The Monthly Shakedown
Things I liked in February (and January!)
Dear Kula Diaries,
I didn’t finish my ‘Stuff I liked in January’ post last month, so I thought I’d change it up a bit and do a ‘monthly shakedown’ (like a pack shakedown!). So, here it is — a completely discombobulated list of things that I liked… random updates… and little tidbits that I wanted to share with all of you.
Book: Dungeon Crawler Carl
This book follows the journey of a Coast Guard Veteran named Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut … on a SciFi post-destruction of all structures on earth by an alien invasion that has subsequently turned what remains of earth into a complicated intergalactic gameshow. The genre is listed as ‘LitRPG’ — but I want to make it very clear that I have no experience with RPG (role playing games), and I have found this book utterly delightful. Aaron and I have been listening to the audiobook version on Audible, and the reading of the book — including different voices for each character — is brilliant. The book itself is hilarious, witty and engaging… and, as you can probably imagine, Princess Donut steals the show.
When we first moved Kula Cloth into a building about 35 minutes from our home, I was a bit nervous about having a ‘commute’ each day… but I’ve honestly looked forward to our drive to and from work so much that I’d be sad if we didn’t have it. Every single day, we excitedly tune into the book — and we’ve already downloaded the next few books in the series with the Audible credits that we had accidentally purchased when we forgot to pause our subscription (oops).
Cacao Tea from Belize
Many, many years ago… Aaron and I went to Belize. We spent a few days in Ambergris Caye… and then a few days at Ian Anderson’s Cave’s Branch, which is in the jungle near Belmopan.
While we were in Ambergris Caye, we meandered into the Belize Chocolate Company, where I discovered their CACAO tea, made entirely of the husks of Cacao nibs. I purchased a bag of the tea, and I loved it so much that I was pretty bummed when I finished it. A few months ago, I randomly found myself perusing the Belize Chocolate Company website, and I was delighted to learn that they are now shipping their Cacao tea all over the world!
I purchased a few bags… and a few weeks later… it arrived! You steep this tea just like you would steep ‘normal’ loose leaf tea — I use a Finum tea strainer:
After a few minutes of steeping, you will have a delicious, chocolatey, warm and cozy beverage. I usually don’t add anything to the tea — I find it perfect just as it is.
Pre-Order Book — All Humans Outside
My friend Tommy Corey wrote this book, and I’m delighted to share that I am featured in it as one of the humans! You can pre-order the book now, and it is scheduled to ship on May 1st. Tommy’s interviews are heartfelt, and he really captures the essence of each human who is included in the book. His photography is stunning. Tommy is also known for his project on the PCT called, Hiker Trash Vogue.
I think this is my favorite photo of me from the book — Tommy has such a beautiful knack for capturing humans in these beautiful moments, and I am personally ecstatic to read all of the stories and see all of the other photos.
In addition, I’ll be speaking at the launch party for this book on May 2nd in Seattle, WA — so if you live in the Seattle area, you should definitely watch out for the event… I think it’s going to be a pretty special evening, and I’m honored to get the chance to be a part of it!
Hand lettering + painting project
Last weekend, I painted 31 paintings + hand-lettered quotes. I don’t know what this says about me and/or the way that I spend my time, but I found it deeply satisfying and rewarding. I brought all of the paintings to work, where they are being gifted spontaneously to our Kula Cloth customers. I’m not sure how many of these have been sent out to customers now, but it’s quite a few.
I’ve mentioned that I’m also a part of an intuitive development group. Recently, we did an exercise where we were asking questions of our ‘higher self’. As a business owner, I am constantly feeling pressure to ‘do more’… and I navigate challenging feelings like doubt and insecurity and anxiety on a regular basis. During this session, I asked my higher self about the next steps that were important for me to take, and I heard very clearly that I needed to keep doing my small paintings. I don’t know why — or for what purpose, but I feel in my heart that they are, in some way, important. So, I’m going to just keep doing them until it feels like I’m not supposed to do them anymore.
It’s been such a beautiful meditative practice to share these paintings with others, and I really hope that people enjoy receiving them as much as I have enjoyed painting them and hand lettering them.
Salmon River Canyons Rafting Trip
A few months ago, the folks at ROW Adventures contacted me and asked me if I would be interested in collaborating with them on a rafting trip through the Salmon River Canyons. After much discussion, we agreed upon a date — and we also decided to donate 5% of the proceeds from this trip to Save our Wild Salmon, a non-profit that works to restore natural salmon ecosystems.
