In March 2023, when more people got arrested and charged with “domestic terror” for the non-crime of caring about forests and life, as embodied in the @defendatlantaforest and @stopcopcity movement, a whole ecosystem of solidarity—already well grounded—mushroomed in size and variety. And to my mind (and heart), a particularly essential yet often overlooked piece of solidarity emerged: collective emotional care, or emotional mutual aid.

That took the form of, say, in-person care clinics, gifts of medicinal herbs, and grief spaces, to therapists and other healers lending virtual support, to two earlier care-focused webinars that I pulled together, mostly behind the scenes, with tech aid from the @the_cldc and @chava_lah. (A recording of the webinar by the amazing Nicole explaining PTSD and trauma from state repression, and numerous ways to cope, can be found in the link at @solidarity.apothecary.)

Now, I’m humbled that three other remarkable folks—like Nicole, all former defendants who are committed to a politics of care, and all incredibly wise, skilled, and loving—are gathering for a third webinar, kindly Zoom hosted by @firestormcoop. You won’t want to miss the ways that @ashwilliamsclt, @_fouquieria_, and @banderitanegra engage in “Cultivating Care & Resilience to Weather the Stress of State Repression.”

No need to register! Just tune in on Tuesday, July 18, from 7 to 8:30 pm EST, via bit.ly/resiliencecare.

And bring friends and accomplices, especially those you know are going through waves of emotional turmoil—whether they (and/or you) are doing jail or legal support, fundraising or letter writing, awaiting trial, continuing to organize, and/or so much more that keeps up the good fight.

As this webinar, which will be recorded, notes, “The goal of state repression is to divide and fragment [us, including via] stress. It’s a tactic meant to fuck with our heads. And too often, it works. The fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and loss of control over our lives can be so overwhelming that we turn on each other with lateral aggressions, crushing us and our solidarity. How do we not let the state win in this way?”

#CollectiveCare
#ArtOfResilience
#UntilAllAreFree

So many ideas for various “picture-prose” pieces have been floating around in my head—and so many photos of the #ArtOfResistance have been filling up my phone. Yet there have been way too many “real life,” aka in-person, happenings to carve out the time-space to craft words for Mastodon—most of them sweet, even if overwhelming, like helping to co-organize this weekend’s huge #MontrealAnarchistBookfair.

So for now, I’m savoring the fact that social media isn’t lording over my “life” as much. Instead, I’m grateful for what has become so much more rare since pandemic times, and thus so much more precious: face-to-face human connections that also revolve around face-to-face anarchist connections, including friends old and new. And I hope to say hello to and swap stories with a whole lot more of you in person this weekend!

No doubt, this current moment will end. Such is the poignancy of all our anarchist time-spaces: we continually have to make and remake them, carrying memories and social relationships between them.

There will, alas, be a “downtime,” and my picture-prose pieces on social media will re-emerge—part of my own #ArtOfResilience to help get me through. To help me dream aloud when dreamy days feel further away, and mourn well and rebelliously too, since our grief is a carrier for what we love and fight for.

For now, here’s a tiny glimpse of a tiny sticker I saw outside a cooperative bar that lent its time-space to host a fundraiser the other night on the stolen lands of Tio’tia:ke for @stopcopcity. For it’s true: whether here in Montreal or amid @defendatlantaforest, the land already knows it is free. It just needs us humans, especially those who think they can play god with it, to let the land be free of colonialism and capitalism and so much else that separates us from ecological and egalitarian lives.

(Photo: Pink and blue sticker with the words “The land needs no ‘lords.’”)