About

My name is Alana “Nickels” Solomon and I live with my husband in rural Pennsylvania. He is a Deacon in the Orthodox Church, and an MDiv candidate at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary.

I currently publish a monthly small-run, print-only booklet called Hobo Nickels covering topics such as the Lives of the Saints, Holy Fools, silence & stillness, wicked architecture, voluntary poverty, the lives of the Saints, protecting yourself, prayer, travels, tradition, and more. In addition to this I make Orthodox iconography. In my spare time I sew clothing and quilts, cook, and translate/organize the aphorisms of Colombian reactionary philosopher Nicolás Gómez Dávila. I have also written for publications such as Galaxy Brain and have been featured on the Doomer Optimism podcast and others.

I spent my youth mainly in Seattle, Washington, as well as traveling via freight train and hitchhiking across the US, living in punk houses, tiny apartments, in a shrub under a bridge, in cars, and in abandoned structures. I am attempting to more thoroughly document my creative work, which I did not do for many years, including small bird taxidermy and textile pieces as featured in one of the Free Sheep galleries in Seattle, thousands of individually hand-stenciled street art pieces on both coasts (under names Sirkullay, Wifey, Oh Oblivion, and Ortolana), paintings, writings, and so on. I also toured the US for months in 2009, working on farms for room/board and performing as Orphanspace. In addition to these endeavors, I have worked primarily as a baker. I did some time in a University, which I do not recommend.

I have no interest in becoming an internet personality or aligning with that type; my primary interest now is to live in relative obscurity, and to live and die for Christ and His church. This site serves as a place to share information about Saints, these strange times, and miscellaneous creative endeavors, and to reach out to like-minded people who are finding their way out of the wilderness, so that we can share information and ways to survive, pray, and live Godly lives of joy and meaning in the midst of this ever more apparent collapse.

See also: The Resources/Reading Room, my work, and the little shop.

May God bless you my friends. xo