Love

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  ON ,,, nf. mother (Ph. ,אם‎ Ar. 1 AE Eth. 225, Sab. ON (only in npr. cf. e.g. Bae™'™*) As. ummu COT &°s; Aram. אִימָא ,אֶם‎ ]5/(-- א'‎ abs. Gn 32”+; estr. ם3)‎ 3% ; sf. ‘8 Gn 20" +etc.; tpl. only sf. 1308 La 53; אִמתֶם‎ Je 16° La 2”-”;—1., lit. (human) mother, as parent Gn 2013244” Ex 2° p51’ 113° (opp-M py) 7615*" 20" 22% 50” 1 Ch4° Ct6° 8* + ; hence of Eve OY ָּלתִי‎ Gn 3”; poet. of birth, OS [DAD יָצָא‎ Jb 17" Ec my benefactor fr. birth Thes Ew Hup Pe); also קְבְָרִי‎ AS TD Je 20%; OS מִבָּמֶן‎ = fr. earliest exist- ence 11167 Jb31 22"; so ON YD Is4q'; as giving suck Ct 8! (BN (שדי‎ y 22” cf. 1317 (v. Ex 2° cf. v5); as exercising authority Gn 217 24% 27 15+ Ju 177f Ru לד‎ Ct 378" etc.; esp. of queen- mother as possessing dignity & influence 1 K 1" 2181920 2 Ch 227% Ct 3" Pr 311; cf. names of mo- thers of kings of Judah 1 K 147") 15784; as shewing love & care 182% 1K 37 17% 2K 4* Is 66. (sim. of ””’s comforting his people; ef. also Gn 27*); as beloved & lamented 1K 19” (אָב||)‎ Gn 247 ¥ 35"; WN }Z2=own (uterine) brother Gn 43”; & || אֶח‎ Gn 27” Dt 137 ג(‎ 8% 50” 69° Ct 1° ef. 8%; so SONND Ly 18° 207 Dt 27” (|| P2872) Gn 20”; oft. with AN, as parentes Je 16° Zc 13** Is 8*; as rightfully claiming honour, authority, etc., 01. supr., Gn 287 (P) cf. 37 (EB) Ju ד‎ 47% so in precept Pr 156" 10! 15” ete. ef. Ez 227; laws enjoining these Ex 20”= Dt 5 Lv 19° cf, Dt 22°; laws prohib. contrary Ex 217°” (E) Ly 20°°(H) 12% 21*-* 27%; laws as to mourning for Ly 217" )11( גוא‎ 6* (P) 61. 76167 Ez 44”; left for wife Gn 2*; for mother-in-law Ru 2™; for husband Dt 21% (law for captive women); cf. Dt 33° (of devoted service of Levites); loving, caring for children Pr 4° (on the opposite cf. ש‎ 27"); loved, cared for Jos 2% cf. y'® 6% E2 אמה -006 0 חס כ 2 cf.‏ סד ד "2 וו borah as caring for her people ONIN DS Ju‏ Is 227! Jb 29"); so of a city 2 0 20”‏ אָב (cf.‏ 5 ונדו (‘stock, race, community’ RS*8‏ of Israel Ho 277 4° cf. 10%; of Judah Is 50";‏ אָבִיך of Hittite as mother of Jerusalem ONT‏ cf. v4"; also 19”? & vid. 237.‏ *6% ד MN TN) Ez‏ animals, dam Ex 22” (of ox & sheep) Ly‏ 01 .3+ (of bullock, sheep, or goat); Ex 23% == 34"‏ !227 Dt T4> (on kid); mother-bird Dt 22°*"; fig.‏ == nn,‏ ְרְאתִי אָבִי Th 17! 12ND MANY WON TAN‏ point of departure or division W710 DX‏ = .4+ Hz 217° )|| 22049 שבי‎ WN),

