250 Years of What? On June 29, 1776, five days before Philadelphia’s Declaration was signed, a different founding took place three thousand miles west, on the shore of a California lagoon. Spanish soldiers and Franciscan friars said the first Mass beside a creek they named Arroyo de los Dolores, the Creek of Sorrows. Within months … Read more
I recently received pushback from the usual channels when I posted about decolonizing the gender binary. As is my way, I went looking to history to see if I was being unfair to white guys. What I found was pretty clear, and it’s not just related to race (like gender, a relational construct), but more … Read more
as a practicing buddhist, “leave no trace” is a guiding principle embedded into every teaching: leave no physical trace of your passage through the busy world, and leave no stinky teaching behind that muddies the waters of the dharma. how do we practice this, living as we do with the legacy of colonialism, cultural appropriation, … Read more
there’s no decolonization without dismantling the gender binary. the intersectional person is the one who binds community—because they actually understand and empathize with everyone. countries and communities who stigmatize nonbinary identity and orientation are doing white colonizers’ work: one-drop purity tests don’t build you up—they prove you’re not good enough. if you’re judging someone for … Read more