It’s Okay, She Can Handle It

I was having a book discussion with women from my beekeeping apprenticeship last week and we got onto the topic of sovereignty and body autonomy.

I teach about asking the bees for permission each time you enter a hive or manipulate them in some way. This is NOT a common practice. In part, because we don’t know how to ask. We aren’t taught emotional and intuitive pathways toward knowing, or ways to work with our feminine side. In a Patriarchal system, we value our masculine side and masculine ways of knowing. Intuition and body knowing don’t have visual evidence to back them up, so they are undervalued.

I have a lot of students come to me after a rather upsetting lesson or in-the-field experience with a conventional, or even natural, beekeeper. It goes like this: beekeeper has an agenda. Beekeeper moves fast. Beekeeper quickly manipulates hive. Student expresses concern. Beekeeper says: “Don’t worry, they can handle it.”

There it is. The ubiquitous term that immediately devalues a being’s sovereignty. Not to stereotype, but only twice in the stories I’ve heard has this beekeeper been a woman.

What got me, is how often this phrase is used when manipulating or harassing humans. The female coworker experiencing sexual harassment: don’t worry she can handle it. The young boy being forced to toughen up: don’t worry he can handle it. The child being “lightly” bullied by their own parents: don’t worry, they can handle it. The 13 year old girl being teased by family for her changing body (me): don’t worry, she can handle it.

This attitude of toughness, or the ability to survive something, is so prevalent we don’t even notice how often we all say it. There’s a different between surviving and thriving. I think this is the crux of modern beekeeping: the commercial beekeeping industry has enforced a model of survival for human gain, dulling our senses to what it means to truly thrive.

The toughen up model of living may be great for survival in challenging environments, but it also comes with the Patriarchal disdain for those girly things like emotions, intuition, softness, gentleness, and god forbid, taking your time.

So next time you hear yourself of someone else say, “Don’t worry, she can handle it,” stop and check yourself. She may be able to handle it, but it does not mean she is okay with it.

Photo by Onyx Baird

She May Not Behave Like You Expect

You may think you know her. You may have read about her behaviour. You may have studied her. You may have experienced her habits. She may be nearly predictable. But, she may not behave like you expect. She is a Queen, after all.⠀

This season I have had more encounters with queens than any before, and the great She is schooling me. We are taught to recognise a series of behaviours in animals, plants, earth and people. we learn to expect them. We greater knowers, like to know things. We like to predict. It makes us feel safe. It helps us steward. But the wild doesn’t read our textbooks or attend our webinars. We forget that each face we encounter, each bobcat, rowan tree, hummingbird, isn’t just an animal, they are a being with a personality, and personalities aren’t always predictable. ⠀

Life is wildly unpredictable. Our sunlight cultivation of order and neat little vegetable rows gets ruffled by errant vines and night visits by the deer people. But oh how we long to be among those unsettling antlered wanders. We know the swarm follows the queen and she hides deep within it, but oh how we long for that moment when she wades bravely along the outside edge. When she does not hide. She confounds us, but we long for a glimpse of her strange mystery.⠀

They say when you hive a swarm, the queen is in the heart of the cluster and stays protected deep inside the new colony. But yesterday she flew in the golden rays and landed on my finger. ⠀

They say a queen mates shortly after hatching, but I have witnessed her waiting weeks, remaining virginal and adored by her sisters. ⠀⠀

She is complex. She is a daughter of the sun and the moon. She yields and she takes no prisoners. She is a mother and a lover. She is discipline and chaos. ⠀

She gives me hope as I step down an unusual road to motherhood, weeping this week in joyous gratitude for the village of people supporting me (you!), while being absolutely brought to my knees in the heavy grief of longing for a partner. 

The Queens. Our ladies of Sun and Shadow, they hold my spirit in their delicate ferocity. In their promise for life. They remind me: be wild, step bravely, let yourself be fed, wait for your time. Walk into motherhood with Her, and like her, be something you could never predict.

The Hobbyist Beekeeper

We humans love labels. We like neat little categories and stacks. One of the definitions beekeepers like to make is between professional beekeepers and hobbyist or backyard beekeepers. This is often used in ways to dismiss backyard beekeepers as uneducated, annoying, or quite possible the problem (re: why bees are dying). The thing is, people have been living with bees for far longer than commercial operations have been keeping bees. It’s not a hobby. There were ancient laws in Ireland established just for beekeeping.