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  beloved, love (pl.), uncle‏ .ג דור (NH id., Syr. 98, J93; As. dadu D1*4")—abs.‏ Ly 108‏ דד 3t.;‏ +104 8 ז דוד estr.‏ :559 6% דוד Est 2* ; sf. ‘7 Is 5! (but cf. infr.) + 26 t.‏ Je32° + 2t.; FI Je327; FI‏ דרי all Ct;‏ Ly 20”‏ דדל ,10% ₪ ז 6% Am‏ דודל Ct 5°°+2t.;‏ Pr 7®‏ דרים ;}5 Ct‏ דורים pl.‏ ;85 06 דודָה ;4% + a Ch rss‏ ;ל 6% דד bE‏ יו .237 6 זו שו most often‏ .36"—1 וא Ct 4; pT‏ דדיף loved one, beloved (lover, betrothed) Ct 1%" 23:8.9-10-16.17 416 2.4.5.6.6.8.9.9.10.16 61.1.2.3.3 710-1112.14 95.14. , beloved one, friend, ‘iI NYY Is 51 (where Lo Che ש' דודים‎ love-song, v. 3 infr.) 2. specif. uncle, Ly 10% (father’s brother, patruus; Syr. = also avunculus) Nu 36" 18 14° 2K 24" Ly 2079 2 I S ד‎ Est 25 Je 2 perhaps also 1 Ch 27 Jonathan, David’s 71 so AV RV;=kinsman (1, so St RVm) Am 6”. 3. ple abstr Cove"Prg™ Chir? ו‎ Bite” alt concr. beloved ones, so AV RV, © ddedgpoi) ; 0 דרים‎ NY Ez 16%; דרים‎ ABw Ez 23”. Tat] n.f. aunt—only sf. 777 Ly 18" father’s brother’s wife; iNT Ly 20” Ex 6” father’s sister [cf. Nu 26°]. ae a n.pr.m. (his beloved, cf. ;דודוהו‎ or comp. דודה‎ n.pr.divin. 211% ef. 117 infra)— 1. man of tribe of Issachar Ju 10’. 2. דרי‎ 3% 2 8 2 ) ז דודי בב‎ Ch 27:%(. דודו = ען) דודו‎ ב ך‎ 11% | 3. father of דודו 23% 8 2 אֶלְחֶנֶן‎ = ו‎ (q.v.) 1 Ch 27* (cf.‏ דודו = n.pr.m.‏ דורי1 Kt).‏ 23° 25 דדי n.pr.m. (< G rod ’Qdaa, GL‏ דורוהוּ1 Aovdiov, i.e.3717 115, beloved of “,cf. Nes ™ 9 father‏ of Eliezer 2 Ch 20%.‏ 1066 רות דָּוִד king of Israel, whose dynasty remained on the‏ throne of Jerusalem till the Babylonian exile‏ (cf. 2S 7 etc.) (beloved one? cf. BaX®™; ace.‏ to Sayce Mod. Rev. 1884, 158 ff. Rel. Bab. 53, 56 f. orig. Dodo,‏ דודה title of sun-god worshipped in Isr. ef.‏ n.divin. among E. Jordan Israelites MI”)—‏ alw. Ru Sa Ki (exe. 1 K 3% 11*"( y Pr 6‏ דוד Is Je; also 1 Ch 13° Ez 34™ 37% (c. 790 %.(;‏ Ze Ch (exc. 1 Ch 13°) Ezr Ne; also‏ .אןג דָּוִיד n.pr.m. David, son of ,שי‎ דרי Am 6° (where gloss acc. to Peters 79" 4?*

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  Ly 19% (both P), Dt "סז‎ ; love of friend to friend 1 ₪ 167 1817 20%" Jb 10% ולע‎ 8 1977 2 Ch 19°; v. also Pr 0" 16% 01. 15”; v. esp. Pt. infr. 2. less oft. of appetite, obj. food, Gn 277*4 (JE); drink Ho 3’ Pr21”; husbandry 2 Ch 26"; ef. fig. of Ephraim Ho 10” sq. inf.; length of life y 34%; of cupidity 110 (' Is 1% Ec 5°*; of love of sleep Pr 20801. fig. of sluggish watchmen (sq.inf.)Is 56"; also 6. obj.abstr. wis- dom (personif.), knowledge, righteousness, etc. Pr 4° 8 ד‎ 21 22725 Am 5” Mi 68 (inf. || infini- tives) 20 8", cf.Pr.198 W53 קְנָה 2 אהָב‎ ; obj. folly, evil, etc., Mi 3? 43 *זז ץש‎ 52°° 1097 Pri” 9% 17°, cf. 18% 26 8”, cf. א' כַּן‎ Am 4° Je 5%, sq. Inf. Ho12* Je 14", esp. of idolatry Ho 4"*(where del. 333 cf. Ko") Je 8% 3. love to God Ex 20° (JE) elsewhere Hex only Dt 5" 6" gt. Dt+Jos 22° 23"; also Ju5 1K 3° Ne 1* Dn 9}; esp. in (late) ¥ 31" 116’ 145”, but usually sq. name, law, ete. of " 5" 268 407 69% 70° 97” 1197"+ 1: 119; cf. Is 56°; cf. also of love to Jerusalem Is 66" 122% 4. esp. Pt. ans =(a) lover, Lat? (fig. of Jerus.); (6) friend Hiram of David 1 K 5”, cf. Je 20*° Est 5104 6% (רע||)38 ץש‎ so 88%, & Pr 14”; also 18" 27°; Abr. of God Is 418 2 Ch 20. ‘5. of divine love (a) to individual men Dt 47 2S 12* Pr 3” 15° ץ‎ 146° Ne 13”; (6) to people Israel, etc. רכ ו‎ hos 9° 11. 14 7K "סד‎ 2Ch 2" 05 ¥ 78° 87°; (c) to righteousness, etc. ~ 117 33° 37° 45° 99° Is 61° Mal 2", + Niph. Fé. pl. 3 + (הביף) מָאהָביף‎ 6 224 6 t.; WAND Ho 2 +4. 1. friends Zc 13°; 2. lovers in fig. of adulter. Isr. Ho 27%? Riz 23°; JudahJe 22°” סה‎ La 79 Ez 1 6°3:36.37 25 ,70068 ,אהְבִים n.[{m.] love only pl.‏ [אַהַב]1 loving‏ אַיּלֶת א' amours; bad sense Ho 8% but‏ ndy).‏ חן || hind Pr 5" (fig. of wife‏ n.[m.] id.=loved object, sf. DANN‏ [אהב]1 Ho 9" (=nv/a—5y3 v, Hi Now) ice. the idol worshipped ; pl.=amours (carnal sense) Pr ץ‎ >. t NAT nf. love (=Inf. of אהב‎ q.v.)—abs. Je 27+ 3t.; sf.‏ אהבת Prio’+418t.; estr.‏ א' IAS y 1og**; FANS 281%; ina Is 63°‏ Ec 9°—love, esp.‏ אִהְבְתֶם ;5% THINS Pr‏ ;237 WisdLt & late. 1. human (to human obj.) abs.‏ Ec 9" (both || 783%) so Pr ro” 15 cf. 27°5 v.‏ love for‏ ;°*109 ?ו also 17°; of man toward man‏ one’s self (WEI) 1S 20%; between man &‏ woman Ct 2** 5° 8°77; Pr 5% ef. also 2 ₪ 1° (א' נָשִים)‎ ; personif. Ct. 27 3° 7° 8*; cf. fig. אהל

