Since cancer, I feel like I have dreams rather than ambitions, visions rather than plans.
There’s an underlying puritanicalness in America that is not that different to the prudishness of Britain – it just manifests itself in different ways.
Cancer was the most terrifying, arduous, painful thing, but it was also a profound gift in the sense that I was holding so much in my body for so many years that was dark and terrifying which was preventing my coming back into myself.
Writing and giving voice to what I am feeling makes me happy. And supporting people in finding their voice, passion, outrage and resistance. There is nothing better than that.
I think the thing that has always made me happy is being in the struggle, in a community of struggle with other people.
Terence McKenna says, “The culture is not your friend.” I am not sure we can change this culture. But I think we can rise above it and create a new world. That’s why I so deeply believe in alternative spaces. That’s why I believe in the power of art and activism.
What I have found is that even when you try to transform existing structures they are so powerful they often overwhelm, seduce, and control you.
I think one of the problems with the capitalist mainstream is this: no matter what you create to respond or resist it they will buy it.
I believe in fierce love, pushing the edge, calling the robbers, the corporates, the elites, the pillagers and insanely wealthy to task, going whatever distance we need to go now to protect our earth and each other.
Why don’t we bring everyone up to be caring and compassionate, to believe that we are connected with everyone and everything around us?
We live in a racist world. Everywhere there is racism. We say to White people, “You really have to examine how you behave in the world. You are responsible for deconstructing internalized racism and being part of a ongoing process of decolonizing yourself.”
I’m feeling a kind of liberty to write about what’s interesting to me without worrying about what I should be writing about. And that feels good.
I think so much of neoliberalism and capitalism has caused people to live in a state of greed, fear and consumption that is covering up so much of what we really want.
I think the human species is very suicidal.
I think we have to get bolder. Why after Fukushima didn’t we all go out and shut down all the nuclear power plants and stay there until it happened?
I think to be cut off from your heart is the greatest tyranny in the world.
I think the world is always improving and always not improving. I think that both are simultaneously happening all the time. I don’t think it’s one motion unfortunately – I wish we could say it’s better, better, better – but I think it’s better, bad, better, bad – you know?
I think we need to teach pleasure. What beautiful touch means. What reciprocity means. What being connected and what intimacy means. Boys get out there at a young age and the performance posturing is so great and ends up being hard and aggressive.
The devastation of neoliberalism is so multi-fold, whether it’s violence against women or desperate economic inequality or the destruction of the planet.
I feel passionate about nurses. I would do anything for nurses. Anything.
Denial is really death. People think that when you’re connected with other people it’s more painful. The opposite is true. When you’re connected to the river you have despair, but you also have joy, and there’s a flow in the river.