I’m going to be totally transparent about this trip with all of you: I’m not getting paid any additional money to do this (although my trip participation is covered). The trip is also not costing any more than ROW’s ‘normal’ trips on the Salmon River Canyon — I didn’t want to include any type of upcharge. What I really wanted to do was host my first ever Founder’s Trip to spend some time outside with other humans. I’ll be hosting daily (optional) meditations, dance parties and creative time + there is a ton of time for just relaxing in nature. I’m just genuinely looking forward to spending some time connecting with folks. This is something I’ve never done before with Kula, but I’m really excited about it!
Here’s a video about the trip too:
Camino Kula Cloth — and a note about Leave No Trace Ethics, Park Rangers and protecting public lands
We launched our very first Camino de Santiago Kula Cloth this past week, and it’s almost sold out! When I started Kula Cloth over 6 years ago, people starting reaching out to me almost immediately saying, “You have to do something about the toilet paper problem on the Camino de Santiago!”
The Camino de Santiago is a spiritual pilgrimage/hiking path/walk that has a variety of routes one can follow — but they all converge in the town of Santiago de Compostela, in Spain. ‘Camino de Santiago’ is translated as, ‘The Way of St. James’, and it is rumored that St. James is buried in that town.
More than 100,000 pilgrims walk the Camino each year — far more than attempt any of the long trails here in the USA. In addition, I’ve spoken to a few of our vendors in Spain, and they’ve confirmed that the trail is in desperate need of a ‘paradigm shift’ around the topic of leave no trace. Many of the folks who walk the trail have never been exposed to LNT principals, and so it’s more common than not to simply discard of toilet paper or trash on the side of the trail, believing that it will simply ‘biodegrade’.
This is the moment where I insert a fun fact about toilet paper: it sometimes takes 1-3 years to biodegrade, and the so-called biodegradable toilet papers that you can purchase at many outdoor stores are, indeed, not as ‘biodegradable’ as they imply. I mean, when you really think about it: everything is (mostly) biodegradable… (well, except for maybe Styrofoam)… the question is, how long will it take to biodegrade and what impact will it have on the natural environment in that process? Contrary to popular belief, the ‘biodegradable’ toilet papers do not simply vanish — in fact, in alpine or desert environments, they might hang around for a few years. This is a photo that a Kula customer sent to me, showing some of the toilet paper ‘blooms’ on the Camino:
To be honest, I don’t know why it took me so long to make this Kula happen, but I’m so glad that we finally did!
We are at an interesting juncture in history right now: a time and place where Leave No Trace practices are more important than ever, because our Park Ranger/Public Land employees are being removed from service, which means that the folks who normally spend their time cleaning up garbage, are not going to be doing that anymore.
If you think that Park Rangers don’t make a difference with park maintenance and upkeep, you would be massively incorrect. As somebody who served as a Park Ranger for over 7 years, I can tell you that 99.999999999% of my time was spent cleaning up after Park Visitors. The land can (typically) manage itself — it is the people who need managing. I wrote a previous story talking about some of my greatest bathroom mishaps as a Park Ranger (it’s pretty funny, in case you haven’t read it)… but I wanted to share just a brief overview of some of the things that I did as a park ranger:
Our park had a shellfish beach, and one of my primary tasks was protecting the oysters and clams that could (very obviously) not protect themselves from poachers. We regularly had folks attempting to sneak hundreds of shellfish off the beach — some of these folks even hid the oysters in with the spare tires in their vehicle to try and escape the park with their spoils. Baby oysters grow on the shells of the mature oysters, so when poachers remove the oysters from the beach in the shell, the natural ecosystem is disrupted in a way that the Fish and Wildlife biologists have not accounted for when they calculate the recreational limit and season that a beach can handle.
I was responsible for maintaining the peaceful environment in the campground — which was often challenging at night, once folks had been consuming copious amounts of alcohol. Often, I did this alone, because I was the only ranger working in the park. There were countless times when I had to evict folks from the park because they were so disruptive that the other campers were unable to enjoy the peace and quiet that they expected to experience in nature.
I supervised the park aides and volunteers during the summer months, and in the winter months, I was (mostly) a solo-ranger in the park. I was responsible for cleaning and maintaining all of the park buildings (including bathrooms), responding to incidents within the park, and prepping the park for the colder months (including shutting off water valves so that pipes didn’t burst, etc…).