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Now I can see why’ - which made Alice blush, and look to the floor in confusion.With my father she was kind. ‘Well, well, Miss Butler,’ he said when he took her hand, nodding at her skirts, ‘this is rather a change, ain’t it, from your usual gear?’ She smiled and said it was; and when he added, with a wink, ‘And something of an improvement, too - if you don’t mind a gentleman saying so’, she laughed and said that, since gentlemen were usually of that opinion, she was quite used to it, and did not mind a bit.All in all she made herself so pleasant, and answered their questions about herself, and the music hall, so sweetly and cleverly, that no one - not even Alice, or spiteful Rhoda - could dislike her; and I - watching her gaze from the windows at Whitstable Bay, or incline her head to catch a story of my father’s, or compliment my mother on some ornament or picture (she admired the shawl, above the fireplace!) - I fell in love with her, all over again. And my love was all the warmer, of course, since I had that special, secret knowledge about Tricky, and the contract, and the extra four months.She had come for tea, and presently we all sat down to it - Kitty marvelling, as we did so, at the table. It was set for a real oyster-supper, with a linen cloth, and a little spirit-lamp with a plate of butter on it, waiting to be melted. On either side of this there were platters of bread, and quartered lemons, and vinegar and pepper castors - two or three of each. Beside every plate there was a fork, a spoon, a napkin, and the all-important oyster-knife; and in the middle of the table there was the oyster-barrel itself, a white cloth bound about its top-most hoop, and its lid loosened by a finger’s width - ‘Just enough,’ as my father would say, ‘to let the oysters stretch a little’; but not enough to let them open their shells and sicken. We were rather cramped around the table, for there were eight of us in all, and we had had to bring up extra chairs from the restaurant below. Kitty and I sat close, our elbows almost touching, our shoes side by side beneath the table.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I raised a hand to stop a tickling at my cheek, and found tears there. ‘Oh, Flo!’ I said then. ‘Only say - only say you’ll let me love you, and be with you; that you’ll let me be your sweetheart, and your comrade. I know I’m not Lily -’‘No, you’re not Lily,’ she said. ‘I thought I knew what that meant - but I never did, till I saw you gazing at Kitty and thought I should lose you. I’ve been missing Lily for so long, it’s come to seem that wanting anything must be only another way of wanting her; but oh! how different wanting seemed, when I knew it was you I wanted, only you, only you ...’I shifted closer towards her: the paper in my pocket gave a rustle, and I remembered romantic Miss Skinner, and all the friendless girls who Zena had said were mad in love with Flo, at Freemantle House. I opened my mouth to tell her; then thought I wouldn’t, just yet - in case she hadn’t noticed. Instead, I gazed again about the park, at the crush of gay-faced people, at the tents and stalls, the ribbons and flags and banners : it seemed to me then that it was Florence’s passion, and hers alone, that had set the whole park fluttering. I turned back to her, took her hand in mind, crushed the daisy between our fingers and - careless of whether anybody watched or not - I leaned and kissed her.Cyril still squatted with his frills in the lake. The afternoon sun cast long shadows over the bruised and trampled grass. From the speakers’ tent there came a muffled cheer, and a rising ripple of applause. Sarah Waters was born in Wales in 1966 and now lives in London. She is the author of the novels Tipping the Velvet, a New York Times Notable Book, Affinity, and Fingersmith. Affinity, her second novel, won the Somerset Maugham Award, an American Library Association Award, and a Ferro-Grumley Award. Waters was also named the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year in 2000. [image file=Backad01.jpg] [image file=Backad02.jpg] [image file=Backad03.jpg] [image file=Backad04.jpg] [image file=Backad05.jpg] [image file=Backad06.jpg] [image file=GlobalBackad.jpg]

• From Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Cycle of Anxious Thoughts (2020)

