RAISING LUMINARIES WINTER COLLECTIVE

Frequently Asked Questions

"I really, really need this! Buuuut..."
You have some... hesitations?
If you're not sure how to weave the Winter Incubator into your limited budget, packed schedule, and distracted brain, no worries.
We built this just for you.

Workshop enrollment opens in November.

Already a member? Log in

Change the world without neglecting your kids - or yourself

I don't have time!

Well... how is frantically running in place really working for you now? Using our strategies, members save an average of 5 hours every week - long after our 6-week session 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 of us are Official CTOs of Activism or whatever. We're just community caregivers who want to make a difference without making 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.

Workshop enrollment opens in November.

Already a member? Log in

RAISING LUMINARIES CAREGIVER WORKSHOP

Winter Incubator General FAQ

  • The Winter Incubator, hosted by Raising Luminaries, is an annual 6-week workshop and social process group for parents, educators, and caregivers.

  • Our membership connects those raising the next generation of kind and courageous leaders. 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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  • As a brave space community collective, we create the the space and support we need to juggle advocacy, life, and care work – weaving in our dedication to social justice, equity, and inclusion.
  • Raising Luminaries hosts two seasonal collectives each year – the Summer Luminator and the Winter Incubator.

  • 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 support each other as we assess our current path, create space for you to decide what needs to change, and support you with strategies to make a deep impact in your unique sphere of influence.
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  • What’s different about the Winter Incubator:

  • The Winter Incubator encourages you to pull your attention inward, creating space to reorient and reset your habits.

  • We each examine our unique positionality in activism and care work, within the context of our historical and ancestral fight for justice.
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  • Together though the winter, we 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 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 to show up for others.
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  • Why we show up differently 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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  • The Summer is energetic, active, chock full of helpful strategies and lessons, and is designed around busy, irregular travel schedules.
  • As human creatures, we can’t bear fruit all-year-round. The Winter Incubator creates a quiet retreat to connect deeply with a small group of people who will hold space for you to re-center and orient yourself – disrupting capitalist hustle culture to better support your community and those you care about.
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  • Ideally, we can support you through both seasons, covering very different goals and strategies to be the best caregiver you can be for your kids, community, and revolutionary justice work.
  • Pick the collective that speaks to what you need most.
  • > Do you need a break to stop spiraling, or do you need a fun, active, motivation to kick 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 really matters is doing the hard and uncomfortable thing and taking the next easiest step toward change.
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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 actually 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

