Funny thing about sustainability, you have to sustain it.
– Ron Finley, TED2013, A Guerilla Gardener in South Central LA
Hello everyone. This week, in addition to being super proud of my amazing sweet spouse (who works as an education assistant in an elementary school, so has just survived the total chaos of back to school week) I have been blown away by the generosity, warmth, good-heartedness, and brilliance of local activists. And feeling hopeful, for the first time in a long time, that it might actually be possible to sustain activism for a lifetime.
When I think of activists I often, to my chagrin, think of all the obnoxious, arrogant, petty, vindictive, counterproductive, mean-ass shit that I witnessed and experienced in movements of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. There was a lot of anger/rage, not a lot of love/heart. And I was as much on the giving end as I was on the receiving end. So, small wonder that people got completely burned out and left town, drifted away, turned to heroin, or killed themselves. Really. Because we were a mess. The combination of the trauma that many of us grew up with, the stresses of being marginalized, and the twisted things we learned from the dominant culture, all made a great recipe for hating ourselves and each other, and for violence (lateral and otherwise). No wonder we couldn’t sustain anything.
It was in large part these past hurts that left me so scared about re-engaging with activism when I started this blog 3 months ago, especially coming off an 8-month down-the-rabbit-hole experience of alternating between depersonalization/dissociation and hypersensitivity/agoraphobia. But there came a point in recovery where it was obvious that to be able to recover personally, I also needed to recover politically. To feel real, I needed to actually do things that felt important and meaningful.
Six weeks ago, in my report on Week #4, I wrote about taking some baby steps around connecting with people and building principled community – very shyly, awkwardly, and nervously going to a Unist’ot’en solidarity action despite not knowing anyone else who was going. (Big deal for me as the panic disorder is way more manageable if I am accompanied.) At that action I connected briefly with a friend of a friend. [Side note: let me take a moment here for some Annie Appreciation, to acknowledge an absolute gem of an activist and human being. All of the reconnecting I’m doing now with activism is made possible by who Annie is, and the impact she has had on my life personally as well as on activism here. Yay for Annie!] Through the friend of a friend – who despite a very full life has been tremendously gracious in talking with me and sharing ideas, critique, and invitations to take part in things – I am meeting other people. And OK, I know there is a honeymoon period where everything new seems amazing, but I have to say, thus far I am truly surprised by how lovely people are. Truly. After so many years of being deeply wary of people and having that drive so much of what I do, and especially wary of other activists, to be able to relax and be less defended (physically, mentally, and emotionally) is AMAZING. It’s reminded me that even though relationships take a lot of time to create and nourish, they are such a necessary and vital component of sustainability. Am feeling very grateful for how welcome and generous people have been with their time and energy.
Recap of the past week
Last week I wrote about affirming that anti-colonial, anti-racist activism is where my heart is and mapped out some ideas for this week and the following week. I did many of those actions in the past week, including:
- Continuing to learn, in various ways – reading, having conversations, observing, practicing, and learning from my mistakes. I finished reading Tsawalk: A Nuu-Chah-Nulth Worldview and started Principles of Tsawalk: An Indigenous Approach to Global Crisis (both by Umeek – E. Richard Atleo), and also started reading the NOII Vancouver Principles and Statements.
- Reconnecting with an old friend who I worked with on Palestinian solidarity some years ago. She hasn’t been able to do that work for a number of years and still isn’t able to do ongoing actions but it was great to talk about ways to support the Unist’ot’en camp and reaffirm our basic human connection — so much food for thought as she has been through a lot in the past 4 years. Inter-generational friendships mean a lot to me and am grateful for the chance to spend time together, especially as she’s in her 70s now and the impermanence of life is so ever-present.
- Contributing funds to support a local group that is working within the Canadian refugee system to sponsor a Syrian family of 5 to come to Canada. The settler immigration system is so fucked on so many levels, so working within it always has for me a gross tinge of not wanting to in any way legitimize what underpins it, but also never want ideological rigidity to get in the way of making a difference for someone’s situation, especially in a context like this that is about family reunification.
