caregiving, birthwork, and deathwork
read in browser hi friend, I disappeared for a while there. Some hospital caregiving was required, and caregiving is both my favorite thing and also the...
violence isn’t extraordinary
read in browser I’ve been considering the banality of violence lately. We have a cultural narrative that violence is extraordinary, that it only appears in...
numbers and stories are both data
read in browser Numbers and stories are both data. I used to say this to my staff all the time, back in a previous life, working on public health systems...
everybody mothers
read in browser Last night I popped by my local grocery store, expecting the quiet lull of a rainy Saturday night — a handful of locals returning glass...
collective rage is data
read in browser The last week of news has given me a kind of existential rage against patriarchy and misogyny I haven’t felt this intensely since the...
to pay attention, to extend ourselves
read in browser I’ve been obsessed with this passage from Leslie Jamison for the better part of a decade: Empathy isn’t just something that happens to us —...
the change we choose
read in browser When I write about conflict, I do not speak of war. When I write about the kind of conflict that creates something new, I do not speak of...
conflict work is culture work
read in browser A few months ago, a friend and colleague of mine said: “Shivani, no one buys conflict. Everyone thinks they’re good at conflict in the same...
mending and tending
an ongoing research study on tending, thresholding, and transitioning read in browser hi friend, I took last week off from sending this newsletter —...
not all conflict needs the ER
read in browser We have a habit of going too big or too small when it comes to conflict. Sometimes we treat a sprained ankle like a cardiac event — rushing...
be good to each other
read in browser hi friend, Thank you for the grace as I experimented with teaching a new workshop format this week. We return to our regularly scheduled...
bad apologies, good intentions, and what we do next
read in browser Every piece of media I consume lately, I’ve been analyzing the conflicts — and how well they get repaired. That Bridgerton cliffhanger? No...
when half the room says there’s no problem
read in browser I once walked into a board meeting to facilitate a conflict that half the people in the room didn’t think existed. The board chair — a dear...
what is enough, under a government that kills?
read in browser It is 12:45am. I cannot sleep, because the government is occupying and killing its citizens — again, and anew. I can hear the crack of my...
a betrayal that hits twice
read in browser In her prophetic wisdom, Octavia Butler wrote the famous line: “God is Change.” Right now, the pace of change is accelerating in ways that...
on learning to dissect fetal pigs
read in browser On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs by Renée Nicole Macklin i want back my rocking chairs, solipsist sunsets, & coastal jungle sounds that...
the erotic conditions for change
read in browser Hi friend, Yesterday afternoon — on the first full moon of the new year — a group of us gathered to read Audre Lorde’s “Uses of the Erotic”...
a new space for messy, rigorous thinking
read in browser Hi friend, For three years now, I’ve been writing to you about conflict, power, and systems change — the frameworks, the practices, the...
a little thank you, on the longest night
read in browser Hi friend, Today is the winter solstice — the longest night of the year — and I just wanted to pause and say thank you for being here. This...
how conflict becomes a design input
read in browser Hi friend, Last week, scribbling late at night in the stacks of notebooks that line my desk, I stumbled into the core question that...