“It’s better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.” Miyamoto Musashi, The Art of War These days, I find myself newly wrestling with questions of self defense and the uses of nonviolent—and even violent—resistance in the face of rising authoritarianism, aggression, and genocide. Six years ago, I traveled to Thailand with my younger sister and brother (and my brother-in-law) for our annual siblings trip. We were sitting at the beach bar planning our evening when my sister, Jen, told me that she and my brother, Pat, wanted to go see a professional Muay Thai fight later that night. “Absolutely not!” I said. “I don’t support or condone violence.” Muay Thai, or Thai boxing, is the national, full-contact martial art that involves striking, sweeps, and clinching techniques. I went on to explain how horrific it was to watch two people beat and bloody each other. Jen and Pat listened patiently. And then they smiled, stood up, and said, “OK! See you later!” And off they went.  I spent the evening …

This introduction appears in the issue “Rest and Creativity” (Volume 9, Number 1). Click here to subscribe and download the entire issue.  While walking in a recent dream, I stumbled upon a swarm of northern cardinals. Cardinals don’t swarm in the real world, but these did. There were hundreds, crimson, fluttering against each other. Starting atop an old out building, the swarm stretched upward, fanning out into the sky—a pulsing, funnel cloud of red. I eventually found myself in a large museum atrium. In the center stood a circular kiosk of pamphlets and guides to the exhibits. Suddenly a giant gorilla—nearly Kong-sized—appeared in the atrium, thrashing  through the space and causing mayhem. A museum caretaker sprang into action, ushering visitors out the door and away from the fray. She hurried me to a small break room toward the front of the atrium while the gorilla looked elsewhere. Once inside, I watched the caretaker pull a rifle from a locker, when, seconds later, the gorilla shoved his outsized head and right arm through the doorway, staring …

This introduction appears in the issue “Healing Social and Ecological Rifts Part 2″ (Volume 8, Number 2). Click here to subscribe and download the entire issue.  We are thrilled to share the second installment of this year’s double issue, Healing Social and Ecological Rifts. Authors in Part 2 offer unique and provocative insights that both build on and take in new directions the contributions of authors featured in Part 1. Heather Williams’ opening narrative of a road trip through southern California aflame and dehydrated—and the hubristic denial that led to the region’s development—gestures toward discussions of death denial and  “eco-sin” from the first installment. Adam Lobel’s article also deals with death symbolically and literally, inviting readers to learn as much from the messages of dying animals, plants, and ecosystems as from the vibrant life that persists. Lobel further makes an incisive critique of how modern society has conceptualized and enacted a false binary between humans and nature that efforts to “reconnect with nature” subtly perpetuate. Keri E. Iyall Smith provides a timely and necessary call …

This introduction appears in the issue “Healing Social and Ecological Rifts Part 1″ (Volume 8, Number 1). Click here to subscribe and download the entire issue.  The environmental crises we face today are unprecedented: climate change-fueled droughts, fires, and floods; biodiversity loss and species extinction; deforestation; and contamination of our air, water, and soil. These material crises threaten the very basis of life as we know it on earth—human and non-human—and exacerbate a laundry list of historical and contemporary injustices that differentially impact people based on their racialized, gendered, and geopolitical positionality. Anxiety, grief, and helplessness in the face of these realities affects our individual and collective health and wellbeing. This first installment of two special issues of The Arrow: A Journal of Wakeful Society, Culture & Politics begins an exploration of these interlocking issues with the objective of “Healing Social and Ecological Rifts.” This inquiry is framed around the postulate that a shared foundational logic of domination and exploitation—exacerbated by an exaggerated individuality and blindness to our fundamental interconnectedness—drives both ecological crisis and societal …

This introduction appears in the issue “Healing Social and Ecological Rifts Part 1″ (Volume 8, Number 1). Click here to subscribe and download the entire issue.  In March 2020, we invited authors to contribute to this issue with the observation that the “social and environmental crises we face today are unprecedented.” In July 2021—following a year of unprecedented pandemic, fires, and floods coupled with a rise in mobilizations against police brutality and systemic racism—the observation seems to be a truism. The layering of these catastrophes has painfully laid bare the rampant exploitation of people and planet at the root of many disasters, and in turn the mentality of dualism beneath the exploitation. In preparing this issue we asked ourselves, what can we learn from contemplative practices that work to dispel dualistic thinking? How can we create the conditions for empathy, connection, and acting from a deep understanding of interconnectedness? The articles, essays, and poems herein—and forthcoming in a second issue later this year—tackle these difficult questions and more in unique ways, weaving together perspectives from …