  When you look at Jesus, you are so moved by His love, so moved by His grace, so moved by what He did for us, that you can’t contain yourself. So you go give Him away. It’s how we’re supposed to live. Single-Minded Service Hebrews says, “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”12 I used to think that the three key elements in this passage were a linear progression: you do one, then the next, then the next. I thought I needed (first) to get rid of my sin streaks—my negative thinking patterns, my hurtful attitudes, my terribly selfish ways—so that I could (second) run my race, and then I would (third) finally see Jesus, who was probably so pleased I’d done the first two things. But that’s not at all how Jesus works, which is what told me I’d interpreted the verses wrong. You may recall that it was when we were “still sinners,” according to Romans 5:8, that “Christ died for us.” We all know that if we wait until every sin that entangles us is put off, then we will never start the race! We are “being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another,”13 not all at once. So, that means we can’t even get rid of our sin before we run our races. What if all this actually happens simultaneously? That would shift the importance of mission in our lives. What if we were built to run and, as we run, we fix our eyes on Jesus because we have to—we need Him!—and our sin and distraction fall away. Sin avoidance is not what Jesus died for. If we are moving, failing, finding forgiveness, and moving again, all with eyes fixed on Christ, we will desperately want to confess and deal with our sin. Because not doing that is thwarting the mission of our lives. Do you see what a radical shift this is? As we run—as we serve others—our sin and distraction lose their hold on us, which only makes it easier to keep our eyes fixed on Christ. Let me put it this way: if you put me on a diet and tell me that for thirty days I cannot have a cheeseburger, then guess what I’m going to think about for thirty days straight? Cheeseburgers. I don’t even like cheeseburgers all that much. I mean, they’re fine, but it’s not as if I think about them all day long. But deprive me of a cheeseburger, and I’m going to want a cheeseburger.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I did not hold my breath in wonder when I opened my eyes upon her face, still and shadowed in the thin grey light of dawn. I had seen her strip to wash or to change her gown. I was as familiar with her body, now, as with my own - more so, indeed, because her head, her neck, her wrists, her back, her limbs (which were as smooth and as rounded and as freckled as her cheek), her skin (which she wore with a marvellous, easy grace, as if it were another kind of handsome suit, perfectly tailored and pleasant to wear), were, I thought, so much lovelier and more fascinating than my own.No, I didn’t want a single thing to change - not even when I learned something about Walter that was rather disconcerting.Inevitably, we had spent so many hours with Walter - working upon songs at Mrs Dendy’s piano, or supping with him after shows - that we had begun to look upon him less as Kitty’s agent and more as a friend, to both of us. In time it wasn’t only working-days that we were spending with him, but Sundays, too; eventually, indeed, Sundays with Walter became the rule rather than the exception, and we began to listen out for the rumble of his carriage in Ginevra Road, the pounding of his boots upon our attic stairs, his rap upon our parlour door, his foolish, extravagant greetings. He would bring bits of news and gossip; we would drive into town, or out of it; we would stroll together - Kitty with her hand in the crook of one of his great arms, me with mine in the crook of the other, Walter himself like a blustering uncle, loud and lively and kind.I thought nothing of it, except that it was pleasant, until one morning as I sat eating my breakfast beside Kitty and Sims and Percy and Tootsie. It was a Sunday, and Kitty and I were rather tardy; when Sims heard who it was that we were rushing for, he gave a cry: ‘My word, Kitty, but Walter must be expecting marvellous things of you! I’ve never known him spend so much time with an artiste before. Anyone would think he was your beau!’

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I looked at Kitty and remembered that I had another, more pressing, reason to be gay and giddy, and I began to wish that Walter would leave us. That, and my tiredness, made me dull with him: I believe he thought he had overworked me. So very soon he did leave; and when the door was closed on him I rose and went to Kitty, and put my arms about her. She wouldn’t let me kiss her in the parlour; but after a moment she led me up through the darkening house, back to our bedroom. Here the suit - which I had, indeed, grown rather used to while strolling in it for Walter - began to feel strange again. When Kitty undressed I pulled her to me; and it was lewd to feel her naked hip come pressing in between my trousered legs. She ran her hand once, very lightly, over my buttons, until I began to shake with the wanting of her. Then she drew the suit from me entirely and we lay together, naked as shadows beneath the counterpane; and then she touched me again.We lay until the front door slammed, and we heard Mrs Dendy’s cough, and Tootsie laughing on the stair. Then Kitty said we should rise, and dress, or the others might wonder; and for the second time that day I lay and watched her wash, and pull on stockings and a skirt, through lazy eyes.As I did so, I put a hand to my breast. There was a dull movement there, a kind of pulling or folding, or melting, exactly as if my chest were the hot, soft wall of a candle, falling in upon a burning wick. I gave a sigh. Kitty heard, and saw my stricken face, and came to me; then she moved my hand away and placed her lips, very softly, over my heart.I was eighteen, and knew nothing. I thought, at that moment, that I would die of love for her. We did not see Walter, and there was no more talk about his plan to put me on the stage at Kitty’s side, until two evenings later, when he arrived at Mrs Dendy’s with a parcel, marked Nan Astley. It was the last night of the year: he had come to supper, and to stay to hear the chimes of midnight with us. When at last they came - struck out upon the bells of Brixton church - he raised his glass. ‘To Kitty and Nan!’ he cried.

• From The History of Christian Theology (2008)

  124 Lecture 34: Catholic Mystical Theology The lower stages of the spiritual life consist of mental prayer. The soul begins with meditation, which involves the work of the intellect and its many thoughts. Through recollection, withdrawing its faculties within itself, the soul comes to the prayer of quiet, the ¿ rst stage of supernatural or infused contemplation. The soul proceeds through a sleep of the faculties to a suspended state of the faculties as it enters the prayer of union. Beyond these levels of prayer, Teresa describes extraordinary raptures or ecstasies. A key feature of these experiences is that they center around Christ in his humanity. In her most famous experience, called the “transverberation,” an angel pierces her heart with a golden spear that sets her a¿ re with love for God. The most famous concept of John of the Cross is the dark night of the soul. Like Teresa, John ¿ nds God in the inmost being of the soul. The dark night is the soul’s loss of all that is not God, which is necessary for it to ¿ nd God. The highest level of mystical theology is the spiritual marriage, for both Teresa and John. It is a permanent union in love, the closest thing to beati ¿ c vision that is possible in this life. The union is of two who remain distinct, not an absorption like a drop into the ocean. As with Teresa, the soul’s ultimate ¿ nding of God is a spiritual marriage, which John depicts as a mutual self-giving. Both in Spain and in France mystics went further than the church could approve. Quietism, condemned in 1687, made the passivity of infused contemplation into the whole of Christian life. Quietism contended that the perfect spiritual life involved eliminating all activity of the soul. Once the This statue of Saint Teresa is inside St. Peter’s Basilica. © Hemera/Thinkstock.

