Right here in our bodies, in our defense of our right to experience joy, in the refusal to abandon the place where we have been most completely invaded & colonized, in our determination to make the bombed & defoliated lands flower again and bear fruit, here where we have been most shamed is one of the most radical & sacred places from which to transform the world.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the power of reclaiming joy and healing in the face of oppression and destruction.
Aurora Levins Morales highlights the importance of reclaiming joy and beauty even in the aftermath of trauma and colonization. It suggests that the wounds we carry can serve as a foundation for radical transformation and healing, encouraging individuals to cultivate life and vibrancy in places that have been damaged, both physically and emotionally. By embracing our experiences and the rights to all feelings, we actively contribute to changing the world for the better.
In practice
A speaker at a social justice rally may use this quote to inspire activists to find empowerment in their experiences.
Solidarity is not a matter of altruism. Solidarity comes from the inability to tolerate the affront to our own integrity of passive or active collaboration in the oppression of others, and from the deep recognition of our most expansive self-interest. From the recognition that, like it or not, our liberation is bound up with that of every other being on the planet, and that politically, spiritually, in our heart of hearts we know anything else is unaffordable.
What is required to face trauma is the ability to mourn, fully and deeply, all that has been taken from us. Only through mourning everything we have lost can we discover that we have in fact survived; that our spirits are indestructible.
For seven days she lay in bed looking sullenly at the ceiling as though resenting the death she had cultivated for so many years. Like some people who cannot vomit despite horrible nausea, she lay there unable to die, resisting death as she had resisted life, frozen with resentment of process and change.
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
We are tapping into what the world wants: to be a part of change.
To be born again means that we must be changed from a negative to a positive self-image - from inferiority to self-esteem, from fear to love, from doubt to trust.
A person can run for years but sooner or later he has to take a stand in the place which, for better or worse, he calls home, and do what he can to change things there.
While conservatism and self-protection might be likened to winter, night, and death, the spirit of pioneering and attempting to realize ideals evokes images of spring, morning, and birth.
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