Shavua tov: toward a good week, a blessed week, a week of joy, a week of fighting fascism in all its forms.

#HavdalahAgainstHate
#FlamesAgainstFascism
#CandlesNotCops
#CommunitySelfDefense
#TryJewishAnarchismForLife
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

(photos: #FuckNazis tag spotted on the frigid streets of Tio’tia:ke/Montreal; this evening’s Havdalah candle and its #BlessedFlame)

Tonight, as the last of my Hanukkah candles burned down, it kept flickering out, and then multiple times, burst back into flames.

It offered, quite literally, ritual as resistance, refusing to give up, despite the odds of tonight’s configuration of a sacred time-space lasting.

But ritual as resistance has many other radical, life-giving roles. Among them, our rituals let us deactivate from the stress of what they (e.g., cops, courts, and the state) do to us; instead of reacting to them, we pause. We coregulate. We reignite the sacred fires inside us, and from there, self-determine how to proactively direct our actions and practices.

Indeed, the small act of knowing that we can always light a candle, that we can gaze into its glow and find warmth, find effervescence, is huge in terms of rekindling our spirits, especially when we’re up against the worst.

For instance, that our Hanukkah candles increase day by day isn’t a mere numbers game. What’s illuminated is the growing solidarity between the candies, burning in concert, supplying a felt sense of interconnection and collective possibilities.

This Hanukkah has brought some of the worst to @defendATLforest and @stopcopcity. Six people were arrested, are now being held without bond, and face charges of “domestic terrorism” for caring about a forest. A years’ worth of infrastructure related to mutual aid and forest defense was destroyed by cops and capitalists, as was a paved walkway and many trees in this public park.

But last night, about 100 people “gathered in the rubble of our beloved park to celebrate the solstice, … to build altars in the debris,” as @kezleyseeslife put it. “A crater in the ground was turned into a fire pit. A menorah was lit to celebrate Hanukkah,” added @atlpresscollective. Everything we build, and will keep building, “is born from our already broken hearts. … The forest will heal. We will heal,” Kezley asserted.

(photos: my brightly colored night 5 candles next to @desrevol’s brilliant painting of a possum, mouthing “Abolish the police,” surrounded by brightly colored flowers; picture of the rubble turned into an altar, including the tagged words from some anonymous forest defender, “You won’t win,” in the Weelaunee forest from @atlpresscollective; brightly colored hand-painted sign reading “Let us love and be loved by the forest,” which I photographed pre-rubble in October 2022)

#AllChanukkahsAreBeautiful
#RitualAsResistance
#CandlesNotCops
#TryJewishAnarchismForLife

Tonight, as the last of my Hanukkah candles burned down, it kept flickering out, and then multiple times, burst back into flames.

It offered, quite literally, ritual as resistance, refusing to give up, despite the odds of this evening’s configuration of a sacred time-space lasting.

But ritual as resistance has many other radical, life-giving roles. Among them, our rituals let us deactivate from the stress of what they (e.g., cops, courts, and the state) do to us; instead of reacting to them, we pause. We coregulate. We reignite the sacred fires inside us, and from there, self-determine how to proactively direct our actions and practices.

Indeed, the small act of knowing that we can always light a candle, that we can gaze into its glow and find warmth, find effervescence, is huge in terms of rekindling our spirits, especially when we’re up against the worst.

For instance, that our Hanukkah candles increase day by day isn’t a mere numbers game. What’s illuminated is the growing solidarity between the candies, burning in concert, supplying a felt sense of interconnection and collective possibilities.

This Hanukkah has brought some of the worst to @defendATLforest and @stopcopcity. Six people were arrested, are now being held without bond, and face charges of “domestic terrorism” for caring about a forest. A years’ worth of infrastructure related to mutual aid and forest defense was destroyed by cops and capitalists, as was a paved walkway and many trees in this public park.

But last night, about 100 people “gathered in the rubble of our beloved park to celebrate the solstice, … to build altars in the debris,” as @kezleyseeslife put it. “A crater in the ground was turned into a fire pit. A menorah was lit to celebrate Hanukkah,” added @atlpresscollective. Everything we build, and will keep building, “is born from our already broken hearts. … The forest will heal. We will heal,” Kezley asserted.

(photos: my brightly colored night 5 candles next to @desrevol’s brilliant painting of a possum, mouthing “Abolish the police,” surrounded by brightly colored flowers; picture of the rubble turned into an altar, including the tagged words from some anonymous forest defender, “You won’t win,” in the Weelaunee forest yesterday from @atlpresscollective; brightly colored hand-painted sign reading “Let us love and be loved by the forest,” which I photographed pre-rubble in October 2022)

#AllChanukkahsAreBeautiful
#RitualAsResistance
#CandlesNotCops
#TryJewishAnarchismForLife