Living with bees is a way of life. We need people in cities and countryside to find ways back to living with the natural world. Community gardens. Rooftop apiaries. Urban farms. Neighbourhood chicken coops. Calling beekeeping a hobby relegates it to something cute, but inconsequential. Ask any beekeeper if their relationship to their hive feels inconsequential. We are in need of more relationship with the non-human world, not less. The non-human world, I dare say, is also interested in relationship with us. Even if that relationship is simply saying hi to the songbirds in the morning. There is an exchange. It is felt. Only our modern, proof-driven minds question this. All indigenous cultures know the Earth and her creatures hear you. Your ancestors knew it. You know it too. It is the way of things.

Photo by @simon_weller

The Long Dark Night is Upon Us

Every good story has a rite of passage. A dark night of the soul. Uncharted waters. The descent into the Underworld. The fall. The path that disappears into the woods. Persephone knows all about it. So does Eve. Isis. Princess Leia. Atreyu. Durga. Frodo. Rapunzel. And Aphrodite, but she’ll never tell.

If you’ve stumbled into a good one, there’s often a guide. A trickster. An old woman. A star. A raven. A ragged dog. A swarm of bees.

Everybody knows you have to follow that staircase down. Everybody feels the tension rise, but no one says, “Go back! The story will just have to end without apples this time.” We all know the only way to Grandmother’s house is through the woods.

But we got fancy. We learned to bypass the woods. We flew over the oceans. We got the app. We poured concrete over the passage to the Otherworld. We ordered delivery. We learned how to explain the reason behind the raven, the star, the dog. Slowly, the treasure map of deep purpose and wild transformation faded in the fluorescent lights of modernity, and nobody could figure out how to make a new one with a 3-D printer.

Some of us looked back, waaaay back, and decided they knew better then. We felt we were born into the wrong time. Some of us looked way forward and decided we’ll have the technology by then. We felt we were born into the wrong time. Sisters I love look at me and say, when will our wombs swell and children come? Men I love look at me and say, we can’t bring children into this world. Not now. Look at it.

Look at it.

Look at it.

The bees are dying. Look at it. Yes, my loves. And they are also birthing. The seas are dying. Look at it. Yes, my loves. And the whales still sing. The ice is melting. Yes, my loves, and it breaks me. Humanity is breaking. Yes, my loves. And the people still sing.

Down we go. The long dark night upon us. The trail lost. Too far in to turn back now. The footprints you were following whisked away by a fierce wind.

 The only way to the house of the elder is through the woods, and by God, when you get there, it may be empty. It may be forgotten. You might have to become it. You humanity, might have to follow Persephone right down into the place where you meet the Minotaur.

Look at it.

Grief. Rage. Joy.

Look at it.

The terror.

This old myth is retelling itself on the grandest stage. It is certainly FULL of guides: that last pod of Orcas in the Salish sea. The record loss of hives each winter. The coyotes in Central Park. We’ve had so many clues.

How long does a rite of passage last anyway? Now the work becomes that ancient art of seeing in the dark. Ask Luke Skywalker how he did it. Find the pieces of ourselves forsaken. Ask Isis how she did it. Reclaim the knowledge imprinted in our twisting helixes. Ask Eve how she did it. Defeat the Nothing. Ask Bastian how he imagined it. Be here, born for this moment, birthing into another. Ask the Earth how she does it.

Paradoxes in Living

Staring out the window, my mind is ricocheting off various topics. The Coronavirus and systemic racism. Varroa mites and treating the symptoms. Climate change and the denial of human abuse to the planet. How you can be a feminist, and still really enjoy when a date foots the bill. How great it can be to foot the bill. The silencing of a women’s voice and the inevitability of two white men vying for power.

How do we measure abuse with the bees? How can we tell? If a woman grows up strong and “fine”, how can you tell what actually happened to her when she was too young to protect herself? The violation of a child. The violation of a woman. The violation of the bees. The violation of the earth. The violation of a peoples. We have to stop, but how? This is what the death of Patriarchy looks like. Seeing the abuses of power at every turn. Eyes wide open. Witnessing the patterns. Breaking them.

If the hive were your child, would you treat her that way?

You wouldn’t look at me and immediately be able to read the trauma of childhood abuse. I certainly never talk about it. But it’s there. It plays into my fears and my ferocity. It fuels empowered reclaiming of my body’s wisdom, and also still wakes me in terror from vague dreams. Shame prevents me from speaking about it. But the story of one person’s twisted use of their own physical power over another is playing out on every channel right now. So loud.