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  These pleasures are not only pleasures, they are also other feelings. But at the base is something that can only be understood in the body, made sense of by the body. That feeling of loving a child with your whole body, being loved by that child with her whole body, and watching children learn to be loved and to express love with their whole bodies. Love, which is not pleasure but is also pleasure, happens in the body and through the body. Words cannot contain all that the gaze can hold, or the pressure of a particular touch, or the pain of knowing your children will grow old and die, and sometimes be young and die, and most times, be young and learn what it is to die. Raising Sexually Liberated KidsJanine de Novais Janine de Novais recently completed her PhD at Harvard's School of Education, but all of us who love her know that her intelligence is beyond what any institution can teach—it is intuitive and compassionate, and one of the few reasons I believe race will one day be something other than a wound. I always gave him massages. From when he was a baby, I cherished his little being so much, all the way to the tips of toes, curve of his cheeks, the particular symmetry of his eye brows, and I naturally communicated that to him through touch. I showed him that hand and foot and scalp massages were soothing. I also used to “draw his face”—a face massage, that my grandmother taught me, where you trace the features and narrate that as if it is a house. For eyes, you say windows, et cetera, then mouth, you say door, and to the baby’s delight, for nose, you say doorbell and “ring!” He very naturally and early on would request these rituals. When masturbation happened at a relatively early age, his own word for it was “massage.” And all I had to do was explain that he should seek privacy for that and ask me any questions. Which he did not, because those of us lucky to have an unburdened relationship to that practice don’t have questions about it! Drawing from the instinct of having had a lot of judgment directed at my body early on, which I internalized, I worked very hard to model for him how to regard his body with acceptance and celebration. When he was small, I did not allow anyone to talk to him about his weight or appearance. Adults say ridiculous things to children, as if they are not embodied actual people. Folks talk about a kid being scrawny, or having or not having baby fat, or gaining or losing weight over a vacation. I tried to monitor that misbehavior, and if I couldn’t prevent someone from saying something tacky, I would always find time later to tell him that such and such adult was an asshole for saying that.

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  Dani. I met adrienne early on in college, more than twenty years ago. I felt close to her soon after meeting. We shared a love of writing, of thinking deeply about things. Our work on a labor of love, a campus literary journal called Roots and Culture took us from being acquaintances to close friends. Then we went on a random trip to Prague together, spring break of our senior year, and that sealed the deal. There has been so much in the intervening years that has been important and beautiful, through a lot of cities, partners, family changes, and just life happening. I’m an only child, but at the age of nineteen or twenty, I feel like I acquired adrienne as a sister. Jodie. I first saw Adrienne in Vancouver when she was on a speaking tour for her first book, How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office. A year later we got to know each other at a training for environmental activists and it was there sparks flew (in the hot tub to be exact). I was starved for a justice and equity perspective in the enviro movement and adrienne brought it along with joy and laughter. Over time we became friends and comrades and I eventually moved from Vancouver to Oakland. Dani. Jodie and I moved to Oakland around the same time. The building where adrienne lived was nicknamed Melrose Place and had a patio where there was lots of ongoing hanging out with neighbors and folks in the community. I met Jodie there—she was friends with adrienne and another friend in the building, Jessamyn Sabbag. I got to know more about Jodie, and we began spending time together. Then she recruited me as part of this wild work retreat near Vancouver a few years later in September 2010. amb. I think that was the one where we got mad people of color up in the British Columbia forest and the power went out because of a squall? I had forgotten that. Dani. I got to better understand Jodie’s work and build trust with her as part of that journey, which was complex. Jodie. I remember sending adrienne off on her sabbatical—like getting her to the airport was everything. amb. Oh my god, I remember that! You took me to get a functional, grown-up suitcase.

• From Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World (2023)

  My wish is that in all this heavy lifting, we each make it a little (or a lot) lighter for one another. In a world that’s mired in pain and tragedy, I want to intentionally be that parent—that person—who brings a laugh, offers a hug, and is willing to simply sit alongside. Rather than teach our children to succeed and achieve, I hope we send a message to simply love one another for the people we are, not for the things that we do. No matter how old we are, I hope we remember that we each need to be held (both by ourselves and emotionally by others). Rather than run away when it gets tough, we need to comfort one another when our day is rocked with another dose of unsettling news. Even though it can be so easy to stare into the abyss of our own pain (as our anxiety would like us to do), I believe we can each make a different choice to pour out our compassion toward others, not just toward ourselves. The more we’re willing to connect, the more we can collectively heal. With each generation, I see us getting closer and closer to becoming the loving, empathetic people we are meant to be. We are socially built—we are not meant to endure this life alone. As our care for one another grows, I see our anxiety and our self-interest dying in turn. This doesn’t mean we’re letting go of who we are—we’re instead expanding our definition of what is possible. I come back to a concept that I learned from one of my favorite authors, Reverend Dr. Jacqui Lewis, in her book, Fierce Love. She writes about the Zulu term ubuntu, meaning, “I am because of who we all are.” As I think of this, I can’t wait to see how my son will be shaped by the people around him, and in turn how he will shape their lives. As I watch him giggle, play, and cry without any self-judgment—and watch people respond to him—I want to encourage him to keep engaging unabashedly like that for the rest of his life. I hope he never outgrows it. More than anything, I hope his anxiety never tells him to hold himself back from being the person he wants to become. I wholeheartedly hope the same for you. May we never lose our childlike ability to smile at someone, even if it’s a stranger. Let’s not forget how to strike up a conversation and truly connect. Certainly, let’s not hide our tears just because we’re socialized as adults that crying is indecent. Deep down, we’re all just kids wanting to laugh, cry, and connect our way through life. Simply put: we need one another.