When people acted destructively in the park, I was the one who had to fix the problem. If somebody flushed a mini vodka bottle down the toilet, I was the one who had to pull the toilet off the floor, remove the mini vodka bottle, and re-install the toilet with a new wax ring. If the toilets stopped working, I had to work with the ancient park plumbing system in order to try and fix the problem.
I was responsible for performing a Hazard Tree Analysis in the park — this was a constant task of rating trees in the campground, watching for ‘widowmaker’ branches that were dangling above campsites, and then coordinating with our arbor crew to remove the hazards from the camp area.
I was responsible for all law enforcement within the park. Over the course of my time at the park, a brief snapshot of things that I handled include: domestic violence incidents (including a stabbing with a pair of scissors), suicide attempts with a firearm by a camper who was going through alcohol withdraw, DUI, dog bites, car accidents, a burglary, an additional incident where burglary suspects were hiding in my park, illegal brush cutting, drugs, underage drinking, vandalism, theft, etc… The list goes on and on!
I always told folks that a park is like a small city — except that people are usually drinking a lot. People are complicated, and just because they go camping does not mean that they leave their problems behind — in fact, sometimes they take their problems with them, and the alcohol amplifies those problems.
All of that being said, the opportunity to work as a park ranger was a dream come true for me — and I’m proud and deeply grateful to have had the opportunity to serve the people of Washington State in that capacity. It was one of the proudest parts of my life, and it inspired me to continue doing what I could do give back to the outdoor community. I feel like Kula Cloth is my way of coming full circle — returning back to what I love the most: spending time in nature and connecting more deeply with myself, others and our planet.
Losing my job as a ranger due to layoffs was a very dark time in my life, but that darkness bloomed into something really beautiful for me. I am hopeful that the voices of folks around the USA will be heard — and that these Park Rangers will, in some capacity, come back to the places that we love so that we can continue to love and protect them for future generations.
A new affiliate program! Get paid to pee (sort of)
When I first started Kula Cloth, I knew that I wanted to start an affiliate program, so I found an app on my Shopify store, and I used that for about 6 years… not realizing that there were much better, more robust affiliate platforms available.
Last weekend, I spent almost an entire day getting my new affiliate program set up, using a program called AvantLink. If you are unfamiliar with affiliate programs, it’s basically a way where loyal fans/bloggers/social media folks can share a link to your website… and get paid for the referral.
So, if YOU are somebody who finds yourself sharing Kula Cloth excessively with your Facebook group or Instagram or hiking club, etc… now you can receive actual money for those referrals! It’s a fun way to say thank you to the folks who love Kula — and it’s also just the right thing to do. I don’t take it for granted that folks genuinely want to share the product that we created, and since I can’t personally thank everybody who recommends a Kula Cloth, this is a tiny way that we can say thank you.
If you’d like to sign up for the program, you can do that here (and also check out the snazzy new landing page that I added):
Note: if AvantLink does not approve you as an affiliate for any reason, please send me a direct message to anastasia@kulacloth.com, and I will send you my private invitation link!
We want your art!
I am sharing this here a week in advance… because the contest will already be LIVE next week, but we are about to host our SIXTH (!!!) annual Kula Cloth Design Contest!
We started hosting our annual design contest in 2020 — the idea came to me during COVID to host the contest, and it turned into a really uplifting and beautiful bright spot during a dark and chaotic time. I was expecting a few entries for our first contest… and I was blown away when we received over 120 entries!
Our contest is a little different than some other art contests because the winners all receive a contract for an actual artist series Kula — this is not the type of contest where we steal your art in exchange for ‘exposure’ (ha!). In the past six years, our Design Contest winners have received a total of over $15,000! We choose three winners: a grand prize winner (decided by votes)… and a Founder’s Choice and Gratitude Award, which are both selected by the internal Kula Team. This helps to keep the contest as fair as possible — i.e. it’s not just a popularity contest and/or only accessible to folks with a gazillion Instagram followers.
In fact, most of our winners have had under 500 Instagram followers — and a few of our winners have had just over 100 Instagram followers. So, if you, or somebody that you know, is an artist — please give them a heads up (or start prepping your own art!) about our contest. We are always looking for new artists to work with, and even if you don’t win, we often use this contest to find new folks that we end up working with in the future.
I can say this without a shadow of a doubt: I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE watching the entries come in. March is one of the most exciting months for me, because I am consistently shocked, excited and overwhelmed by the incredible talent within the Kula Community. I cannot wait to see what this year brings!
