nov 29, 2023

a love note for everyone who took action for palestine today, and every day, small and large. everyone who is stepping into the light of solidarity helps shrink the shadow in which suppression thrives. we are growing — deepening and expanding at the same time.
palestinians are not numbers, and all of us who are moving our life force in solidarity with ending the nakba are scholars of belonging, faithful to a future unlike any day we have ever lived. when our work is done, however long it takes, no one will be able to publicly make a case for genocide, occupation, slavery, holocaust, apartheid or other divisive and regressive societal failures, and maintain a position of leadership. we will nonviolently negotiate sharing the abundance of this blessed earth. we, you, are part of this love story of coming home to land that wants to feed us olives and cleanse us in waterfalls and hold our rest. here is makluba, a wedding, a love lesson, babies, dharma, grief, reframe, boundary, choice and mirror, laid at your feet as at any altar of gratitude. 😚

 

nov 24, 2023

we are one. – whales of bahia via @realmichaelaharrison

we don’t cancel people, we cancel bad ideas and behaviors that hurt people. – me to a nibbling

we stop the bleeding and find the root cause of disease and give people room to recover and repair.

we are one people, with many wounds.

our imaginations are full of repair. today, imagine leadership you could trust to make decisions with grounded integrity, with love, in collaboration with the earth and everyone who shares it. imagine as thoroughly as you can, informed by who is tender with life and death, who is tender with those who act against their own souls, who is tender always with children, who is tender with themselves…be tender with yourself, see yourself as a fractal of an era of massive ideological transformation in which care and repair become our human focus. imagine a future in which everyone who ever has been, or is currently being, treated as disposable and less than miraculous was instead recognized as precious, holy, and worthy of everything you and your children are worthy of. we are one.

the film excerpted in slide 9 is The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin’s brilliant masterpiece on nazis and antisemitism and power.

 

nov 21, 2023

(even as i grieve and rage daily, ) i cannot fully express how grateful i am to be in this era of movement for palestinian freedom alongside such courageous jewish community. it has been so grounding to remember that this is a moment of great turning within the jewish community, and that it is absolutely possible to hold a vision of a world of abundant safety, justice and trust where there is currently oppression and death. it is anti-semitic to think that jewish people can only survive through violent occupation, and these jewish community members who speak and act up in spite of a myriad of risks and relational complexity are a beautiful lesson on what solidarity means – you can feel the healing in their wide grief, the grace in their palpable sense of shared humanity and the fire inherited through lineages of persecution when they say “not in our name”. here are some of the actions and resources that have been helpful to my heart, mind and vision. the first image predates oct 7, to help us remember that jewish people have been resisting zionism since its inception. 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

 

Nov 12, 2023

Prompts for Sunday writing/dreaming:

“I don’t know what the next American revolution is going to be like, but we might be able to imagine it if your imagination were rich enough.” Grace Lee Boggs

“Nothing happens in the ‘real’ world unless it first happens in the images in our heads.” Gloria Anzaldua

Imagine if everyone who has attended a march were to participate in a strategic general strike, refusing to work and using that time for bombastic direct actions that transform our grief into new standards.

Imagine if we applied the energy of all recent successful worker strikes on behalf of all peoples experiencing genocide supported/demanded by U.S. interests.

“A revolution that is based on the people exercising their creativity in the midst of devastation is one of the great historical contributions of humankind.” Grace Lee Boggs

Imagine if we decided en masse that the 66% of us (and rising) who want a ceasefire would be war tax resisters in 2024 and we committed now.

Imagine making our elected officials snap out of their political delusions and realize life as normal will not continue while they financially abuse their citizens into paying for genocide.

“There are two ways to worry words. One is hoping for the greatest possible beauty in what is created. The other is to tell the truth.” June Jordan

Imagine a functional democracy where elected officials represent their constituents or lose their jobs.

“If you knew a man was out of his mind, you restrained him. You didn’t give him power.” Octavia Butler

Imagine a multi-party system where evil (in speech, act, or investment) wasn’t the only viable option.

Imagine bringing U.S. society to a halt until we stopped exporting our violent vengeful and/or vigilante justice.

Imagine this portal of overwhelming grief making us realize never again has to be a practice, making us start anew so that genocide and war are no longer acceptable, debatable human behaviors.

“When civilization fails to serve, it must disintegrate unless it is acted upon by unifying internal or external forces.” Octavia Butler

resources from @beautifultroublehq and @wartaxresister

 

nov 7, 2023

its election day in the u.s.

as octavia taught us: choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.

we want leaders and policies which respect our miraculous bodies and our autonomy in them. leaders whose response to violence and death, especially of children, is to intervene to stop it, not pour more funding into a container of fear and injustice. we want leaders and policies that move life towards life. we want leaders who have zero tolerance for racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, misogyny, transphobia, islamophobia, antisemitism, censorship, war (its all a crime), apartheid, genocide or climate catastrophe. we have already learned that these are the values of the morally righteous, whether that morality is based in religious, interhuman, or earth-centered beliefs. we want leaders who move us forward towards the true peace that lives beyond justice.

voting is not an either/or strategy, especially at the local/municipal/state level. vote AND call AND march AND converse AND keep growing your own soul.

vote as a prayer and a spell. water the future.