- Talking with local folks who are interested in ongoing work on refugee rights to debrief last week’s action and brainstorm ideas about what next steps might be.
- Supported my sweet spouse through return to work and the start of a new school year, by taking care of making dinners and cleaning the kitchen and other house chores. Nourishing and sustaining our family is super important, and food is such a basic cultural staple for me, so physically feeding someone always feels particularly meaningful for me.
- Participated in my sangha’s annual strategic planning session to help sustain the long-term viability of my spiritual community.
And as usual there were many other things that came up during the week:
- Learned more about the work being done by the Anti-Violence Project and visited the harm reduction resource space at UVic Pride. Wow, such a beautiful thing, thanks so much to everyone involved in creating and maintaining that space.
- Wrote a letter supporting release of Eddie Africa, one of the MOVE 9, who is (after 37 years in prison) scheduled to appear before the Pennsylvania State Parole Board in October.
- To commemorate the 44th anniversary of the Attica Rebellion, watched film Attica is All of Us and read some old writing from the SISIS (Settlers In Support of Indigenous Sovereignty) archives by Dacajewiah, an Attica survivor and longtime Indigenous rights activist. **Warning**: The film includes graphic footage of the state massacre of prisoners and prison staff in Attica, as well as graphic footage of the state humiliation and torture of prisoners following the massacre.
- Marked Labour Day by watching the No One Is Illegal video We are the Silent Slaves and signed the “No 4 and 4” petition calling for the Canadian government to meet 4 demands relating to justice for migrant workers.
Looking ahead to the next week
Having completed 70 days of the Sustainability Challenge thus far, I am surprised by how much has changed in those 70 days. I was so stuck in the teensy life resulting from months of agoraphobia that having to do one new thing per day was a great way to get moving again. Now my life is very full and as I wrote last week, I am getting kind of full up as many of the activities that I’ve started doing through this Challenge are ones that I want to continue to do for the long haul.
But, the Challenge rules I set for myself are to do one new thing per day. So, in addition to continuing work that I’ve already talked about here, for the remaining 30 days I will need to dig in and press into the last third of the Challenge. Some ideas for this week:
- Attend the first in Our Place’s 3-evening series Transformation Through First Nations History to learn more about local Indigenous history and resistance to colonialism.
- Work on my draft chapter for the Trans* Buddhist anthology.
- Write a piece for the All Bodies Are Good Bodies website, a beautiful art fundraiser for Victoria PWA Society and a great opportunity to think about how to articulate my paradoxical and complicated relationship with this crazy, stitched together, fragmented, strong, scarred, dysphoric, good enough body…
- Make knishes. I have been really missing my grandparents and hankering for Jewish food lately, and we have beautiful potatoes from this year’s harvest.
- Start hashing out with my Zen teacher some ideas for the new Administrative Assistant role I’ll be taking on, to help improve the human resource sustainability of my sangha and also hopefully move towards right livelihood in the future (when I’m able well enough to be able to work again).
- Participate in the first session of One Earth Sangha’s EcoSattva Training.
- Last but definitely not least, fall garden cleanup: As our food harvest winds down for the year, it’s time to put the garden to bed for the winter. In past years I have really let this go and was reminded again this year that doing that allows invasives to totally take over which is not respectful care for this land. So, this year am determined to do a better job.
And on that note, some closing wisdom by my new hero:
So basically, if you want to meet with me, you know, if you want to meet, don’t call me if you want to sit around in cushy chairs and have meetings where you talk about doing some shit – where you TALK about doing some shit. If you want to meet with me, come to the garden with your shovel so we can plant some shit.
– Ron Finley, TED2013, A Guerilla Gardener in South Central LA
And what about you?
I would love to get feedback from you. What do you think of all of this rambling? What resonates with you, and what doesn’t? Are you trying your own sustainability initiatives and if so what are you learning?
Have a great week!
stand up eko 