Nectar ignites our desire and grows our capacity to live in liberated ways

Guiding Principles

“What if abolition isn’t a shattering thing, not a crashing thing, not a wrecking ball event? What if abolition is something that sprouts out of the wet places in our eyes, the broken places in our skin, the waiting places in our palms, the tremble holding in my mouth when I turn to you? What if abolition is something that grows?”

- Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Political Frameworks

Transformative Justice: transformative justice analyzes the underlying conditions that enable harm and injustice, seeks to transform these conditions, and invites us to get in the right relationships in order to create love, care, and safety for all. Transformative justice challenges me to expand my political imagination and to push the boundaries of what is deemed possible.

Regeneration: nature is generative and regenerative. To use regeneration as a framework is to view our work and our lives as cyclical, seasonal, growing, and connected. Regenerative practices allow for sustainability and longevity.

Interdependence: we are in this together because our liberation is bound up with each other. Cultivating interdependence with our planet and our communities is the only way to move towards liberation.

Emergence: adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy guides us to “intentionally change in ways that grow our capacity to embody the just and liberated worlds we long for.” Some principles of emergence that I remind myself to continually practice include: there is always enough time for the right work; the large is a reflection of the small; never a failure, always a lesson; focus on critical connections more than critical mass; less prep, more presence.

When I show up with you, when I show up in community, I remind myself

All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change,
Changes you.

- Octavia Butler

Spiritual Values

Embrace complexity: human beings are complex, stories are complex, and social movements are complex. Embracing complexity means dismantling the boundary between “good” and “bad,” [which, must be clarified, does not mean evading accountability] and creating spaciousness for seemingly conflicting truths and feelings to exist all at once.

Hold tenderness: in social justice work and in dreaming about liberation, I often feel deeply painful emotions. I hold them with tenderness. I hold you with tenderness. We will be softer from having shared this tenderness.

Share joy: liberation is about poetry, music, dance, and our souls as much as it is about social movements. Experiencing joy and sharing joy is embodying liberation.

Lineage

It is always difficult to acknowledge explicit lineage because we have all been influenced by so many people and ideas in our lives.

It is not possible to name all who have guided me. So this is an attempt to name the names that are most salient to me in this moment. It is an honor to learn from them and to move through the world carrying the impact of their work.

My work is informed and inspired by a long lineage of souls: Grace Lee Boggs, Angela Davis, Mia Mingus, adrienne maree brown, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, rupi kuar, Nayyirah Waheed, Cathy Park Hong, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, bell hooks, Paulo Freire, Audre Lorde.

I am grateful for the wisdom and gifts from my ancestors: blood ancestors and movement ancestors, living ancestors and the ones who have transitioned. I also exist in deep relationship with the souls known to me in my personal life. I learn from them and co-create with them.