storytelling is one of our most powerful weapons
of mass destruction
colonization cannot exist without storytelling
we have to tell a story about
from the river to the sea
in order to successfully implement
genocide
we have to tell this story:
when you say
From the River to the Sea
it means “I don’t want Israel to exist”
and that means “I want all Jewish people further displaced or dead”
then that story becomes:
no (white) Jewish person is safe
around any (brown, Arab, Muslim) Palestinian
and everyone who says: “Free Palestine”
is chanting for another Jewish Holocaust
that is how “Free Palestine”
became synonymous with genocide
that is how Palestine
became an antagonist, a villain, a terrorist,
a murderous monster that is perpetrating
the very thing it is surviving
it happened through a story.
if I know anything about stories
it’s that stories make you believe
this story makes us believe
in the inhumane treatment
of brown, Indigenous, Black people everywhere
it makes us believe in blockades
giant walls, check points
in condoning caging humans and animals on their land
forcibly removing people and trees from their homes
resenting them when they’re not grateful
for being given pieces of scraps of fragments of who they are
it makes us say fuck it why not just
bomb everything
for 48 days then pause
to conjure
extreme psychological terror horror movies are made of
as they know in four days it will start all over again and we call that
“humanitarian.”
what a story.
stories are stories, what about the truth?
they ask: what about what we all saw on October 7?
personally, I think that if you want to end violent resistance
you have to end violent occupation.
personally, when I hear
from the river to the sea
I feel love
that is grief that is wonder that is god that is death that is art that is change
I feel tears in my body
my whole body,
I feel tears.
I feel tears that know what it’s like to love
someone with my body, my whole body
what it’s like to love my best friend
my life long companion
my soul star gateway
my first family
that I have been separated from
again and again and again and again and again
and still know our (re)union
again and again and again and again and again
I know the love story we lived without tragedy
I’ve lived it again and again and again and again and again
I know what it means to dedicate living to ceremony
ceremony of life, grief, and long term partnership
today
so I know what I know
when I hear them say
from the river to the sea
that water flows free
through my body, my whole body
I know a people
who love their land
and I know a land
that loves them back.
when I say
From the River to the Sea
you’re half right
I do not want Israel to exist
I don’t want “Canada” to exist either.
I don’t want “The United States of America” to exist.
I don’t want entities that build themselves over top of people
who were already there who drained their resources extracted their magic put them in residential schools and concentration camps and then told a story that made us believe
the ones that did it
are innocent
and who they did it to
is the monster
I don’t want nations built on patriarchy and sexual violence and psychological abuse and emotional despair cut off from spiritual communication criminalizing ancestral veneration and the exponentialized gaslighting gaslighting gaslighting motherfucking gaslighting
I do not want one more OUNCE of soaring glorious LIFE sentenced to endure the endless exhaustion one must muster to even ATTEMPT to seed and birth and sustain ANYTHING upon all of this horror
I want NONE of it in my BODY
NONE OF IT.
I want it dismantled
and transmuted
and transformed
and healed
and well rested
and birthed into
something
else
I Want Land Back.
I do not demand Land Back
I can’t
even if others do
even if others must
I only seek to become it
like an ache that wants to heal
like the part of me still grieving my father and will one day grieve my mother
and the part of me that will one day fall in love and has already fallen in love and
the part of me that has held a child who took their last breath and the part of me who cannot yet touch the terror inside that knows of all the children who are buried
in rubble.
