different about the Winter Incubator:
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  • The Winter Incubator encourages you to pull your attention inward, creating space to reorient and reset your habits.
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  • We invite you to examine your positionality in activism and care work, incorporating your unique abilities and access to privilege in the complex fight for justice.
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  • In our time together,  investigate how we are each complicit in upholding the kyriarchy, and develop strategies to change our behavior toward more sustainable, joyful, guilt-free action.
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  • The Summer Luminator invites you to de-center yourself to be an effective self-advocate, accomplice, and collaborator. We practice turning your attention toward others – determining who you are best suited to support, and how. The Winter Incubator invites you to pull your attention inward to learn how to take advantage of your social power, season of life, and capacity to effectively show up for others.
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  • Why we change our tactics in Winter
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  • Unlike the Summer Luminator, (which invites, but does not mandate group participation) the Winter Incubator hinges on active real-time group discussion, space for rest, slower self-reflection, and integrating tiny changes into specific chapters of your life.
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  • Even thriving trees can’t bear fruit all year round. The Winter Incubator creates a quiet retreat to gather your marbles and re-assess your approach to care work. Learn how to disrupt capitalism and hustle culture without hiding under the blankets and isolating yourself from the communities who need you.
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  • To be the best caregiver you can be, ideally, we can support you through both seasons, covering very different goals and strategies as you practice revolutionary justice work.
  • Pick the collective that speaks to what you need most.
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  • > Do you need a break or do you need active, motivation to kick yourself into gear?
  • > Which season is less busy for you?
  • > Which season would stress you out the least to join?
  • > What does your gut tell you?
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  • Both collectives are designed to be cyclical, with past members invited to rejoin us year after year.
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  • There is no ‘one right way’ to get started. What matters is getting honest about what needs to change, and then taking the next courageous step.
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  • When won’t you feel overwhelmed? Let’s be honest. Your life isn’t going to get any simpler. When you’re too scattered to think straight, you’ll always take on more than you can handle.
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  • Wrangling kids, work, and a world that’s literally on fire – we’re here to help you get a grip without drowning in everybody else’s demands, so you can give them what they need.
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  • We’ll help you feel less overwhelmed now and in the future, no matter what complicated horrors await next.
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  • However – are you up to your neck in crisis?
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  • > Will you miss more than half our live hangouts?
  • > Would the lowest cost on our sliding scale prevent you from paying for rent or medicine?
  • > Is the car you live in currently on fire?
  • If so – you have more urgent things to attend to! Join us next year.
RAISING LUMINARIES CAREGIVER WORKSHOP

Winter Incubator Scheduling FAQ

  • Let’s be honest. The seasonal collectives aren’t for you.
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  • We reflect and practice the foundations of sustainable care work so you don’t burn out and become someone else’s problem.
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  • If you keep setting yourself on fire to keep others warm, you’ll end up a crispy mess. You’ll eventually let people down in catastrophic ways. But most importantly – you’re already causing damage that you don’t even know about yet.
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  • Whether it’s your kids, those you show up for, or others who follow in your footsteps – you’re leaving vulnerable people who rely on you to deal with the consequences while you hustle forward.
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  • Everything Raising Luminaries creates (particularly our seasonal collectives) is to help progressive caregivers stop harming those they care for under the guise of performative activism, saviorism, and martyrdom.
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  • Stop raising incels. Stop prioritizing comfort over community well-being. Stop doing saviorism, martyrdom, and performative busywork. Stop ignorantly upholding the kyriarchy. 
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  • If you only want to join us for the appearance of getting your shit together, then this isn’t the space for you. But if you genuinely wish to reorient how you show up for others from the roots up, invest the time it takes to be the change you want to see in the world.
  • We run for 6 weeks every winter, starting in early January and continuing through mid-February.
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  • Once or twice a week, new members are invited to join a small, private Zoom discussion to examine a specific strategy and unpack how it connects to our current challenges as caregivers and advocates.
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  • While new and returning members are encouraged to attend the live conversations exploring foundational strategies, we also host a 24/7  asynchronous chat group for members who can’t attend live gatherings. 
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  • Upcoming Winter Incubator Dates:
  • 2025: January 6 – February 9
  • 2026: January 5 – February 8
  • 2027: January 4 – February 7
  • 2028: January 3 – February 6
  • …and so on