  • Up front – 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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  • Our seasonal collectives – in fact, everything Raising Luminaries creates, is to help progressive caregivers stop being assholes.
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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 truly want to reorient the way you show up for others from the roots up, invest the necessary time it takes to be the change you want to see in the world.
  • We run for 6 weeks every winter, starting early January 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 in our member portal to keep the conversation going.
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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
  • Register by 12/7 and we’ll customize hangout dates to your schedule.
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  • Final dates and times for our gatherings are published 12/15.
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  • In the event that we have a membership with conflicting schedules, we will split into smaller  cohorts to ensure everyone can attend live.
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  • 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.
  • Depends on how much you want to get out of it!
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  • If you want to go full force in your first year, join both of our twice-weekly online gatherings all six weeks. Each sessions is 1.5-2 hours.
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  • To develop stronger relationships within the group, we suggest attending at least 4 events.
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  • No need to review or prepare, and no homework. Just show up as you are to hold space with us and receive support.
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  • However – we know that life often gets chaotic, the winter season will affect our energy levels, and disruptions pop up. That’s why we have more ways to connect when you miss live gatherings.
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  • In addition to our live online gatherings, we also host a private asynchronous group chat, which you can access 24/7 throughout the Incubator.
  • The winter incubator is for caregivers who feel like we’re drowning under the weight 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, is no such thing as ‘falling behind’ here.
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  • You may find it easier to connect and develop supportive relationships if you attend at least four of our live virtual gatherings. However, we also offer a 24/7 asynchronous chat group and written portal discussion threads for members who need a different pace or can’t attend live gatherings.
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  • If things get really chaotic and you have to step away for the season – remember your lifetime access gives you free invitations to future Winter Incubators, with opportunities to re-engage at a better time.
  • You’ll have online access to the winter portal all year, for as long as it exists – that means access to any discussion guides, downloads, guidebooks, and resource library materials so you can enjoy them at your own pace.
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  • I do temporarily take down some of our lessons and resources during each autumn enrollment period as we welcome new members. This way I can update our resources and release each of our six chapters weekly to help everyone pace themselves.
  • Our live online gatherings welcome you into a brave space to pause, reorient yourself, and refuel – designed to help caregivers who feel frustrated, isolated, and overwhelmed practice connecting with others to receive real-time support.
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  • These live hangouts are a warm and cozy place to explore basic and intermediate activism strategies, and explore how they help us navigate our everyday challenges.
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  • For returning members who have already gotten a handle on our main principles and don’t want to attend the live gatherings, enjoy deeper conversations happen in the discussion threads or the asynchronous chat-group. If you just need to talk out a problem or share inspiration at 2am on a Tuesday night, we’re here for your weird schedule.
  • Our live online gatherings are not recorded.
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  • However, if you leave recorded messages in our chat group, feel free to leave these up all winter, or delete your messages whenever you like.
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  • At the end of the winter, we close out last year’s chat group to start a fresh one for next year.
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  • If you this is your first Incubator and you’ve registered early (Before December 7th), you’ll be invited to tailor our meeting schedule, group norms, and the level of engagement to your preferences and availability.
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  • There is no need to perform, stay anything brilliant, or be charming 🙂
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  • We’re aiming for cozy and intimate – but of course the kids will interrupt us. We make space for what 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. 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, at any time that works for you.
RAISING LUMINARIES CAREGIVER WORKSHOP

Winter Incubator Registration FAQ

  • Educators, parents, and caregivers who feel spread thin caring for others are welcome here – particularly those of us who may not feel welcome or safe in traditional ‘parent’ groups.
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  • Members are expected 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 the self-awareness to 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 and we can find the right space for you together – even if it’s not here.
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  • But if 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 serious space you are looking for.
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  • If you can only tolerate polite, restrained conversations that center white comfort over curiosity and honesty – we are not your people.
  • We accept 8 new members each winter, on a rolling basis. Our enrollment period typically starts in December, giving priority to folks in our wait list and members of the Luminary Braintrust.
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  • If you would like to get first dibs, join the waitlist.
  • If by our fourth week, you have attended at least four live hangouts and have engaged in the chat group – and it’s still not working for you, contact me to request a full refund.
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  • Since there is such limited space in the collective, I can’t offer refunds if you just don’t attend or engage with our group. For more info, check out the full return policy.
  • While you have lifetime access to the Winter Portal and all existing and future Winter Incubator resources, you’re never obligated to actively participate in future collectives.
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  • Our discussions are deeply interactive and not designed for passive consumption. Each year, I reach out to our returning members before opening the collective to new folks, to see if you’d like to actively participate, take a role in supporting new members, or just take a break for as many years as you like.
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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.)
  • In the unlikely event that we’re WAY TOO POPULAR and we have too many members to host a cozy gathering, I’ll split us up into smaller cohorts.
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  • But don’t wait too long – the winter collective is designed to help you gain free time, strengthen your relationships, and learn to keep others warm without setting yourself on fire. The longer you put this internal work off, the harder it’ll be to avoid sabotaging yourself and those you care for.
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  • However – if you are a person with power and 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 really 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 make our gatherings sustainable with breathing space to dive deep into our unique challenges.
  • If you’d like to join the collective with a friend or as a group, contact me for a discounted group rate.
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  • However, if your friend just wants access to the portal and resources, but can’t afford the cost of enrollment, encourage them to take advantage of our sliding scale.
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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 the terms & conditions.

Still curious?

Raising Luminaries
Igniting the next generation of kind & courageous leaders
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