Does it mean I stop falling in love with plum blossoms, moving like honey is rippling through my body, or singing La Vie En Rose at the top of my lungs? Not at all. I’m fucking awesome right now. Life is doing that golden thing we always seek, but rarely get to swim in.

Regardless, I have found that the greater my capacity to swim in the dewy glow of life’s magic, the greater capacity I have to face the shadow of pain and trauma.

How do we teach our children better boundaries and more trust at the same time? How do we care for the bees without projecting our desires for “production” or connection” onto them? How do we stay connected? There is so much paradox in living.

The Wounded Masculine

I just finished teaching a dream retreat based within the Path of Pollen/Lyceum methodologies. As a result, my dreaming has been turned up a notch.

I have been dreaming of love and pain. In my dreams, I am both a man and a woman and we are in love. We are each other. In all dreams, as the woman, I am trying to save the man. And as the man, I am trying to protect the woman. It is always the man who is riddled with bullets or wounds. Who is hunted by the underworld god. Who is bleeding out. Who is fevered and dying. And it is always the woman who is trying to save him. In one, as I wipe away the blood from many bullet wounds I realise that underneath the blood he is covered in a thin layer of propolis. When I see this, I know that he is strong enough to survive. Propolis is, after all, the immune system of the honeybee, made in reverence with the budding life sap of the trees and the inner alchemy bee.

I know that it is not my job to save the wounded masculine, but this week I have been feeling him so strong. In me. In the world. In men. I have been feeling all the places the divine masculine sacrificed himself. All the places the divine masculine has been exiled to the edges of the sea and the desert. Exiled from our tidy, hurried lives. All the places he took the bullet so that we could survive. I know that it is Patriarchy, among other systems of dominance, that has wounded women. Laid claim to our sovereignty. Violated our womb and our bodies. Silenced us. Killed us. The same belief structure has created systems that harm the Earth and all her living creatures. But I also know the this system has cut wounds so deep in men and the masculine that he/we are now fevered with the impact. Burning up. Breaking down.

Today I am simply feeling compassion for all the places in ourselves that have been suppressed, oppressed and violated by the current system of dominance we live within. I want to cry tears into the bullet wounds I witnessed in my dreams and watch them wash the injuries clean.

Call it resurrection of the self. Call it saving each other. Call it the deep work. Call it the shadow. Call it the beloved. Call it what you will, but regardless of where you fall in the spectrum of expression that we call the masculine and the feminine, we are in the laboured work of healing. We need all of ourselves. We need the feminine flow and masculine sturdiness. We need the women’s holding and men’s tears. We need the moonblood and the salt. We are calling our exiled, wild soul back to ourselves.

Oh, my beloved, come close: I am willing to look into that dark chasm of wounding and coat it with my tears, my love, my lion’s roar, my propolis, and my honey.

Dismantling the Inner Patriarch

I couldn’t bring myself to write a Friday post ON Friday because I was in the middle of my own maelstrom of self-doubt. On Friday I flew to LA for the most incredible opportunity to speak at the Natural Beekeeping Conference put on by @Honeylove.

I had been invited to speak on the topics I often write about: why we keep bees and my experiences with bee shamanism. While I love these subjects, I am not used to talking about them at a conference in front of people with complex presentations on innovation, science, methodology and technique. ⠀

As the weekend went on I gathered so much applicable, fascinating information. I took copious notes. I listened to captivating conversations. But I also, quietly railed against my own nature, questioned my professional value, and felt exquisitely sensitive to the fact that my presentation was NOT about how to keep/save/study bees. It was about restoring our relationship with bees. I spoke a lot about love, mystery, and the liminal. ⠀

I wasn’t due to speak until the end, so I had all this time to question everything I stand for. To feel small as a woman. To feel like my work didn’t have value without quantifiable, tangible, physical proof. I fell for the top down model of valuing intellect over intuition. Patriarchy got me good. I was submerged in the quagmire of what happens when we let a world view tell us that one aspect of our humanity is more relevant than the other. It was fascinating.⠀

I basically gave a talk in support of all that was being suppressed by my own interior judge. It felt great. Well, the judging felt like shit, but the talk felt great. So did the camaraderie, reception from those who attended, and the commingling over the weekend, of so many devoted folks. I am so fortunate to be in a field that is starting to value the feminine/intuitive/somatic experience alongside our more “traditional” values.⠀

What could be possible for this Earth if we married the exquisite intellect with the intelligence of the body and intuition? Maybe we should ask the bees.