 

 

  • After consulting our early registrants, the dates and times for our gatherings are published 12/15. So make sure to register by 12/11 if you’d like us to work around your schedule.
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  • To keep our conversations small and make space for everyone, we frequently break up into smaller cohorts of 2-8 members. Regardless of which group you belong to, you’re welcome to drop in for any and all hangouts – helpful when life gets chaotic and you can’t make it to your regular session.

 

  • How much time you spend with us depends on how much you want to get out of this winter.
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  • Don’t worry – you won’t need to prepare for our gatherings, and there is no homework. Just show up as you are to receive support. 
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  • To stay engaged, I suggest attending at least four out of twelve gatherings over the six weeks to develop relationships within the group and get to know others. Our facilitator is available for about one and a half to two hours during each session. 
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  • If you want the most support and to get the most out of our time together, I encourage first-year members to attend two Zoom sessions each week for the six-week Winter Incubator. 
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  • We also have more ways to connect when you aren’t able to attend live gatherings. Life with kids can get chaotic; we all get sick, and many of our members are managing multiple disabilities. So, we host a 24/7 chat group to stay connected. 
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  • If you ever feel like this is all coming at you too fast, remember that we’ve designed the Winter Incubator specifically for overwhelmed caregivers. If something comes up and you need to step away from active participation, you can defer to a future winter session at any time for no additional cost.

 

  • The winter incubator is for caregivers who feel overwhelmed by the demands of caring for everyone else.
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  • We’re disrupting toxic hustle culture because scrambling to keep up, consume, and produce upholds the kyriarchy we’re fighting to dismantle.
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  • But we’re not doing that here. With our cyclical approach to growth, there is no such thing as ‘falling behind’ here.
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  • Attending at least four of our live virtual gatherings may help you connect and develop supportive relationships. However, we also offer a 24/7 asynchronous chat group and written portal discussion threads for members who need accessibility support, play at a different pace, or can’t attend live gatherings.
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If you ever feel like this is all coming at you too fast, remember that we’ve designed the Winter Incubator specifically for overwhelmed caregivers. If something comes up and you need to step away from active participation, you can defer to a future winter session at any time for no additional cost.

You’ll have online access to the winter portal and all downloadable bonus resources for as long as our portal exists. Year-round access means you can download the discussion guides, guidebooks, and resource library materials at your own pace and access them forever.

  • Our live online gatherings welcome you into a brave space to pause, reorient yourself, and refuel. These spaces help caregivers who feel frustrated, isolated, and overwhelmed practice and allow us to connect with others who understand our challenges and provide real-time support.
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  • These live hangouts are a warm and cozy place to explore basic 101 and intermediate advocacy tools and how these strategies help us navigate our everyday challenges.
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  • Returning members revisiting these strategies are welcome to join our 24/7 chat group. If you need to talk out a problem at 2 am, we’re here for your weird schedule.

 

  • We don’t record our live sessions. Not worrying about being ‘observed’ helps our members share personal stories and challenges without feeling self-conscious.
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  • If you’d like to leave personal messages in our Marco Polo chat group, these recordings last one year before being automatically deleted. You can remove your personal messages from the group anytime, no questions asked.
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  • And at the end of the winter, we close out last year’s chat group to start fresh for our next session.
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  • Most importantly – there is no need to perform, stay anything brilliant, or be charming. We have a ‘no itchy underpants’ rule where you’re encouraged to show up as you are, messy and wearing your coziest pajamas.
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  • If this is your first Incubator, register before December 11th so we can tailor our Zoom schedule, group norms, and level of engagement to your preferences and availability. The goal is to meet once or twice weekly, depending on your needs.
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  • We’re aiming for cozy and intimate conversations to get to know each other. Of course, our kids will interrupt us. We’ll make space for each other’s chaos, and our sessions are not recorded or shared beyond the group.
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  • We use automatically generated live captions on Zoom. Unfortunately, we can’t afford a live ASL interpreter at this time.
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  • If you miss a live hangout, you can still connect with us using the 24/7 chat group whenever that works for you.
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RAISING LUMINARIES CAREGIVER WORKSHOP