I want Land Back
with the Heart of my Broken Heart which is Unbroken
I want free land everywhere, everywhere, everywhere
including in my Self
I want free land in all the places we can and can’t imagine it
I want free land in the multiverse
in all the ways you do and don’t know what that means
I want it in all the homes we do and don’t know
in all the names we can and can’t remember
in all the ways we will be filled and surprised and turned upside down and catalysed and brought to our knees
with wonder
I want for myself the kind of healing
that only happens when land is free and happy and well cared for
and land can only be that free
when all its children are free
when all its people, animals, trees, and water are free
when Black and Indigenous leadership is restored
when Black and Indigenous freedom of movement is restored
when all peoples’ personal responsibility is restored
when Ceremonial Entrepreneurship is restored
when Ancestral Artistry is restored
when Quantum Whispering is restored
when the safety and celebration of Abolitionist BIPOC queer and trans Witches is restored
when the true spirit of Grief, Love, Death, Generosity and Magic
is restored
what does LAND BACK mean
if it doesn’t mean
they are going to do the same thing to us that we did to them so do it to them even more so we never have to find out
I don’t know, but it’s kind of like astrology
millions of people love to write long paragraphs on social media about how they
“don’t believe” in astrology:
I mean, it’s fun to talk about on a first date, but if you actually take it seriously you’re insane
I mean, I like asking about people’s signs but there’s no real basis to it and I definitely don’t use it to make decisions or understand myself or anything like that
I mean, I feel sorry for people who believe in this stuff, they probably need to be medicated
look: for some reason “the algorithm” showed me a thread on astrology this past week and those quotes are pretty much verbatim from the comment section, so don’t blame me, all I did was write them down.
It’s like that
with “triggering” words like abolition and land back and from the river to the sea
people who know nothing about astrology have staunchly fiercely rooted opinions about it and get HIGHLY OFFENDED at any opposing view point
when they’ve never seriously looked into it for a minute of a day in their life
they “just know”
it’s ridiculous and crazy and maybe a little cute but ultimately
preposterous.
It doesn’t even make sense, they say. Explain how – HOW – would this actually work? That’s what I thought, it doesn’t.
Well, whatever.
Astrology is an ancient complex system that takes years to truly understand and even more years to begin forming your own interpretations and opinions based on your dedicated lived experience in apprenticing with it.
It’s phenomenal, legendary magic to sit with someone’s birth chart and pull at all the threads and synthesize what you see with beautiful, masterful
storytelling.
you watch people feel seen and loved and recognized in ways they never did before
you offer language that lights parts of themselves they always struggled to name
you revel in the wonder of witnessing someone feel understood in only the ways
stars can understand
you feel connected to something bigger that also feels like home
like home always wanted to feel
what phenomenal legendary magic
to look up
and get to know these lights as friends
you missed for long
even if they were right there, right there
all along
what phenomenal legendary magic to look up and
just live
live them out
experience their magic unfold
within you all, around you
in human time
it’s like that with Land Back
Land Back is phenomenal legendary magic
So is Abolition in Our Lifetime
So is Free Palestine
Apprenticing this magic is to pull at the threads and synthesize what you see with beautiful, masterful storytelling
it is to feel seen and loved and recognized in ways you never did before
to find language for what you’ve always struggled to name
to feel understood on a level that only the water, trees, sky and mountains can understand
to look up
look within
down and all around
get to know this life as your friend
a good, good friend
what a phenomenal legendary friend
and you missed her
you missed her with your body
your whole body
even as she was right here
right here
all this time.
Land Back
is to choose to Live
to really, really Live this time
just live it all out
experience this magic unfold in you, in all that you love and grieve
in human time.
what Astrology and Land Back have in common
is that you don’t even know what it means
and you already hate it
you have never seriously looked into it for a minute or a day
you have never taken the time to FEEL IT
but you “just know”
that it’s ridiculous
when the truth is
you have felt it
you can’t not feel it
it’s everywhere and the truth is what you
“just know”
is that you’re scared
because the truth about Land Back is that it just means change
the truth about Astrology is that it just means movement
it means that you have to change
and you have to move
you’re scared
so am I
I have to change
I have to move
you’re already grieving
so am I
we are part of one body that revolves around a star
some of you seem to forget that
we’re all moving together
we have to change, we have to move, we have to do it together
we are doing it right now
the truth is that “astrology” is a part of LAND BACK
because our solar system is part of the land that holds us is it not?
