How can we go on retreat when the world is on fire?

Hi All,

Here’s some history I’ve been mulling over recently:

In 1919, Mahatma Gandhi returned to India after a successful campaign for Indian rights in South Africa. He spent seven months traveling around India documenting the gross violence and dehumanization that people across the country were suffering under British colonialism and getting more and more angry. At the end of his travels, he released a report documenting everything he found to an audience of British aristocrats. Everyone expected him to funnel his anger and despair into a campaign to overthrow British rule.

But instead, Gandhi went on retreat.

He realized that he could not run the campaign that he wanted if he was solely fueled by anger. He spent a year on retreat, then came out and launched a campaign that forever changed India - the Salt March- where people across the country reclaimed the right to harvest their own salt from the ocean. In the process, they redefined how much of the world sees non-violent resistance.

I learned the details of this story from a book I’m reading right now called the Dharma of Difficult Times by Stephen Cope. Of course violent oppression and devastation are not just historical tools of colonial governments. Right now Palestinians face and endure so much. I feel my own anger - a feeling only matched by my grief - about what's happening in Rafah and around Palestine.

So the story of what led up to the Salt March is a helpful reminder to me because sometimes I feel hesitant myself about the balance between action and reflection. With the world both literally and figuratively on fire - in Rafah in Gaza, where over 35 people were killed after being fire-bombed this weekend; with a major election less then six months away in the US - how can I be inviting people to take time away from their busy lives- from their organizing and their families? Is it self-indulgent?

According to a long-line of activists, organizers and leaders the short answer is no.

Twenty years ago, when I left my first long-term organizing job, I realized that I needed more than anger to fuel my drive for justice. That's when I started a personal practice. At first it was yoga, hiking, meditation, learning about Jewish practice. It was later I discovered somatics, which brought me to my current work training and supporting folks working to end racial capitalism. This purpose is woven throughout all of Embodying Racial Justice’s upcoming retreats. This practice fuels all of my racial justice work.