Winter Incubator Registration FAQ

  • Educators, parents, and caregivers who feel spread thin caring for others are welcome here – particularly those who may not feel welcome or safe in traditional ‘parent’ groups.
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  • We expect our members to have a cursory understanding of systemic oppression (ex: racism exists, oppression is systemic, and we are all responsible for ending it). We’re all expected to have self-awareness and be mindful of our individual power and group privilege when in conflict with other members.
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  • If you’re not sure whether you are welcome in this space, let me know what’s on your mind so I can help you find the support you need – even if it’s not in this particular group.
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  • But if you believe you *already know everything* about social justice and parenting, this is not the space for you.
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  • If you are offended by targeted people finding ways to laugh through hardship, this is not the super-serious space you need.
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  • We are not your people if you can only tolerate polite, restrained conversations that center white comfort over curiosity and honesty.
  • We welcome eight new members each winter. Our enrollment period typically starts in December, giving first dibs to folks who have signed up for the free winter waitlist and members of the Luminary Braintrust.
  • If by our fourth week, you have attended at least four live hangouts and have engaged in the chat group – and you realize this isn’t the support you need – you can request a full refund.
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  • Since there is such limited space in the collective, I can’t offer refunds if you don’t attend or engage with our group. 
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  • For more info, check out our generous and flexible refund policy.
  • You have lifetime access to the Winter Portal and all existing and future Winter Incubator resources. But you’re never obligated to join us for future collectives.
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  • I invite returning members each year to see if you’d like to join an upcoming session, support new members, or take a break this year.
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  • Unsubscribing from these check-ins is easy, and I don’t monitor the alumni list (so you don’t have to worry about offending anyone.)
  • Don’t worry about ‘taking up space.’ In addition to limiting enrollment to only eight new memberships each year, we also break larger groups into cohorts to ensure everyone gets the time and attention they need.
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  • If you’re concerned with making space for others, you should join sooner rather than later. We help you gain free time, strengthen your relationships, and keep others warm without setting yourself on fire.
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  • The longer you put this internal work off, the harder it’ll be to support those who need your help.
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  • If you are a person of privilege and want to show your kids how to care for others without saviorism or burnout – start now – before they pick up more of your most self-destructive habits.
  • Our live hangouts are deeply interactive and not designed for passive consumption. We include 3-8 members in each cohort to build trust and get to know each other. 
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  • I tailor the resources for each collective to be accessible for every member’s accessibility needs and individual goals, so we keep our groups small to give you the breathing space you’ll need to dive deep into our unique challenges.
  • Contact me for a discounted group rate if you’d like to join the collective with a friend or as a group.
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  • However, if your friend wants access to the portal and resources but can’t afford the enrollment cost, encourage them to take advantage of our sliding scale or contact me for support.
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  • Please keep your portal login and the resources from our library private unless you have express permission from Raising Luminaries. Sharing these outside our membership is a violation of our terms & conditions.
  • Returning alumni are welcome to work through the Winter Incubator process as a group or host your cohort for your own organization through our Collaborative Starling Program.
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  • To learn more about hosting, licensing, restrictions, and customizing the incubator for your group, reach out to me, and we can coordinate something that works for you.
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  • Outside this program, please keep your portal login, the resources from our library, and the workflow and trainings from our Winter Incubator private unless we’ve worked out a consensual hosting and licensing agreement. Sharing our material for profit beyond our membership is a violation of our terms & conditions.

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©2024 Ashia Ray of Raising Luminaries™. All rights reserved.

Raising Luminaries
Igniting the next generation of kind & courageous leaders
©2024 Ashia Ray of Raising Luminaries™. All rights reserved.
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