This essay appears in the issue “Healing Social and Ecological Rifts Part 1″ (Volume 8, Number 1). Click here to subscribe and download the entire issue.  Scholars most often frame vulnerability as a condition with an implied likelihood of violence or other harm. They classify “the vulnerable” as people who lack resources, face hardships, are marginalized in society, and generally need help. Such vulnerable people are said to suffer disproportionately in disaster events. This framing fits comfortably within a system where the oppressed are encouraged to “build resilience.” In such a system, the negative outcomes that “the vulnerable” experience are predominantly discussed as deficiencies at the level of the individual, and responsibility is placed squarely on the victim. Erinn Gilson observes, “if to be vulnerable is to be weak and subject to harm, then to be invulnerable is the only way to be strong and competent. Invulnerability as a form of mastery is sought at the price of disavowing vulnerability.”1 Striving for invulnerability is hardly a surprising position, and it emerges out of Western modernity, patriarchy …

Interview with Malik Seneferu and William Rhodes On a rare sunny day in San Francisco, two long term friends, artists, and grassroots community leaders, Malik Seneferu and William Rhodes, met in the summer amidst the chaotic backdrop of 2020. While the year brought heightened turmoil to the world, California endured a reemergence of protests against police brutality, coupled with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and a particularly intense start to fire season causing terrible air quality and evacuations for many residents. These two old friends relished the opportunity to meet in-person, albeit outdoors and distanced, for a lively conversation on abolition and spirituality. Brother Malik and Brother William are lifelong artists, they serve as role models in their community, teaching and mentoring young artists, with a focus on Black youth in particular. Malik Seneferu is a prolific painter, muralist, illustrator, and sculptor whose work has traveled internationally, adorning book, magazine and newspaper covers as well as the walls of museums and galleries. William Rhodes is a sculptural artist with a fine arts flare; trained in traditional …

The Rally A little girl marches. Her face contorts. Her little legs struggle to keep up. Her fists raised in the air, she is angry. She wants justice. Her small voice unheard over the crowd. The chants: No justice; no peace. Documented. She becomes iconic. Be mindful of the children! Watch them Listen to them Seek their wisdom They are closest to the soul They are closest to the source They are closest to GOD At home, my parents had created a sanctuary, a place where I was free to be myself: reading, creating, laughing as loud as I wanted. Home was our tiny apartment in The Walt Whitman housing projects of Fort Greene Brooklyn—an oasis from the outside world. I was loved. The end. I was over-loved. My mother and father wanted more than just what the public school across the street could offer. My father, who had not long returned from a trip to Africa when I was around three, could not bear the thought of sending his child to a regular “White …

This essay also appears in the issue “The Necessity of Including Embodiment and Lineage in Racial Justice Work” (Volume 6, Number 1). Click here to subscribe and download the entire issue.  I spent a lot of time during my youth pondering my family story and where I came from. While kicking rocks around my suburban street, I would wonder, “Why do we call ourselves Greek but don’t speak the language or cook the food? Why doesn’t my family feel like other Greek families I know?” My family name comes from someone who signed the Declaration of Independence; my mother’s family holds the Greek ancestry. I’ve always felt that I’ve straddled different worlds. When I say I’m Greek, it feels as if I’m holding onto some name from a previous life. My maternal grandfather (Papou) was a man of noble actions. He taught me that giving someone my word was worth more than gold, and that I should treat everyone I met with honor and respect. When it came to instructing his grandchildren on Greek heritage …

This essay also appears in the issue “The Necessity of Including Embodiment and Lineage in Racial Justice Work” (Volume 6, Number 1). Click here to subscribe and download the entire issue.  The author of this essay is a person of European descent living with the legacy of settler colonialism in the United States. The essay is addressed to people who are white; however, all people are invited to read it. Our search for understanding in matters of race automatically inclines us toward blackness, although that is not where these answers lie. It has become a common observation that blackness, and race more generally, is a social construct. But examining whiteness as a social construct offers more answers. The essential problem is the inadequacy of white identity. We don’t know the history of whiteness, and therefore are ignorant of the many ways it has changed over the years. If you investigate that history, you’ll see that white identity has been no more stable than black identity. While we recognize the evolution of “negro” to “colored” to …