Hymenoptera: veil-winged

Hymenoptera: veil-winged. An order of insects including wasps, sawflies and honey bees, but particularly connected, linguistically, to the goddess culture at its ties to the honey bees. Hymen is derived from Greek and means “membrane” or “veil”. It denotes not only the veil within the virginal maiden, but also the veil draped before in innermost sanctum of the temple of the goddess. It also came to represent the veil between the outer world and the hidden inner world of women’s mysteries, both physically and spiritually.

Honey bees are said to arrive with the heliacal rising of the seven sisters, or Pleiades, in the East every spring. Born of the constellation Taurus, the bull, the bees rise in the spring bringing life. The bull is an ancient symbol of the goddess and goddess culture. Through the union of the bees borne of the bull we receive the sustenance of life: milk and honey.

Mirrored in the stars, these seven celestial bees hold the story of the veiled one as well. With the suppression of the goddess culture many myths were rewritten. The seven sisters became seven daughters, one of whom was named Merope or “bee-eater”. She dared to love and wed a mortal and for this she was shamed, turning her face away and dimming her light in the night skies. While every Greek myth has many versions, it’s important to remember they all have threads running back to old memory and old ways that venerate the feminine instead of shame it. In another version these sisters are seven doves, like the doves or priestess that flew out of Africa and founded the three major oracular centers in the Ancient world, including Delphi, where the Delphi Bee gave oracle.

In some myths they were the nymphs of Artemis, who was deeply tied to the bee nymphs (melissae) and the guardian of the wild bees. And in still oldrer, obscure myths the stars were in fact, seven bees: six daughters and their queen, who remains veiled (hidden) in the inner sanctum of the temple of the bee.

Food for thought next time you don your bee veil to go whisper to the bees.

Imposter Syndrome

I have a few drums I beat in my cave of honey and hum. I beat the drum for natural beekeeping and bee sovereignty. I beat the drum for the womb-beat of the Earth. I beat the drum for the rise and integration of the feminine with all peoples, industries, and businesses. I beat the drum of dismantling the Patriarchy (that one is low and reverberating AF). And I beat the drum of calling for more women’s voices in beekeeping. I’m polyrhythmic.⠀⠀

Which is why I found it so fascinating when, whilst sounding the horns and ringing the bells for more women’s voices in the conversation on beekeeping, I blanched when asked to be one of them, on a stage. ⠀⠀
Recently I was asked to be a speaker at the Natural Beekeeping Conference. A place filled to the brim with people I admire. I said yes immediately. Did a jig. Thanked the goddesses and then freaked the eff out about “my topic”. Suddenly, I felt like an imposter. I began the good ol’ comparison game. I counted my years of “experience” on my fingers and asked “Do I measure up?” I counted my hives and asked “do I have enough?” I am not a scientist. I am not in charge of 100 hives. I am not published. ⠀⠀

I immediately questioned the importance of my voice in the narrative of beekeeping. Here’s the catch, the wonderful folks at the conference aren’t asking me to discuss mite-resistant local stock or how urban beekeeping is making a difference, they are simply asking me to speak to what I already know. Why do we do this to ourselves? Women in particular learn from such an early age that we should differ to the “expert” the room. That we aren’t smart enough, strong enough, pretty enough, funny enough, or enough. The bees don’t care if you’re enough. Just show up. Show up for what you love. Be that voice, no matter how loud, quiet, weird, contrary, or charismatic. A bee never has to question her place in her hive. Why do we? ⠀

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So here's a glass to all the time you've felt like a weirdo, or not enough, or an imposter, or not qualified, but you showed up anyway, because your voice is part of changing the story of our times.

3rd Day of Yuletide: Mistletoe

“The Druids held nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the tree that bears it, always supposing that tree to be the oak….They call the mistletoe by a name meaning, in their language, the all-healing.” - Pliny

It has not been so very long that we have lived as if our lives did not depend on the crops, the seasons and the forces that move determine them. When dark winter reigned, people looked to that which brings life. They looked to the sun deities of rebirth. They looked to the fertile promise of life held within the female form, honouring traditions like mother’s night. They also looked to that which lasts even in the heart of winter. This is where the tradition of bringing the ever-green into the home to deck the halls and the mantle. The holly, ivy, pine, fir and of course, mistletoe. It only makes sense that this sacred all-healing herb of fertility found its way into our modern traditions, without losing its essence of the promise of life. For what does a kiss under the mistletoe represent at its heart? The promise of love, life, and renewal. As a side note, mistletoe wasn’t the only green associated with kissing. In parts of England, there was also a “kissing bush” made from evergreen and holly, and filled with red apples or red paper “roses”.

