🌱 Leading with 💚 Heart & 🌍 Humanity in a Moment of International Tragedy

We’re taking a break from Hollywood to discuss this weekend’s events. We will return next week with a deeper look at the strikes.

Hi y’all,

It’s been a difficult week for most of us. The events occurring in Israel and Palestine are difficult to fully realize. ❤️‍🩹 My heart has been heavy for the Israelis who were and are being terrorized, the Palestinian people who deserve liberation, and the people around the world seeing and feeling this tragedy.

Today, I wanted to offer three pieces of writing that remind me to be unafraid to lead with 💚 heart and 🌍 humanity in this moment.

Relating to Conflict

This first piece struck me to my core and happens to be written by my partner. As an embodied relational healer, she writes about conflict more generally, what happens within ourselves when we see conflict arise, and offers questions to get in touch with your relationship to conflict.

So many of us are longing. Maybe the words help us feel a little less alone, far away. Nothing we say here will free Palestine (and yet, we long for it). Nothing we say will stop the atrocities happening to Israelis and Palestinians alike (and yet, we long for it). All of that is to say, these wounds are some of the deepest, and I’m here with us, feeling the devastation of being human in this moment.

I hope her words help others to heal in this moment of tragedy and pain. ❤️‍🩹

Relating to Conflict

Dear traveler, I know there has been a lot of social media posting about what’s happening in Palestine and Israel right now. I’m finding myself, as a culturally Jewish, queer American woman who is simultaneously connected and disconnected to these current events, feeling frustrated at how measly and empty words feel. Those squares feel. Again and again.

The Eighth House

On Our Shared Humanity

I want to send a gentle reminder to anyone who wants peace and justice. That dreams of a world where justice comes hand in hand with peace.

“There is an Ubuntu saying, “I am because we are”
When you say hello in Ubuntu, you say “I see you” with the response “I exist.” How profound is that?
You see me and therefore I exist. I exist because you exist.

I wrote this piece a few months back, but it continues to stay with me. I hope it shapes you too.

When We Have No Words

Social media has proliferated our brains into thinking we have to have a response to everything. What happens when we don’t? Or more specifically, when we shouldn’t bring in our opinions?

“The process of spending time with the actual conflict has humbled me to the point that I am these days much more interested in asking questions than I am in making pronouncements.”

The history of Israel and Palestine is long and fraught. Benjamin Wittes has wise words for us all.

How Not to Respond to a Terrorist Attack

I’m afraid it’s not a good evening, but I wish you one anyway. I seldom write about Israeli-Palestinian matters, but it’s not because I don’t think about them. I actually think about them a lot. I run programs in Israel. I spend a fair bit of time there. I have close friends and colleagues there. In my editorial capacity at

Dog Shirt Daily

A Final Thought on Liberation

Today I was doing regular maintenance on my website and reread my words on shaping a new world.

“Tending to new soil asks us to intentionally build new systems with community, equity, and sustainability at their core.

This starts with our own personal and collective growth. Capitalism has given growth a bad name, but not all growth is about extraction and exploitation. We all live and breathe the old rotted roots, which requires us to examine old norms, understand our role and unconscious limitations, and intentionally support our personal growth.”

As the war hawks circle, it is a good reminder for us to remember where our ultimate vision lies and what our role is to get there.

I hope anyone reading this who has been feeling heavy this week tends to themselves and finds space to feel. 🌍 ❤️

In Solidarity,

Sam Chavez