Here are some of our favorite 2012 blog posts from adrienne maree brown. In them she talks about creating inner change, about Obama and the importance of practicing revolution every day, about growing our capacity for persistence, and about Columbus, Detroit and the meaning of home. All of these pieces are worth a second look.
“too often, I feel our work is fundamentally toxified by manipulation – we want to open people to their power and transformation, but only in order to get what we want in the world. it’s ego driven, it’s…not good. we want to change the world by making everyone else change, instead of changing the world by changing ourselves.”
“for most of us, Obama is not a promised land, though perhaps not enough of us realize yet that no president will ever be that. Obama is a human being in the highest office in a corrupt system in a capitalist nation, so naturally he is a hot mess. i send him compassion.”
“when i am spent and hungry and hopeless, seeing nothing green, i have to remember that nature is designed towards abundance. everything in this world, even the things which seem poisonous and annoying and fatal, can be sustenance. toxins and mosquitos are sustenance. so are the parts of me which ache and mourn and doubt. from those parts i am growing my wholeness, my deeper capacity for seeing the world as it is, for finding peace with it, for cultivating compassion for myself, for practicing love with more and more of my tiny precious life.”
520 years, 391 years, right now
“time is the gift that allows us enough space from our actions to truly contemplate them. to not just say the words of atonement, but to feel the pain of what happened and truly desire a different path.”
standing with | an election call from my body
“as i tune in to this election, i feel the bristling dynamism of my internal complexities and contradictions in my body. i felt moved to write this piece, which is basically a call for love to all my straight and/or male bodied comrades who may be considering not voting in this election, or voting third party. i write this to lovingly check your privilege.”
“here in detroit, we are currently pressed once again to hold onto home as a vicious and quick land grab escalates. a couple years ago our mayor was rebuked for talking about ‘right sizing’ the city, because it would have meant displacing people from their homes…in detroit, as in many cities, home includes sitting on the front porch or stoop, the community gardens, the neighbors who care for each other – home includes the people who fill the world around your building.”
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