• From Bestiary (2020)

  On the baseball diamond at recess, Ben pulled me away into the dugout and showed me the key to the cage door: It was the silver pendant around her neck. Ben stepped closer until the key was against my chest, teething into my left breast. She said she’d been born with the key, a silver milk tooth jutting from her mouth. It tore her mother during birth, snagging on the placenta and causing her mother to hemorrhage. To this day, she said, the hospital still stands inside a flood. When Ben stepped back, the key swinging in the air between us, I thought about slipping my tail out. I wasn’t born with it, I would say, but it’s my name. _ One afternoon, we ran from our older brothers and their foam-pellet guns. They shut off every light in the house, chasing us through the kitchen and into the yard and back into the kitchen, where we rifled the drawers for a knife to threaten them back. Ben’s brother had too-large hands with fingers that curled naturally, adapted for pulling triggers and professional nose-picking. The two boys retreated temporarily to my brother’s room, saying that when they came back out, we’d better be hidden or already dead. There was nowhere that could fit both our bodies except behind the sofa, where we wouldn’t last. I kissed her before our deaths, pretended the dark was not man-made, pretended our brothers’ guns shot real bullets, not jelly-tipped shafts I could catch midair. I wanted permanent damage, a war where one side was the other’s shadow, one body was the other’s blade. We kissed, my tongue serenading her teeth. She put her palm on the back of my neck and I was sweating a dress. My hands honeymooned on her hips. The key around her neck nudged me just below the collarbone, but I didn’t pull away. Between our chests, the key heated until I thought it would weld itself into a new shape, a hinge between our bodies. Ben’s ribs parted against mine, releasing her heart into my hands, a fistful of feathers. My throat a perch for her teeth. Then I heard the sound of our brothers reloading on the other side of the sofa, squinting to separate our bodies from the dark. We kept our eyes closed, her mouth on my shoulder now. Tomorrow there would be a bruise, a dark spot on the ball of my shoulder, and I’d think for a second that my skin was of another species, that I was finally turning into what my tail wanted me to be. But then I’d remember yesterday, which was today, which was her mouth making my shoulder lift like a wing. Our brothers took aim, still squinting, unable to tell if there was one body or two. We let them. We were silent when the foam bullets bounced off our thighs and bellies.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  She bucked, and the bed gave an answering creak; her own hands began to chafe distractedly at the flesh of my shoulders. There seemed no motion, no rhythm, in all the world, but that which I had set up, between her legs, with one wet fingertip.At last she gasped, and stiffened, then plucked my hand away and fell back, heavy and slack. I pressed her to me, and for a moment we lay together quite still. I felt her heart beating wildly in her breast; and when it had calmed a little she stirred, and sighed, and put a hand to her cheek.‘You’ve made me weep,’ she murmured.I sat up. ‘Not really, Kitty?’‘Yes, really.’ She gave a twitch that was half laughter, half a sob, then rubbed at her eyes again, and when I took her fingers from her face I could feel the tears upon them. I pressed her hand, suddenly uncertain: ‘Did I hurt you? What did I do that was bad? Did I hurt you, Kitty?’She shook her head, and sniffed, and laughed more freely. ‘Hurt me? Oh no. It was only - so very sweet.’ She smiled. ‘And you are - so very good. And I -’ She sniffed again, then placed her face against my breast and hid her eyes from me. ‘And I - oh, Nan, I do so love you, so very, very much!’I lay beside her, and put my arms about her. My own desire I quite forgot, and she made no move to remind me of it. I forgot, too, Gully Sutherland - who three hours before had put a gun to his own heart, because a man had sat through his routine unsmiling. I only lay; and soon Kitty slept. And I studied her face, where it showed creamy pale in the darkness, and thought She loves me, She loves me — like a fool with a daisy-stalk, endlessly exclaiming over the same last browning petal. The next morning we were shy together, at first - and Kitty, I think, was the shyest of all.‘How much we drank, last night!’ she said, not gazing at me; and for a terrible second I thought it might really have been only the champagne that made her cling to me, and say that she loved me, so very very much ... But as she spoke she blushed. I said, before I could stop myself: ‘If you unsay all those things you said last night, oh Kitty, I’ll die!’ and that made her raise her eyes to mine, and I saw that she had simply been anxious, that I might only have been drunk... And then we gazed and gazed at one another; and for all that I had gazed at her a thousand times before, I felt now that I was looking at her as if for the first time.

• From The Four Vision Quests of Jesus (2015)