While popularised as a kissing sprig for the hopeful, it has other folk customs associated with it. In France it is given as a gift on New Year symbolising peace and luck. In Sweden, similar to the Yule log ash, the mistletoe was placed on doors and mantles to protect from lightning. In England it was given to athletes because it held all the distilled “soul” or power of the Oak tree it grew up.

Whether you are decking the halls with sprigs of mistletoe for fertility, for luck, for peace or for strength, remember it is an utterly pagan tradition that remained strong, despite the Church trying to ban it. I would like to think that’s because nobody wants to get rid of a tradition that involves kissing in the darkest time of the year. This was the time of year that the wild revelry of Roman Saturnalia took place after all.

That's My Language

Hi, my name is Ariella. I’m a beekeeper. It’s not a hobby. I don’t make my money from honey. I don’t make my money from carting bees around the country on semi trucks for mass pollination events. I only have a few hives. But beekeeping is part of my profession. I am a teacher of beekeeping plus some other real cool shit. It’s part of the business I run, because I’m also a boss. It’s not cute. Or sweet. Or adorable. I wear skirts. This is also not cute. Not sweet. Or adorable. But sometimes I am cute, sweet, and adorable. Running a business is not. That’s the difference. So today I want to raise a glass to all the bee business boss ladies out there who aren’t playing by the rules. ⠀

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You might be tough as nails, dressed in overalls, selling honey at the local farmers market. You might be getting your nails done and discussing whether or not to expand your apiary with your bestie. You might be biking between hives in some metropolis, joyful and determined. You might be establishing a honey bee sanctuary while raising kids and writing your dissertation. You might be cute too. You might wear skirts. You might not. You might be fierce. You might be butch. You might be ethereal. You might be any multitude of multidimensional magnificence and also happen to run your own business DOING WHAT YOU LOVE. One thing I’ll say about running a business: it’s never cute. You’re never a busy little bee. You’re a Queen. Know the difference. Own the difference. You work hard. For every hour in a sun dappled field of apple blossoms, there are 10 hours of bookkeeping, computer screens, tough choices, late nights, early mornings, long schleps, invoices, marketing, bullet journals, and careful investments of your precious time, money and energy. You’re also doing this because you fell in love. Never forget it. You’re here for the winged ones. You made a place for yourself where the industry said there was none. You said, “See that language being spoken over there? The one filled with the hum of 60,000 sisters? That’s my language, so please, let’s go have a listen, or kindly get out of my way.”

Mother For President

I’ve been thinking a lot about women’s voices lately. I’ve been thinking about what would happen if more women were voted into office, or if more women were invited to speak at basically any conference that’s not for, or already about, women. I’ve been noticing the changes too: how I can casually talk about my menstrual cycle around my male friends, or how pumping milk at work is suddenly something normal to see on Netflix shows. For god’s sake, it’s starting to be okay to talk about the normal function of our bodies.

Here we are, making all this progress about what we can say and do in comparison to our grandmothers and their mother’s mothers. Sure, that’s amazing. I can talk about having two miscarriages on social media and I won’t be publicly hushed or shamed. But also, how on earth do we address the grave transgression on the body of the non-human when we are still struggling for a place of equality among genders. Not to mention atrocities done to other races and nationalities. ⠀

We see all these cries of dismay: “the lungs of the earth are burning!” Yes, I agree, this is horrifying. Meanwhile, I’m grateful my bees are still alive because California isn’t burning...this year...yet. Count my blessings or pull my hair out? Which is it to be today?⠀

So here’s today’s thought: it’s not so much that we need to learn to respect our mother (which we certainly do), but rather we need to remember the Mother. Not just the archetype, but that age-old wisdom that valued Mother as synonymous with life. That same wisdom built shrines, temples, halls, even entire religions around Mother. Because you know what a mother does? She feeds her children with food she’s made with her own superhero body. She literally gives them life and then she protects them while they grow. And do her children burn her lungs in return? Not usually.⠀

It’s not just that there’s a need for the feminine voice in science/politics/agriculture/education/theology/everything, but rather a remembering of the Mother‘s voice. And no, I don’t mean the mother issues you talk about in therapy. I mean doing away with Freud and other such bullshit and coming back into relationship to the feminine voice that includes the Mother for all that she is: the Mother who is sovereign in her queendom, who is sexy as fuck in her body, heart, and mind, who is fierce in her rage, who is still learning from her elders, who is teaching her young, who trusts her intuition, who is revered, but not for her hierarchy. She is revered because she is her own being, and also, because, consequently, she brings life. Kinda like, oh, a queen bee.

