There are numerous alarms about how far off the tracks we’ve gotten as a people. While many people are facing insurmountable odds, injury, and even death, many are also desensitized to violence and going about business as usual. Against a background of ever-increasing injustice, I’m still hearing people caution against “alarmist rhetoric,” and I’m wondering: If we’re not alarmed now, then when? I don’t believe the alarm is coming at the wrong time, with the wrong ... Read more ...
racial justice
Imperfect Meditation and the Desire to “Slow Way Down”
Lately, I’ve been craving time to feel-think-move my way through transitions and even physical pain, as my lower back has been speaking up again. In response, I’ve been practicing daily meditation: sitting for just 10 minutes on my yoga mat each morning. Even when practicing imperfectly, I find that meditation gives me the permission, the opportunity to slow down. I’m finding that the more time I spend in meditation—breathing, noticing, releasing thoughts, and being ... Read more ...
Why I’m Vegan: Normalizing Plant-Based Options
Traveling can present real challenges for eating vegan. Recently, though, I’ve been encouraged by several kind and curious interactions. Here are three scenes to illustrate: Scene 1: When ordering off-menu at a local café, the café owner says, “You know, we should really have more vegan options. I’ll work on that.” Scene 2: When placing an order with modifications, the waiter asks me to explain: “What’s vegan?” Scene 3: When visiting a chain restaurant, the waiter ... Read more ...
Reframing “Independence Day” as a Day for Truth-Telling and Committing to Justice
I really struggle with July 4th. It’s a holiday that presumes to celebrate “freedom,” but freedom for whom? By what means? Under what circumstances? It’s a holiday that celebrates myths like meritocracy and “the American Dream,” while keeping hidden systemic racism and other ongoing oppression. It’s a holiday that normalizes narratives and displays of patriotism, which underlie white nationalism and the logics of “we” versus “them.” The “we” must be “better than” or “the ... Read more ...
Swinging from Sweet to Sour
A roller coaster of emotions. This isn’t a new experience for me, but one that’s becoming an every-day, every-week norm. I swing from moments of real hope and sweetness to moments of real hate and sourness. This roller coaster can motivate resistance, and it can send me back into the cave to confront both personal and collective shadows. Here’s what these swings look like. In the past few days, I’ve witnessed the acquittal of the Minnesota officer who killed Philando ... Read more ...
Why I’m Vegan: Ecofeminism
I’ve been holding myself up, preventing myself from writing about why I’m vegan and how central food is to my understanding of justice. I’ve been holding myself up because this writing feels especially important, like it needs to be good, and, therefore, is triggering my need to counter perfectionism. I’ve also been holding myself up because it’s so damn hard to write about being vegan without re-inscribing notions of whiteness and privilege. Especially from my ... Read more ...
Choosing to Tread Another Path
I’ve been spending a lot of time recently on paths. Established hiking trails and sidewalks, escalators and even rock crawls marked by arrows. And I’ve been especially appreciative for the healing that comes from this time walking—not only hiking, but standing, marching, experiencing the mobility associated with movement, strengthening and using my body, contemplating my embodied existence, and examining the various privileges and positionings associated with this ... Read more ...
Appreciating Rahawa Haile’s “Going It Alone” for the Hiking-Justice Connection
As someone interested in and impacted by the outdoors, hiking, human connection, harmful historical legacies, and ever-present white supremacy, I absolutely love and highly recommend Rahawa Haile’s article “Going It Alone”: Haile shares her experience through-hiking the Appalachian Trail as a queer black woman. Here are a few of my favorite lines: In trying to figure out why this piece so deeply speaks to me, I realize how much I crave stories of hiking ... Read more ...
Disrupting the Mind-Body Split
This past week I dreamed that I was standing before a group of students, guest-lecturing in a colleague’s class. In the dream, I was slurring and stumbling over words—making little to no sense. The colleague asked if I was confused, and I realized that I had a concussion. Not from any physical injury, but from the semester. The semester had given me a concussion! I woke with a strong sense that the dream was symbolically true, metaphorically speaking to me. Because, ... Read more ...
Why I’m Vegan: Doing Something Small and Sustained
Being vegan, for me, is about imperfectly striving for justice. Rather than all-or-nothing thinking, it’s small-but-sustained action. It’s not a finished state, but about always being in the middle (and mess and muck) of it all. It’s constant, everyday, and enduring—something that keeps me focused daily on the long haul toward justice. Of the many reasons why I’m vegan, an important one is the ritual of doing something every day (actually many times ... Read more ...
