Are.na Spring Cleaning

[A Japanese cherry tree in full bloom, pink blooms cascading down bowing branches.]

Welcome to spring. Spring is all about the return of life after the challenges of winter…

Perhaps Basho expressed it most eloquently in the year 1660

Ah, it is spring,

Great spring it is now,

Great, great spring —

Ah, great —

And, it’s time to spring clean. Why? Apparently spring cleaning has been a tradition for a long time, dating back to when homes were warmed by burning wood and coal and lit by kerosene lamps. These processes often left homes covered in dark soot, so it was only natural to clean once Earth’s seasonal change provided enough warmth and natural light to even notice the soot in the first place. Spring is beautiful, and by spring cleaning, we simply want to bring our own internal environments into accord with the “new again” outer world.

Nowadays, our homes can be considered both physical and virtual. Are.na is one such virtual home, if we cultivate it. So let’s spring clean our Are.na blocks and channels together! We’re proposing an event on Sunday, April 21st. We hope you can join us. See below for more info.

To get in the spirit, feel free to contribute any beautiful music for spring cleaning!

You’re invited to Are.na Spring Cleaning. [Black text on white background with the dates and times for the event — 1:30-3:30pm New York at Index Space, 10:30am-12:30pm SF in Dolores Park, and online during those times on Discord and Are.na.]

Are.na Spring Cleaning 💐

Sunday, April 21, 2024

Come hang out and digital detox with us, Are.na style…

In person:

New York City

1:30am - 3:30pm PST on Sunday, April 21, 2024

Index Space (120 Walker Street, 3rd Floor, NY, NY)

Host: Laurel Schwulst

San Francisco

10:30am - 12:30pm PST on Sunday, April 21, 2024

Dolores Park (near the playground)

Host: Spencer Chang

Bring your computer and some spring cleaning energy :)

Or participate virtually:

Are.na’s Discord

During the above times —

(1:30 - 3:30pm EST which is 10:30am - 12:30pm PST) on Sunday, April 21, 2024

Feel free to hang out in The Are.na Discord #spring-cleaning channel and share any updates. (You can access our Are.na Discord server by clicking the Discord invitation link on your Are.na profile's settings page.)

In the meantime, we’ve published some guides that might be helpful for spring cleaning — Handling Blocks with Care, Alt-Text on Are.na, and Creating Personal Taxonomies.

See you soon 🍃

P.S. At the event, we kept a “pruning log” and a “new seeds log” which could give you some ideas for your own cleaning.

Laurel Schwulst is a designer, artist, and teacher living in New York.