  Social inclusivity and economic justice are the basis for human kinship. There can be no exiles for the Native Messiah. Consequently, there is no equivocation in his teachings about community. In the same spirit, there can be no doubt that the Native Messiah called us to account for our give-away relationship to all other living creatures in the greater network of our kinship. One of the hallmarks of the Native Covenant is the simple expression, “all my relations.” This phrase is often used as an introduction to prayer or public gatherings. It is a verbal icon that symbolically recognizes the presence of all living beings, all created things, in the circle of human kinship. Again, this is not a sentimental expression. It is a witness. It is a spiritual affirmation of both understanding and intent. It means that anyone who follows Jesus as the Native Messiah must be respectful of the matrix of life that encompasses God’s great community of creation. Our active commitment, even our sacrifice, to maintain ecological balance with other life forms is expected by God. It is that clear and that simple in Native theology. There can be no exiles. Jesus came to restore balance to all of life, not just to a portion of it. Because the Creator made everything that exists, and because everything that exists is made in love, the Messiah’s call to love encircles all of creation. When we love God with all of our heart, we are loving the Earth. We are loving the seas and the sky. We are loving the four-legged creatures who are our kin, just as we are loving the winged creatures and those who swim. Nothing is outside the circle of love; everything within the circle of love is our relation. The level of sacrifice that the two brothers, John and Jesus, accepted from their vision quests was a willingness to give away all they had, even their lives, for the sake of the circle of life. John lost his life as a sacred clown because he brought the chaos of hope into the place of power. He spoke the truth. Jesus lost his life because he loved without exclusion. He lived the give-away. Both offer us a clear message. They did not die for symbolism or sentiment. As holy people of the Native Covenant, they expected us to follow them with the same sense of courage and integrity. The give-away they made is unmistakable. The call of the Native Messiah is clear. Our task is not to hold back, not to look for half-measures or loop holes, but to do our part in bringing justice to our community, justice for the tribe of the human beings, justice for all of creation.

• From Bestiary (2020)

  The sea, on the other hand, was his glittering garment. He was so blessed, even the storms bounced off his boat. Ah Zheng resembled an ordinary hog*7 on land but was handsome on water, especially reflected off a surface—he wore the hat of a Tanka, but underneath, his hair was like water, stroking his shoulders or coiling on its own. He was born with a blowhole on the top of his head that he liked to stick a miniature flag inside, a flag that was just a piece of toilet paper. His eyes were the bitter color of grapes. Always remember to spit out the grape skins or you’ll get eyes like that too, all seed. You’ll see everything dark as light, everything loved as lost. All this to say: Old Guang, my beefhearted fishdicked hogspawned grandfather, fell in love with Ah Zheng. At the beginning of his piracy career, Old Guang was seasick, bent at the waist and waddling to the rails. Ah Zheng would clean my grandfather’s face with his own silk sleeve. He told my grandfather that acupuncture would cure his seasickness, and invited him back to the captain’s cabin. Ah Zheng’s acupuncture needles were made of fishbone, invisible to the light. Though Old Guang was afraid of needles, he said nothing. Ah Zheng was undressing him, and suddenly my grandfather’s mouth felt like a sea urchin, spike and salt. When Old Guang was naked, Ah Zheng directed him to lie facedown on the pallet. He sterilized each needle in seawater and strong vinegar, then hovered his hand over my grandfather’s left shoulder-bone. Old Guang yelped, and Ah Zheng laughed: I haven’t even put it in yet.*8 When Ah Zheng slipped the needle directly into the shoulder-bone, Old Guang moaned. It didn’t hurt, but the sensation stayed for days. Old Guang and Ah Zheng fucked with urgency. Ah Zheng’s beard tasted of sea spray, stinging his whole skin. My grandfather really believed that Ah Zheng was a reincarnation of a god—how else could he be so young and so confidently commanding a fleet larger than the emperor’s? How else did he grow such stately long legs, such a deeply cleft ass, a crack all shadows lusted to live inside? Sometimes, their lovemaking was closer to prayer: My grandfather held Ah Zheng’s semen*9 in his mouth for as long as possible, torturing it of taste.

• From Bestiary (2020)

  The piracy was obvious: We could see the glare of a screen embedded in a black frame, the walls of a theater shadowing both sides. At the climax, a woman in the audience stood up and shouted something at the screen. A row of heads bobbed along the bottom, a shadow skyline. We watched the movie being watched. We could hear a woman whispering in one of the front rows, repeating every line of dialogue like an echo. My mother and I shushed her even though we knew she couldn’t hear: She wasn’t here. In the middle of the movie, the camcorder lagged and the audio mismatched with the actors’ mouths, language spoken in a different time zone from the listener. We saw what was happening before we heard it. The knife cleaved a belly, too easy. The scream was stalled. In this shot, the sky was the same shade as my mother’s name. _ I ran upstairs to get my brother’s camcorder and came back down, started filming. When my mother asked what I was doing, I said, Pirating. I was the woman choosing between sides, between side-wounds: Ama and my mother, related by blade. I filmed the back of my mother’s head jutting into the frame, her commentary when the love interest committed suicide (I never liked that actress because she has my eyes), the oil on her hands like sunlight. I wanted to set them on fire, to turn her hands into light-bouquets and capture the smoke onscreen. My mother said, You’ll never be able to sell any of that, and I said I didn’t want to sell her. There was a scene near the end where my mother turned her head to look back at the camera, her face outliving the screen behind her, brighter. She held herself still as if posing for a photo. Behind her, credits ribboning down the black like names of the dead, cueing us to continue. I rewatched the footage later and saw that all the actors were blurred or out of frame, no storyline salvageable. Everything off-focus except my mother’s face, the light speaking what I can’t subtitle, clarifying for the audience: She’s the only one I’ve been watching. _

• From Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995)

