“Of course, there is no absolute assurance that those things I plant will always fall upon arable land and will take root and grow, nor can I know if another cultivator did not leave contrary seeds before I arrived. I do know, however, that if I leave little to chance, if I am careful about the kinds of seeds I plant, about their potency and nature, I can, within reason, trust my expectations” (p. 90)

“Instead, growing the world we want is like the slow tending of a garden, transforming the plants by fostering relationships, trust, skills, community accountability, and healing. It requires cultivating new habits internally, seeding restorative ways of being together interpersonally, uprooting practice of inequality institutionally, and planting alternative possibilities structurally. If we only concentrate on our internal work while ignoring the fires burning all around us, we’ll eventually be consumed. But if we only concentrate on putting out the blaze, we’ll eventually burn out.” (p. 54)

I think I know what sort of person I am. But then I think, But this stranger will imagine me quite otherwise when he or she hears this or that to my credit, for instance that I have a position at the university: the fact that I have a position at the university will appear to mean that I must be the sort of person who has a position at the university. But then I have to admit, with surprise, that, after all, it is true that I have a position at the university. And if it is true, then perhaps I really am the sort of person you imagine when you hear that a person has a position at the university. But, on the other hand, I know I am not the sort of person I imagine when I hear that a person has a position at the university. Then I see what the problem is: when others describe me this way, they appear to describe me completely, whereas in fact they do not describe me completely, and a complete description of me would include truths that seem quite incompatible with the fact that I have a position at the university.

“There is an art to flocking: staying separate enough not to crowd each other, aligned enough to maintain a shared direction, and cohesive enough to always move towards each other. (Responding to destiny together.) Destiny is a calling that creates a beautiful journey.

Emergence is beyond what the sum of its parts could even imagine” (p. 13)

“…our friendship, and its deep roots in responsibility and love, is a space for us to continually learn, hold one another to loving accountability, and refuse the neoliberal academy” (p. 2)

“...maybe it’s not so much about being recognized as who we are as it is about staying together, feeding each other, knowing where we are, and moving through.

My love to my pod in all directions. The smooth and the not quite so smooth. Those of you showing your back and those showing your belly. Those of you breaking through the surface and those staying in the deep. It’s an honour to be in the midst of you. Look around, listen out. Here we are.” (p. 54)

“In order to cultivate a state of healthy interdependence, we must wade into the painful waters of past injustice and begin to develop and practice new ways to transform conflict and redress harm. As a part of this effort, we must each commit to humbly examining the ways we have internalized messages of inferiority and superiority, make healing a central part of our work together, and cultivate the skills we will need to build principled communities of struggle.

This is the work. Sometimes, it is very difficult. It makes us feel uncomfortable.” (p. 15)

“Study, in fact, often includes struggle, grappling with ideas and practices in the pursuit of freedom—a far cry from ‘diversity and inclusion.’ This form of study has been essential to the struggle to gain access to study further. In fact, there is no divide between political struggle and study. They interlope, intertwine, and depend on each other.” (pp. 33-4)

“Let’s talk about how relationality plays out in Indigenous contexts. Part of being in a meaningful relationship with another being is recognizing who they are, it is reflecting back to them their essence and worth as a being, it is a mirroring. Positive mirroring creates positive identities; it creates strong, grounded individuals and families and nations within Indigenous political systems. So at the same time I am looking into the mirror, I also am the mirror. What do I mirror back to my kin? Dysfunction? Criticism? Cynicism? … to me, seeing someone else’s light is akin to working to see the energy they put into the universe through their interactions with the land, themselves, their family, and their community” (pp. 180-1)

“One downside to the urgency that we bring to our mutual aid work can be that we dive right into the work, very concerned about how many people our project is helping, but fail to create good internal practices for our group to be strong and sustainable…we have not been taught to notice or care about how things went along the way to a victory, whether people’s capacity for confronting the next challenge was improved, or whether it was destroyed through burnout or damaging group dynamics…” (pp. 65-6)