the other day i had the honor of being the fifth guest in the Octavia Tried to Tell Us series, hosted by Monica Coleman and my teacher-friend Tananarive Due!

here is the full video if you want to watch it!

here are some highlights of what i shared that were posted on social media:

we’re in a very parable time.

if you’re feeling numb, dig into that feeling. numb leads to overwhelmed. overwhelmed leads to rage. rage leads to heartbreak. heartbreak leads to something’s gotta change. don’t give up on pursuing yourself.

Organize as if we’re going to be here a long time. Not as if we’re only going to be here until tomorrow.

This is an immense time to pivot into the kind of community you want to be in, and articulate it.

We do know how to care for each other and ourselves when we are given a little room. ritual, song, circle, conflict resolution, healing, staggering, rest, etc. WILL emerge in community given the right space.

people creating togetherness in this moment is a form of creating, a form of art.

“How do I help?”…”Take yourself seriously as someone who has the destiny to help.”

you’re not late to the movement. whenever you get here, you made it.

There are some things you can teach, but there are some things you can only learn through experience.

Ask yourself, how do I break my relationship with capitalism today? When I feel I’m satisfied, I don’t need to buy anything. When I feel, generosity emerges.

There’s power in giving ourselves permission to be the one to imagine the next phase…what am I contributing to what comes next?

A major city is defunding the police? It’s now done. You can’t tell me it can’t be done.

So much of emergent strategy is being able to let go of what’s no longer working. If an experiment fails, you don’t double down on the experiment. The experiment of policing has failed. It’s time to imagine something new – a system that values ALL BLACK LIVES.

Thoughts on sabbatical and unplugging: ‘It’s not that I’m not needed, but that my rest is ok.’

We want to create a culture where it’s irresistible to do the right thing. Let’s make it culturally unacceptable for Trans lives not to matter’.

Part of rejecting white supremacy is rejecting Black respectability.

Nature says each of these lives is miraculous, and can never be created again. Each of these breaths is miraculous.

With the trendy BLM posts shared by corporations, we can see these cynically of course, but also as a culture shift – now we have something we can hold these companies accountable to. Capitalism doesn’t get to claim our work. WE are the ones shifting the culture.

…

and here is the big announcement i made at the end:

On June 22 (Octavia E Butler’s birthday) we are launching Octavia’s Parables!

It’s a podcast with Toshi Reagon and myself going chapter by chapter thru both (all three!) parableswith summaries, analysis, questions to address in community, and original music.

Patreon.com/oparables
twitter.com/oparables