Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last 6+ years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

Upgrade to paid

I truly believe that if more people understood that our liberation is bound, things would be very different. That to be FOR liberation and AGAINST violence and discrimination of all kinds is deeply intertwined.

Interdependence does not mean all things are equal. They are not (check out this helpful breakdown from Ijeoma Oluo). But it does call us to see each other’s humanity and hold hope that transformation is possible.

In Liberated To the Bone: Histories. Bodies. Futures, Susan Raffo reminds us that the first step of healing is ending violence because “we cannot protect and grow at the same time”.

Which is why we need a #ceasefirenow. Not at the expense of anyone’s humanity. But because of it. And from there may we disarm ourselves and our bodies and divest from the lie of supremacy that has sold us a false sense of safety through “power over” instead “power with”.

Only then can we begin to heal back and in between, heal together and grow together towards a new world. To sustain this path to healing and justice, we are coming together THIS MONDAY for a powerful gathering to explore Practices of Care & Endurance with adrienne maree brown, Hala Alyan, Spenta Kandawalla, Noor, Layla Feghali, Sepideh Moafi, Adaku Utah. Register HERE.

Have hope y’all. And keep going.

Kerri (she/her)

Art by @seastaersjones, Words by Marwaan Kabour

NTK (need to know)

1. ‘An Urgent Intervention’: Poets, Scholars Discuss the Importance of Speaking Out On Palestine. Check out “But We Must Speak: On Palestine and the Mandates of Conscience”

2. Political education and community conversation in the midst of the genocide unfolding before us in the Middle East. Contextualizing Palestine within the Genocidal World of 1492.

3. This is a conversation that bears witness to the deep terror and distress of the world and still charges forward with undying compassion and care – the compassion and care of wild survival. Check out For the Wild featuring Fariha Roisin

4. One day, our descendants will look back on this time and wonder about our choices — to act, to bear witness, to speak up, or remain silent. Feel Resonance on how we are witnessing history, and becoming a part of it.

5. Not having a fact-based, consistent, or fair discussion of Israel-Palestine is a defining characteristic of the US experience. A Brave Community approach to better discuss Gaza.

Upgrade to paid

Solidarity

When will it be enough? Over 1.5 Million Palestinians have been displaced, over 26,000 Palestinians have been injured, more than 48,000 homes have been destroyed, and over 100 health facilities have been decimated. Not to mention resources such as water, food, electricity, and internet being cut off. And according to the Physicians for Human Rights Israel, they’ve received horrifying reports from Al-Shifa hospital where there is no electricity, no water, no oxygen and where thousands of injured and displaced people are trapped amid ferocious bombardment.

“The red line has been crossed. Following a month of aerial bombardment of civilian and medical infrastructure, a severe siege and a ban on the entry of critical equipment for the continue operation of #hospitals - all hope seems lost. The destruction and killing have reached and unfathomable scale. We demand and immediate ceasefire and an end to the assault in a last effort to prevent further killing of thousands of civilians…we urgently call on all those with conscience worldwide and on the international and medical communities: raise your voice now to protect all civilians in danger. It will be too late to do so tomorrow. We are morally obligated to push for an immediate ceasefire and the release of all hostages.”

Art by @heyimsakina

Digging Deeper

I have found this inquiry profoundly valuable over the last few weeks and invite you to consider the following as you explore how to show up in this moment:

• What are the words you do not have yet? (Or, “for what do you not have words, yet?”)

• What do you need to say? (list as many things as possible)

• What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? (list as many as necessary today. Then write a new list tomorrow. And the day after).

• If we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition‘ ask yourself: “whats the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth? (Answer this today. And everyday).

This resource was adapted from “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” collected in The Cancer Journals by Divya Victor (for students of her Creative Writing courses at Nanyang Technological University in January 2016).

Art by @seedaschool

✨Event Alert✨

How do we practice care and sustain our solidarity for the long haul? 

Join us and a circle of healers, writers, and activists to discuss sustaining our solidarity from individual body to mass movement. Featuring adrienne maree brown, Hala Alyan, Spenta Kandawalla, Noor, Layla Feghali, Sepideh Moafi, Adaku Utah.

Practices of Care & Solidarity 

Monday, November 13th

6EST/3PST

bit.ly/practices4endurance

We-ness

Protect the part of you that still winces at pain. Refuge to become too familiar with tragedy. Our souls were made to stir.

Art and words by @heysarahcarter

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last six years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