Arundhati Roy, Love in Action

I am deeply inspired by writer and activist Arundhati Roy. She seems to hold one of the keys to actually changing the world, the power to get to the heart of political issues and to the heart of our collective humanness at the same time. She writes about politics, environmental justice, Indigenous rights, nationalism, and social movements, while acknowledging the nuances and intricacies of our human experience, as emotional beings.

To make the world fall in love with a vision of a truly more just, equitable and sustainable world is no easy feat. She inspires the will to actually imagine what that could look like and how to get there. She ignites the passion to forge ahead even through the maddening chaos of the current world we live in. She refuses to submit to those who try to subvert her power, her words, her vision, or her heart.

It takes a lot of skill, and a lot of heart, to invite a society into the collective grieving process of fully bathing in the heartbreak one encounters when truly confronting the realities of a harsh and violent world, to then move through that blazing process into a new paradigm.

I am a climate justice and Indigenous rights activist, who is constantly perplexed by the nuances of opposing worldviews, and oppressive power structures. I want so deeply to believe in the power of the people, the power of collective glory, the power of the human heart, however, the every day work of facing the complexities of the work, and the barriers that stand in the way seem to overshadow the real magic that I do believe lies in the heart of humanity.

My passion is to make sense of the world, to find the common ground where the sees to be none, to look for solutions to the world's complex problems, from Indigenous land rights, to climate change, to political greed, to industries out of control. I endeavor to always come back to a grounded trust in a vision of humanity - that we, the colourful collective, can unite behind a vision and to march forward, despite incredible odds, to create a world based on values of compassion, respect, and reverence.

My entire life was transformed by the work of Arundhati Roy, who addresses oppression head-on with a ruthless intensity, while simultaneously holding her bleeding heart out in the open for the world to see. She manages to capture the patchwork of nuances and complexities of our world, the messiness of worldviews and biases, while always being firmly rooted in the unchanging power of the will to love unabashedly.

In her life and in her work, she massages meaning into the great paradoxes of life, infusing the world with the fragrances of her grace and her fierceness, and I am so deeply blessed and engulfed in her power and in her grace, and invited to massage meaning into my own writing, and my own understanding of love and action.