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

Who I am

I come from ancestors who flourished on the floodplains south of the Yangzi River. They were raised by the gentle cradle and the powerful surges of the river waters. They built adobe houses, cooked in earthenwares, developed a system of writing on turtle shells, and created artwork and jewels using jade. They also gave rise to generations of descendants who eventually gave birth to me. My ancestors lived through droughts and famines, experienced wars and survived massacres, and just like the river waters, I carry their tenderness and power within me.

I have spent the majority of my paid, professional career working on intersectional community issues in philanthropy and nonprofit (industrial complex) spaces primarily in the U.S. and Latin America. I have worked with various organizations on community development, political and civic engagement, immigrant rights, global health, grant management, and policy advocacy. All of this work has affirmed for me, time and again, that all issue areas are connected, all our fates are connected, and the only way to move forward is to create care and safety for all.

I currently live and work on Tongva and Kizh land, colonially known as Los Angeles, California.

My Purpose

13.8 billion years ago, a tiny, dense mass exploded, making atomic particles that created hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, eventually enabling life as we know it. Every single atom in my body, in your body, is made in the same moment that also gave birth to the stars, to the land, the oceans, and to all beings. I am here because I, like you, have atoms that put me here to occupy this particular time-space dimension.

My purpose is to contribute to the story of the cosmos by affirming the fabric of our interconnectedness. I am here to spark generative conversations and actions that affirm life. I am drawn to look at the darkness and devastation of humanity, to ask big questions of it, to wonder how to ever make sense of it, and to move us towards healing. I’m here as part of a process that extends before and after me. I am a descendant and a future ancestor.

My Commitments and Responsibilities

I am committed to the belief that another world is possible. I do not believe the current structures of the world, including racial capitalism, imperialism, exploitation, occupation, etc. are the only possible organizing structures. I am committed to creating a different way of organizing and therefore relating to one another. With this belief, I am steadfastly committed to this world. I believe in humanity. I believe in this. I believe in us.

I am committed to treating simple questions with simplicity and complex questions with complexity. That is to say, my commitment is both to moral clarity and to intellectual uncertainty. I am committed to principled struggle (struggle for the sake of building deeper unity). I’m committed to process and to being in perpetual process. I am committed to being tough on systems and soft on people.

My responsibility is to do my work alongside community. I am responsible for doing continued deep inner work because I know I can only meet you as deeply as I’ve met myself. I am answerable to my community, which includes people who know and care about me personally, people who share my vision for building a world with more liberatory organizing structures, and people who are invested in our shared humanity. My responsibility is to make my 9-year-old and my 90-year-old self proud. I am answerable to the ancestors and descendants in my lineage, both blood and bond, who are committed to the work of healing and justice. I am responsible for the impact and legacy I have on the cosmic fabric of our interconnectedness. I am responsible for all my relations.

My Yearnings

I yearn for deeper connections with the land. I yearn to experience a love that loves through the land: a love that travels from my body to the ground, through the concrete, grazes the mycelium network, picks up nutrients from the fertile soil, and reaches you.

I yearn for a system of care and safety that is strong enough to hold us and gentle enough to let us soften. I yearn for the connections that are formed from the broken pieces of our hearts and from the wet corners of our eyes. I yearn for expansive slowness that can help us to heal our lineages backwards and forward.

Reciprocity: My Offerings and Requests

To our collective work, I offer my political analysis grounded in systems and structures. I offer my capacity to contextualize a flash point event in its larger social and political history, and in the process, help us to see a longer narrative arc and to identify where we can intervene. I offer my skills in connecting the dots and critically think about where we came from and how we got here. I am attuned to identifying the time, place, and conditions that make change possible.

I offer my openness to embracing big heavy emotions as well as holding complex (and perhaps conflicting) emotions at the same time. I am willing to sit down with grief, pain, and devastation and I know that this capacity is connected to my ability to welcome in joy, tenderness, and love.

My request for you, a (current or future) member of my community, is for you to keep me honest and accountable. I am perpetually in process to deepen my trust of my intuition, to let go of the fear of my own power, to heal my deepest intergenerational wounds, and to connect my body to my words and feelings. I ask for you to walk with me on this journey. I ask that you remind me of the importance of hope, beauty, and poetry in the moments that darkness and devastation cloud my vision. I ask that you approach me and my work with loving tenderness and loving feedback that center care and safety for all.

*this way of introducing myself is inspired by the work of Leah Manaema Avene of Co Culture Communication