Tuesday, January 29, 2008, 10:43 PM
A project never changed the world. Self-reliance is self-sufficiency economically....And taking your own decisions...managing your own affairs. ....just having more income does not make you more concerned about other people. You have to organize around certain values - Ela Bhatt
We may say that we serve and are at the service of community or some such, but even that needs to be liberated. Serving needs to be liberated from any hierarchy- neither charity nor servitude nor obligation....not even a hint or whiff. Serve piko a piko (belly button to belly button), all a he also (face to face), until we cannot tell who serves whom and we are served.- Norma Wong
The fingers of people are not all the same length - A. Ol'oiloisolo Massek and J.O. Sidai, Maasai proverb
Only what is really oneself has the power to heal. - Carl Jung
What would it mean if we could find a way to be together that didn't rest on agreement. - Adam Philips
Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. - Edward Abbey
Always be passionately aware that you could be completely wrong. -Dian Marino
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I am Nanci, a Chinese-Syrian poet, adult educator and analyst from Halifax, Nova Scotia, K'jipuktuk, unceded unsurrendered ancestral lands of the M'ikmaq. Originally from Port Colborne, Ontario, my family and ancestors are spread wide.
I am mindful that if I graduated from high school today I wouldn't be able to afford to go to university. This has made me passionate about fairness, especially around money, education. And "agency." I work to connect practical economic opportunities with strategic and structural change. A feminist economics based on relationships, accountability, justice. Connections between voice, choice and body. Between smaller groups, coops and broader organizing and alliance building. Being in step with ourselves so we can be in step with others. How to bridge worlds?
I believe deeply in sharing our stories, dialogue and meaning-making. For me, these are key to bridging, changing norms and narratives, healing. These are issues of consciousness and connection as much as, even more than the technical. How to ensure they're reinforcing rather than at odds?
We have created a peer coaching and consulting collective called Sisters Ink. made of self-employed friends and colleagues from Morocco, Zambia, Switzerland, Mexico, Nigeria, Tanzania, Pakistan, Canada working on issues of gender and economic justice. We bring one another along, provide space for reflection, coaching and moral support that's been so lacking in many of our workplaces. www.sistersink.ca How to embody the change we want to see?
About half of my time, I play, get outside, paddle, write poetry. I volunteer which usually qualifies as play. Sit down and try to make sense out of all of this, write. Meditate. And sometimes I just play.