Shelby Thayne was our very first winner in 2020. When Shelby won the design contest, she had just started venturing into the world of art. Her winning design, Golden Hour, was one of the most popular designs we’ve ever sold. Shelby has gone on from that contest to make many more Kula designs with us… and she’s launched her own art business, taught art classes, and, most recently, she’s even collaborated with Barnes and Noble on a calendar!
If you want a sneak peak into past winners, and tips and tricks on how to design your Kula Cloth so that you can get your creative wheels turning, you can find that here (click on the image):
Art especially belongs on a pee cloth. Art speaks to the soul and it invites conversation — and the reason we made Kula Cloth beautiful was so that it encouraged open conversations around Leave No Trace and hygiene. Now, more than ever, we need to keep having those conversations, and I cannot wait to see the entries for this year’s contest!
When it’s time to enter the contest, visit our website and look under the ‘EVENTS’ tab for the 2025 Kula Cloth Design Contest…. or visit THIS PAGE to submit your art.
Black History Month Celebration:
To celebrate Black History Month, I put together a list of some of my favorite organizations and brands that I recommend supporting during this month (and all months). You can find my Black History Month message and links to all of the recommended resources right here: Black History Month Celebration List.
In addition, I’ve also included Black History Month themed playlists in our Dance Experiment sessions this month to celebrate Black musicians.
We’ve danced to a few playlists so far that exclusively feature Black artists and it’s been a really beautiful way to celebrate the impact of Black musicians (who were huge contributors to, but historically excluded from, many music narratives — the Country music genre, being one of them). You can find those playlists here:
Please note: these are obviously short playlists (because our Dance Experiment sessions are only about 20-25 minutes of dancing). If you would like a much more extensive playlist celebrating Black musicians, I found this one on Spotify that is pretty extensive:
Serendipity Journal
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been keeping a little journal of serendipities and ‘coincidences’ — and it’s been a really beautiful experience. I’ll give you a quick example:
During my intuitive development class a few weeks ago, we did a meditation, and at the very end of the meditation, an image of a beet and the words, beet root, appeared in my mind’s eye. I can’t explain it — and it seemed and felt totally random, but I jotted it down in my notebook, because it seemed to come from someplace other than my rational/thinking mind.
The next day, I was doing some research on Qatar Airlines, because Aaron and I are in the midst of planning our 10th anniversary trip. I opened up a random video on YouTube, and the very first clip that popped up was a person describing the snacks that they were given upon being seated in the plane. They said, “I had my choice of either nuts or… beetroot chips.”
Whoa.
It was one of those weird moments that caught me off guard and made me laugh a little bit. I haven’t thought about the word beet root ever, and suddenly, I’m watching a YouTube video about beet root chips… the day after I have the word arrive in a meditation?
So, I jotted it down in my little note book.
The purpose of these little synchronicities for me is not to decipher any particular meaning from them. I don’t think that I’m being ‘told anything’ via mystical beet roots. Instead, I feel like these moments are tiny glimmers — the universe itself peeking through the veil and smiling at me. When I notice these glimmers, I can also smile within myself. Noticing the glimmers and serendipities is a practice that helps me feel supported, loved and hopeful. It’s easy to feel like we are floating in the abyss sometimes — it’s easy to lose hope and to feel like nothing is going our way… but these tiny little moments are miniature reminders (at least for me), that we are a part of something a bit more wonderful and infinite than we can imagine.
Focusing on these serendipities brings me into a place of alignment… a place of trust… a place of surrender. Instead of trying to control the world around me, I can let go a bit and really allow myself to flow naturally with the world, instead of trying to swim upstream against it.
Friends — thank YOU for being here, thank you for reading the things that I write and, quite simply, thank YOU for being you. The world is a really weird, chaotic place sometimes… and it’s easy to get lost in the mix of everything around us. No matter what: always come back to yourself. Over and over again. That is the practice that will make the difference — that is the practice that will allow the goodness of who you are to radiate out to the world.
You are loved so much!
One time we had camp neighbors arrive pretty late. We put off going to sleep a bit knowing they'd need to set up. Stuff happens, we'd just enjoy the fire a bit longer. Only, they set up a full DJ table with party lights and everything! To add to the weirdness, it was just two people. The ranger shut them down fast and they were evicted. We couldn't understand the logic of spending all that time packing, driving and setting up just to get kicked out. This wasn't even one of the popular modern campground that tend to be boisterous. Quiet, remote and semi-rustic. 🤷♀️
Hi Anastasia! Just wondering if there is another trail register on the horizon? Thanks for giving me something to look forward to in the Kula Diaries!