From the archives | On turning grief into action

and stepping into transformational activism

Hi friends, happy solstice!

As the sun stands still before tipping into its slow descent into the darker half of the year, I learned that some Just Stop Oil activists in the UK sprayed orange paint on the standing stones of Stonehenge. (Thank you

Ramona McCloskey

for flagging this!)

For a while now, I have been thinking about what activism is, means, and what shape it needs to take in a world convulsed with pain and horror and destruction. So much horror unfolding, still, in Gaza and so many, too many, places in the world. But there has to be a way, many other ways, of doing activism that don't involve performative, pointless and ultimately destructive actions, and that also don't involve sucking up to the powers-that-be!

I’m still feeling and thinking my way through this tangle of anger and heartbreak and fear, and joy, still, and hope. But in the meantime, I'm sharing with you a piece I wrote last September at the end of a summer of loss and grief. Whilst my thinking has somewhat evolved since, thes…