Content that opened my heart this season
Spring 2024
Happy Summer Solstice, folks. Another season has passed — and a delightful one at that. The upcoming season includes my birthday and many opportunities to float in the sea, but still, nothing beats the cool breezes and bright blossoms of spring.
I hope this season’s content selections offer you new perspectives and open your heart on this long, sunny day.
Podcasts
This month’s podcast theme seems to be practice. I love that, because practice is what changes my life, everyday. May these episodes be the inspiration you need to show up to your practice today.
Witch School Graduation with Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Sangadare, How To Survive the End of the World. I’ve recently — finally — come to accept the hopeless romantic who lives within me. Too often, though, I’m discontent or bored with the versions of romantic partnership I see lauded in media. So this episode was a breath of fresh air and caused my heart to swirl with delight (especially when Alexis and Sangadare shared their daily “loveship” practices… *swoon*)
Melissa Reyes, We Are What We Practice. It’s been so enjoyable to learn about
’s Substack, and through that, his podcast about practice. I really do believe that to become trustworthy, conscious people, we have to practice the behaviors of trustworthy, conscious people. Learning about how Melissa approaches that work evoked feelings of both affirmation for my own practices and inspiration for the journey.Nature’s Wisdom for Humanity, On Being. Deep gratitude to
for sharing this one with a very apt description and kind note: “I think this study on nature illuminates many of our [humans’] backward tendencies, but also the pathways that exist to more harmonious living through people like you and the community you're building at Libertroph.” Many of you, including Matthew, are building harmonious community too, and this episode illuminates how we’re all connected in that practice.
Articles & Essays
As my disgust for Zionism grows with every heinous act of terror and bitter propagandist slur, I’ve felt a need for more historical grounding in how this vicious system got its footing. Here are some of the more impactful pieces I came across in my learning.
On Zionism, Fariha Róisín, . I’m continually awed by Fariha’s tight analysis on the Zionist project and its impacts. In addition to teaching me a lot about Zionism, this piece helped me get a clearer sense of what kind of anti-racist white organizing is needed in relation to anti-Zionism and liberation for Palestinians.
Zionism Will Never be a Solution to Anti-Semitism, Ben Lorber & Shane Burley. A fairly robust history of how Zionism was formed and the ways it reinforces anti-Semitism.
This Nakba Day Palestinians Remind the World We Will Not be Erased, Michel Moushabeck. A declarative piece centering the stamina and resilience of Palestinians against all odds, it includes helpful historical context about the Nakba as a critical component of Zionist strategy.
“In short, Zionism is a settler-colonial ideology and political system that privileges one people over another and strives to ethnically cleanse and erase Palestinians from Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. This is the end game of 76 years of terror and ethnic cleansing. It did not start on October 7 and it is not about Hamas.”
– Michel Moushabeck
In this season I was also deeply moved by the courageous, contagious student organizing for a Free Palestine. I was awed by the students’ rapid response times, clear boundaries (do not talk to Zionists and cops!), the way they developed and shared powerful political education as they organized, and the care and community they practiced at the encampments. I wish I’d read more content that described this movement, but to be honest, in those days when I wasn’t organizing or working I was glued to social media. I couldn’t take my eyes off these beautiful bright-eyed humans standing up for Palestinian and Collective Liberation, even through their struggles and the disgustingly punitive responses of their academic institutions. Nothing like sending militarized police forces to sweep peaceful student protests to further radicalize a generation…
Anyways, here’s a couple more pieces I can’t not share.
The Nameless Soldiers that Kill Us and the Palestinian Call for Liberation, Nikki Kattoura.
Rain is Coming, Mohammed El-Kurd.
What’s Love Got to Do With It?, . Because, well, it seems like love has a lot to do with it.
“This moment in history is asking – well, really, Palestinians are asking – that every single human being on this planet consider what it truly means to ‘live fully & freely’. Can I live fully & freely while others are walled in, occupied, patrolled, surveilled, annihilated, ethnically cleansed, silenced?”
– Shira Erlichman
Books
Krik? Krak!, Edwidge Danticat. Through stories that cross generations, Danticat brings us into the hearts and spirits of a diverse and dynamic set of Haitian characters who teach us how abuse of power distorts humanity and how love restores it.
Tender Points, Amy Berkowitz. This book illuminates the experiences of disability and chronic pain in a deeply visceral way that evoked empathy and rage in me. It’s a quick read, but if you need a TL;DR: believe women!! (Especially Black women, whose distinct relationship to chronic pain went noticeably unacknowledged in this book, as it does in society broadly.)
Films
Retrieval: A short film by
that could also be called a mystical journey into the darkness surrounding sexual violence and the light we create in our healing.Nyad: I’m surprising myself by including this one, but I really loved learning about Diana Nyad and found myself talking about her all season. Some humans decide to do superhuman things, and I will always remain fascinated by them.
Music
Well, if love is the medicine, I’ll let music bring us right back to where this newsletter started: introducing you all to my inner romantic. In an effort to embrace this part of myself, I did what I do: made a playlist! Walked around listening to warm fuzzy tunes! Gave myself a little squeeze and rested assured that love will keep arriving in new and liberating forms, as long as it remains central to my daily practice.
Ok, sono una romantica. A quick little compilation to help us embrace that loving feeling.
Come Away With Me, Norah Jones. My dearest friend B got married this season. Since she is Norah Jones’s greatest fan of all time, I took a long walk with this heartfelt album the week before her wedding. Ah, what a delightful dance with nostalgia.
Well, readers. This was a long one. Thanks for making it to the end. I hope you find cool breezes and warm hugs in these summer days ahead. As you bask under the sun, I invite you to consider: how might you hone your loving practices toward a culture of care and liberation for all?
With care,
Alyssa