Snakegirl dot net, home of Beverly Thomson

Link: http://snakegirl.net/

I may have her last name wrong. I found her web site by searching for "squat nyc" back in 2001. I sent her an email, and later ran into her on the subway, recognizing her from a picture on her website. The cool sort of thing that happens in the pedestrian world of NYC.

We don't keep in touch (except perhaps this way), and friend isn't quite the right word for someone I've only spent a bit of time with. But she amazes me, as she seems as made for the academic world as I am circumspect and hesitant about it, and she is a hard-core activist, a la "starhawk," and these counter-culture rock stars I like to keep in the corner of my eye. There are parallels in my mind between her and Rebecca Spencer, and also with Patrick Wong, but only because I'm thinking of like-aged people I know in academia... and Patrick really tore that up. On the other hand—

Added by colin #442 on 2004-09-11. Last modified 2004-09-11 19:20. F0 License: Attribution
Location: World, United States, Idaho, Boise
Topics: personal: friends, women

Colin Leath <>

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Activism and spirituality and ..., by colin on 2004-09-11 20:04:49

So I get to checking up on starhawk, and find Toward an Activist Spirituality.

and:

To me, conflict is a deeply spiritual place. It's the high-energy place where power meets power, where change and transformation can occur.

Part of my own spirituality is the conscious practice of placing myself in places of conflict. As someone in the Pagan Cluster said after the February 15 antiwar rally in New York, which was seriously harrassed by the police, "When everyone else was running away from trouble, we were running toward it." I run toward it because I generally believe I can be useful there—sometimes de-escalating potential violence, sometimes just holding a clear intention in the midst of chaos, sometimes just as a witness.

This is one of those essays that bam, bam, bam addresses things I have wondered about, or encountered and let pass, that seems written in response to questions I have or might have asked (like Ed meets Edah. It is quite something when you pick up a formal publication from a successful cult that seems written wittily and directly in response to interaction with you.).

No sane person with a life really wants to be a political activist. When activism is exciting, it tends to involve the risk of bodily harm or incarceration, and when it's safe, it is often tedious, dry, and boring.

And,

In New Age circles, a common slogan is that "What you resist, persists."

brings me to beautiful Sandrine, who deserves a link of her own here.

There is something I'm still letting pass.

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