Dear Friends,
I was in the mountains, offline, to celebrate the completion of my book. I held a blessing ceremony amid high desert cottonwood and ancient springs with a circle of sisters, and we wished for the book to be medicine for the aching world. Then, the moment I turned on my phone — the assassination attempt.
There is shock. Many of us have not witnessed an assassination attempt on a current or former president in our lifetime. An already destabilized election season has become darker and more destabilized, and we feel confused and afraid and ask: “What will happen next?”
There is not shock. We live in a culture of enormous violence—gun violence, state violence, racial violence, hate violence—and the loudest voices in our culture leverage the energies of cruelty and vengeance to fuel that violence. In terrible irony, few have contributed so mightily to that culture of violence than the candidate who was harmed.
There is sadness. Sadness for the state of our democracy, for our nation, for those killed and injured. And on the heels of sadness, there is fear. Fear for the future of our democracy, for our nation, for ourselves.
Let yourself feel all things, but this I say to you: Refuse the spread of despair. We are part of what happens next. Each of has power, in our sphere of influence.
Will we spread panic, ridicule, disdain, dread, despair? Or will we spread courage, determination, grief, humanity?
You may feel the impulse to withhold your condemnation of violence; to ridicule the situation with sarcasm and spite; to give in to despair, and let that despair calcify into paralysis. You may want to give up on this election, on this democracy. You would have every reason to make that choice.
Courage is not a calculation of the mind; it is a choice of the heart.
What if this is the moment we double down on our commitments to each other—to a vision of an America where routine blood-letting and policies of oppression are relics of history, where we replace a culture of violence with a culture of belonging, dignity, and love? Not just every election but every day.
You might say: I am only one person. This is way beyond my control. The question becomes: Who do you want to be?
This moment in history is calling for the best of us. Hold fast to the people who bring out the best in you.
This September, I invite you to join us on the Revolutionary Love Bus Tour, a healing odyssey across the country igniting people to rise up in courage, humanity, and love. We will come together in storytelling, music, ancestral wisdom, and community building. We will start in the thick of the election season and continue through spring 2025. At every stop, we will equip communities with tools to put Revolutionary Love into practice. Together, we will share fresh medicine for hope and healing.
We will announce the tour publicly next moth. In the meantime, please join us in this cultural intervention—
1) Donate.
2) Volunteer.
3) Pledge to bring your people.
Onward,
Valarie
P.S. I’m in the recording studio every day this week to create the audio book of Sage Warrior. I’m going to be broadcasting live on Instagram Live @valariekaur this Thursday 9:30AM PT / 12:30PM ET. Please click here to join me! I’ll be giving you a tour of the studio and talking about what it’s like to record this book on ancestral wisdom during the events of the week. I’ll also take any of your questions. See you there!
The Revolutionary Bus Tour
The Revolutionary Love Bus Tour is…
a cultural intervention,
an antidote to despair,
a sojourn into ancestral wisdom,
a collective teach-in,
a catalyst for a shared future.
Learn more and contribute here
The Revolutionary Love Project envisions a world where love is a public ethic and shared practice in our lives and politics. We generate stories, tools, and thought leadership to equip people to practice the ethic of love in the fight for social justice.
Follow Revolutionary Love on Facebook and Instagram
The Revolutionary Love Project envisions a world where love is a public ethic and shared practice in our lives and politics. We generate stories, tools, and thought leadership to equip people to practice the ethic of love in the fight for social justice.
Follow Revolutionary Love on Facebook and Instagram