Our attention on the feminine often falls to the maiden: she who is still becoming (she who is desired by men). I love the maiden. I also love the lover (a 4 female archetype to discuss another day). But culturally, we don’t really see the mother.

She’s not on our magazine covers, unless we want to show off how sexy she is while pregnant or how quickly she lost that baby weight. And if we do see her, she is only Mother. That is her only identity. We are so one dimensional in our seeing. No wonder we can let the lungs of our mother burn, or her blood dry out. We don’t see her.

Luckily, in this bubble experiment that is social media, I see mothers. So many of you. Using your voice as a mother and besides being a mother. More please. More mothers’ voices. Your true voices, stronger than the chains of patriarchy and social expectation. Full of the brazen authenticity and vulnerability that will wake us up from our collective amnesia. Oh and to all you women out there who aren’t/can’t be mothers with your bodies, but are creating life in your own way? I’m talking to you too. I’ve spent enough years in the maiden archetype, and I’m all about the crone, but it’s time to embrace the Mother, because we all know she’s a Queen.

#mother #queen #feministbeekeeping

Untangling the Narrative

Yesterday I had another rude awakening in the long journey of untangling the poisoned threads of Patriarchy. Before I go any further, let’s establish once more that Patriarchy is a well-fed idea, whose systemic markers are expressing themselves within all of us. Dismantling the Patriarchy requires and inward gaze, as well as a recognition of its expression in society, infrastructure, classism, racism, and sexism.⠀⠀

Forward ho! So, I have an Instagram bookclub (#honeyreads) where I recommend books on bees, ecology, and the feminine. This month I recommended Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner's lectures on bees. I was vaguely aware of his racism, but felt his view on bees worthy of sharing. And that alone, irks me about the inherent nature of white blindness. Yesterday I discovered the extent of his racism and white supremacy. Here’s a quote from him: “If the blonds and blue-eyed people die out, the human race will become increasingly dense ... Blond hair actually bestows intelligence.” ⠀⠀

I feel like the only thing I can do is dismiss all his work. I feel angry at all the times I’ve heard people say “he was just a product of his times.” I’m a product of my times, and I can either be supportive of concentration camps for children in the United States or I can fight against them. The times don’t justify your beliefs about superiority over another rare, gender or sexual orientation. I want to cut him out the way we cut out cancer, but is that the answer? I went digging. Wanna know who else fits the profile or either racist or sexist/misogynist?

So many (mostly white) dudes who greatly contributed to, well, everything. I mean obviously, right? But here’s a starter list anyway: Albert Einstein, James Watson, Aristotle, Friedrich Nietzsche, Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Jefferson, Mohandas Gandhi, Roald Dahl, T.S. Eliot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Charles Darwin. The cut-out-the-cancer model is one way to deal, but how do we address the whole body holding the illness? How can we recognise the uncomfortable, wrong, and unjust, and face it so that we can heal them?

 How do we tease out the fibers of value within the works of people who were/are deeply flawed and downright harmful?

How do we benefit from Einstein’s Theory of Relativity while also addressing his views on the Chinese? How do we celebrate the writing of Vonnegut while also looking at his beliefs that women can’t be educated? Or appreciate Steiner’s contribution to social reform (and bees) while untangling his sickening beliefs about non-white races. Perhaps it starts with looking at it. I wanna look away so badly. But looking at it and patiently examining how someone’s belief might just play into their brilliant findings/writings/philosophies. It becomes your job not to consume such works whole, but to ask: what is valuable? What is true? What is influenced by sexism/racism? What needs to be reworked here? What did I believe out of ignorance? How can I keep looking with more discernment? How can I take this work and bring more ethics, awareness, justice, and equality to it? Where are the resources that disrupt the passing on of nearly invisible systemic disease? Look it in the eyes. Nothing set out to sabotage the sovereignty of a race/sex likes to be seen with the curtains pulled back. It prefers to function in the subconscious corridors of conditioning. Keep being willing to look at it and ask the difficult questions. Not just about the oppressors, but about yourself as well.