It feeds us, does it not?
our Universe gives home to our Sun who gives home to our Earth who gives home to us, does it not?
is this is a secret?
has western science not caught up to this one yet because I can’t keep track
we are all part of one body
some of you seem to forget that
just like I once did
whether or not you believe in astrology
the truth is that astrology is just storytelling
and stories make you believe
and stories let you escape
the reality of what is happening in our own body
so we can momentarily pretend
that we do not have to feel
the pain of it
stories make us momentarily numb and we can pretend
that pain is not there but it is
some of you have forgotten just like I once did
that pain in your body is Palestine
it’s in me too
it used to whisper, now it screams
that pain is screaming in you too
that pain in you is Congo, it’s Haiti, it’s Sudan, it’s the Philippines, it’s Kashmir, it’s Hawai’i, it’s Aotearoa, it’s Marshall Islands, it’s Nepal, it’s Antarctica, it’s Nicaragua, it’s Mexico, it’s Ukraine, it’s Armenia, it’s Iraq, it’s Afghanistan, it’s Ireland, it’s Tigray, it’s Venezuela, it’s South Africa, it’s Tamil Eelam, it’s Taiwan, it’s Tibet, it’s Bangladesh, it’s Turtle Island, It’s Heart Island, it’s here, it’s underneath your feet, it’s everywhere, it’s everywhere
it’s everywhere in your body
it’s everywhere in mine too
the pain of freedom breaking open is everywhere
it’s in the body of the colonizer too
it’s in the one aggressing genocide too
the one holding so tight to what it knows and what it doesn’t want to believe
because it doesn’t want to change so that it doesn’t have to grieve
I held on
to pain like that too
you did too
I still do.
that pain, it used to whisper
now it screams
now it screams
and it still whispers too
PERMANENT END
PERMANENT LAND BACK
PERMANENT CEASEFIRE
IN ALL PARTS OF THE BODY
NOW
PERMANENT END
MAY PALESTINE MOVE FREELY NOW
MAY ALL PARTS OF THE BODY MOVE FREELY
NOW
if storytelling is one of our greatest weapons of mass destruction
it is also one of our greatest weapons of mass healing
if storytelling is one of our strongest aids to colonization, it is one of our most serious assets to life and liberation
if genocide cannot happen without storytelling, freedom cannot happen without it either
so let me tell you a story:
Free Palestine Means Love
Free Palestine means every body has a birth right to Live in sovereign relationship with the land they love that loves them back
Free Palestine means inner and outer decolonization
Free Palestine means I want to learn to love myself more deeply so I can love you better
Free Palestine means every Indigenous person everywhere needs the support to heal
Free Palestine means every one of us is an Earth Steward because we live here
Free Palestine the un-nameable aching that will always be inside of you until you remember how to be an Earth Steward again
Free Palestine is putting a name to your un-nameable aching
Free Palestine means abolish the police and prisons and every institution that has made habit and practise of murdering and sucking the life force out of Black and Indigenous people
Free Palestine means Survivors can never be left to suffer in silence
Free Palestine means the community has a responsibility to support Survivors in gaining back their autonomy
Free Palestine means everyone has the right to body autonomy including accessing holistic empowering healthcare, abortion, reproductive rights and living in ceremony with their land because land is body
Free Palestine means we all came here with the imagination to break free from the limiting beliefs and structures white supremacy has imposed on us
Free Palestine means we all came here to be a part of birthing something new
Free Palestine means there are better ways to keep ourselves safe and healthy than we were taught and we were born with the creativity to make it
Free Palestine means we will find a different way to be in relationship here
we have
we are
we will
we will continue
Free Palestine means queer and trans people get to express themselves and live happily for who they are and make art and decide who they do and don’t want to share intimacy with
Free Palestine means don’t believe the racist lies that say Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims and brown people are inherently homophobic, transphobic, violent and vengeful. Those are lies.
Free Palestine means dig deeper for the truth, and once you find it, live it, live it out
Free Palestine means I won’t leave myself out of my own healing
Free Palestine Means Love
it means love. it means love. it means love.
Shaunga Tagore is a Planetary Priestess formerly known as Astrologer. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of Otherworldly Giants: Creation Company, Storytelling School and Divination Channel.