  This was not easy, especially with Barack. That boy was so mischievous! In Onyango’s presence, he appeared well-mannered and obedient, and never answered back when his father told him to do something. But behind the old man’s back, Barack did as he pleased. When Onyango was away on business, Barack would take off his proper clothes and go off with other boys to wrestle or swim in the river, to steal the fruit from the neighbors’ trees or ride their cows. The neighbors were afraid to go directly to Onyango, so they would come to me and complain about these things. But I could not get mad at Barack, and would always cover up his foolishness from Onyango, for I loved him as my own son. Although he did not like to show it, your grandfather was also very fond of Barack, because the boy was so clever. When Barack was only a baby, Onyango would teach him the alphabet and numbers, and it was not long before the son could outdo the father in these things. This pleased Onyango, for to him knowledge was the source of all the white man’s power, and he wanted to make sure that his son was as educated as any white man. He was less concerned with Sarah’s education, although she was also quick like Barack. Most men thought educating their daughters was a waste of money. When Sarah was finished with primary school, she came to Onyango begging for school fees to go on to secondary school. He said to her, “Why should I spend school fees on you when you will come to live in another man’s house? Go help your mother and learn how to be a proper wife.” This created more friction between Sarah and her younger brother, especially because she knew that Barack was not always serious about his studies. Everything came too easily to him. At first he went to the mission school nearby, but he came back after the first day and told his father that he could not study there because his class was taught by a woman and he knew everything she had to teach him. This attitude he had learned from his father, so Onyango could say nothing. The next closest school was six miles away, and I began to walk him to this school every morning. His teacher there was a man, but Barack discovered this didn’t solve his problems. He always knew the answers, and sometimes would even correct the teacher’s mistakes before the whole class. The teacher would scold Barack for his insolence, but Barack would refuse to back down. This caused Barack many canings at the hand of the headmaster. But it also might have taught him something, because the next year, when he switched to a class with a woman teacher, I noticed that he didn’t complain.

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  the people who cross our physical or virtual paths, spark the flame of our interest, earn our devotion and respect and protection our own family, because blood people we are committed to but don’t like anymore How have we been loving? defining love by obligation celebrating love on externally marked holidays keeping the realities of love behind closed doors framing love as a fairy tale on social media framing love as a product we give each other framing love as a limited resource that gets swallowed and used up, tied in plastic when we’re done and piled up out of sight prioritizing romantic love over self, comrade, and friend love This kind of love is not sufficient, even if it is the greatest love of our lives. The kind of love that we will be forced to celebrate or escape on Valentine’s Day is too small. We’re all going to die if we keep loving this way, die from isolation, loneliness, depression, abandoning each other to oppression, from lack of touch, from forgetting we are precious. We can no longer love as a secret or a presentation, as something we prioritize, hoard for the people we know. Prioritizing ourselves in love is political strategy, is survival. From religious spaces to school to television shows to courts of law, we are socialized to seek and perpetuate private, even corporate, love. Your love is for one person, forever. You celebrate it with dying flowers and diamonds. The largest celebration of your life is committing to that person. Your family and friends celebrate you with dishes and a juicer. You need an income to love. If something doesn’t work out with your love, you pay a lot of money to divide your lives, generally not telling people much unless it’s a soap opera dramatic ending. This way of approaching love strangles all the good out of it. What we need right now is a radical, global love that grows from deep within us to encompass all life. No big deal. To help make this a true day of love, here is brief radical love manifesto. Radical Honesty We begin learning to lie in intimate relationships at a very early age. Lie about the food your mother made, to avoid punishment, as you swallow your tears, about loving this Valentine’s Day gift, about the love you want and how you feel. Most of this is taught as heteropatriarchy 101: men love one way, women another, and we have to lie to impress and catch each other. Women are still taught too often to be submissive, diminutive, obedient, and later nagging and caregiving—not to be peers, emotionally complex powerhouses, loving other women and trans bodies. These mistruths in gender norms are self-perpetuating, affirmed by magazines and movies, girded at family dinner tables.

• From Bestiary (2020)

  Ben shook her head and said, Who inside you am I speaking to? Who? She took a step toward me, standing so close I could see a dried flake of spit on her chin. I licked it without thinking, my tongue flitting across her skin. When she didn’t swat me away, I leaned toward her, traced her jawbone with my lips. Slid my mouth up and down the slope of the bone like playing a harmonica, a song humming out of her. We crab-walked to her bunk bed. No one was home but the light coming in through the window-hole. We took off our shirts and I shut my eyes to the room, my hands on the back her neck. Her tongue towed its heat across my belly. She straddled me, lifting my arms and licking the pits, the black patch of hair where sweat dewed, where I smelled most like myself. We butted mouths, backed up, laughed. I propped myself up on my elbows and kissed along the slant of her rib. Her hands around my breasts like unbroken bread. The key dangled from her neck and hung above me, lowering into my mouth. I took it on my tongue and suckled it, the key’s teeth a copy of my own. When she sat up, the key jerked out of my mouth and caught my upper lip like a fishhook, lancing it open. A key, she said, looking down at me. The key swung between us, gilded with spit and lip-blood. Your tail, Ben said. I think it’s a key. _ Ben and I squatted in my backyard. All holes, she said, just need a key. I tried to follow her, but my mind was still on her mouth. Ben crouched over the one in the center, the 口. Where does this one go? she said, and I said I didn’t know. Like all bodies, they didn’t lead anywhere except inside themselves. She turned her back to the hole and squatted over it like she was taking a shit, demonstrating what she wanted me to do. She wanted me to feed my tail to the hole, to slide it in like a key. I pulled down my pants and dangled my tail in. The hole healed around my tail, soil shifting as it swallowed me. When the hole opened its mouth again, I fell forward onto my knees. Stand vigil, Ben said. Hours after the sun was gone, the hole spoke its first word. I listened for its hum. The 口 squinted, spat out something white and tongue-slimed. Tugging it loose, I flipped it in my hands. It was skin, wet from being born, poreless and soft. Both sides of it were dyed with words. Inside the house, I turned on the kitchen light and held the hide to my face, deciphering the dark between each word.