hey Reader!

this mercury rx has been slapping me right around 😅 hbu?

lots has been going on behind-the-scenes, lots of ideas and movement and what we call in our house, action jaction!!

all good things, really, and I feel incredibly blessed and grateful that the things I’ve been asking for are being shown in real time.

and also, I’ve been rushing through things to check them off the list (iykyk). like, last week, I fired off this newsletter cuz it was on the list WITHOUT double checking, without reading it through, without the filter of is this the message I really want to send?

which are things mercury retrograde asks of us. to slow down, to double-back, to review.

(I'm also in luteal atm, which invites a similar energy: completing & clearing tasks, asking what needs to released.)

and maybe it’s a good sign that my inner perfectionist isn’t commanding the show anymore (yay, celebrating that), it was an even more obvious signal that I was overcapacity.

and when I’m overcapacity, I rush for the dopamine hit of the little unicorn in asana (iykyk) that comes flying across my screen when I complete a task.

the intentionality gets lost. what I really wanted to say gets buried. the connection I feel between reader & writer, you & me, is wobbly at best, completely cut at worst.

I don’t want these notes to be another thing to check off the list.

I want them to be moments of true connection, of belonging, of slowing down & enjoying the practice of writing again.

and for you, my prayer is that they land as a moment of enjoying the act of reading something small but true, from a real human, among the AI emails, coupons, last calls & notifications in your inbox.

I have a list of topics I want to write about. batching for me also removes that connection piece. I spent my time making my teas & eating my breakfast, thinking about what I really want to say & perhaps what needs to be heard. and what I just wrote is what came through.

and so

I’ve blocked off my calendar for the rest of the week, only keeping the bookings that are currently there, and stripped down my to-do list this week to only the things I know are good work:

• making sure my clients get a fresh, unrushed, quality version of my mind as I design their editorial calendars & social media workflows, build repeatable graphics & captions, & research media outlets to get their work seen & in front of more eyes. (if you want access to this mind, book a mini-project!)
• and continuing to rebuild the foundations of my own work. I’ve learned I’m not a build-in-public kind of person (12H heavily populated over here), and that I need to let things gestate. so I will announce & present & show when they tell me to 😊 a lot of what I’m working on is in what I call a spring season, where the pieces are coming together & the seeds are planted, just not quite ready to bloom & have their moment in the sun yet.

that brings me back to this newsletter

in the coming weeks, you may notice some small and maybe big changes, but I still want to keep the heart of what this is: a note from me to you.

loving reminders to stay your full, creative, whole, joyful self.
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reminders that you can have everything you dream of and envision for yourself, your communities, the collective, our descendants.

editing has always been my thing.

as in, when I was full-time in the classroom, paring down my lessons into bite-sized somethings my middle school students could integrate into their wild minds looked like me go over time 15 minutes.
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as in, I want to execute on every idea that drops in, then nothing gets completed.
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as in, in college, the sentences in my novel were half a page long, with comma after comma and metaphor over metaphor.

as in, I present information that to me feels like breathing & that to someone else is an overwhelming amount of steps & new perspectives to take in 😅

all THAT to say is that I’m editing down. I love experimenting, and I’ve experimented with weekly newsletters and it feels like a hamster wheel of churning content that I can’t keep up with.

very, very back in the beginning of agballa notes, I had a biweekly full & new moon cadence. and, we’re gonna try going back to that! so that I’m not churning out words just to fill in the blank on the calendar, get the number of issues up, or check it off a list. so that I can preserve what I feel when I write: joy, flow, & connection.

some prompts for you

where might you need to slow down & reviewing/reflecting today, this week, this month?

what does that look & feel like for you? what do you replace the rush with?

can you shape this into a poem, a character, an essay, a painting or collage?

as always, feel free to reply if you want to share what came through or how this landed.

and my calendar is (re)open next week lol, if you want to have a chat. all welcome, btw.

loving you, kapwa-tao

in gratitude & kapwa,

teresa

in other news

Idk if you know this, but I have two daughters. two beautiful bonus, step, hanai, Native Hawaiian daughters. their mother, my partner, our daughters, and now our babies, are a blended powwow family. our daughters’ mother and my partner have been in the Native community for decades. I’m a little newbie.

our thirteen-year-old, Moonlight (or as I call her, Kapawa), has been serving as the first ever Honolulu Intertribal Powwow Princess, nominated by the matriarch of the Hoʻopili Tribal Council, Auntie Mae, even though we have since left Oʻahu.

Moonlight has presented at over 15 powwows across Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi Island, and Turtle Island. we are so very proud of her and all she’s accomplished, representing not only her ʻohana, but Hawaiʻi & sharing ʻōlelo Hawaii with the world.

we are returning to Oʻahu for the 50th Annual Honolulu Intertribal Powwow on Magic Island, so that Moonlight can pass on her crown, and we’re offering gifts to both the Head Staff of and hosting a jingle dance special for young jingle dancers.

so on behalf of Moonlight, we’re seeking sponsors and donations for this outgoing special & giveaway.

you are welcome to send a monetary gift, big or small, here:

our goal is to raise $600. thank you to those who donated last week!!! 🥹I'm so grateful & touched.

and if you’d like to join us in celebrating Moonlight & see her and the other young dancers, come through, August 29 & 30, 2026! would LOVE to see you and consensually hug you!!

​come dance with us​

mahalo nui, agyamanak, maraming salamat, from our blended family & ancestors to yours.

TL;DR

agballa notes has always been something I wanted to create & write with intention. in the rush to keep up with the calendar, that got lost. so, I’m slowing down & editing back. we’ll be back to biweekly notes, sent on the full & new moons. where can you slow down & review today, this week, this month? how can you honor this in a poem, a character, a painting?

my family and I are fundraising for our daughter’s outgoing special as the Honolulu Intertribal Powwow Princess at the 50th Annual Honolulu Intertribal Powwow on Magic Island, August 29 & 30, 2026. you can donate here or you know, we’ll see you there!! 💃🏾

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