#tryanarchismforlife — Public Fediverse posts

Thanks to the awesome and rad folks at @igd_news, my latest curated zine, “Ritual as Resistance: 18 Stories of Defending the Sacred,” is now available on its website to read, and as PDFs to download, print, and distro freely. See link below.

And support your indie anarchist media—with your dollars and readership!!

Excerpt from my intro to the zine:

“We make our own sacred spaces — spaces on no maps — through repeated rituals of resistance whose meanings stretch beyond borders. Because our ‘grief knows no borders.’

“This zine is a sampler of some of the modest ways that anarchistic people from varied traditions are doing just that, and gestures toward ‘bigger’ ones. It’s impossible to understand Standing Rock, Stop Cop City, or Palestinian solidarity encampments, say, without acknowledging the key role of rebellious spiritualities. For one example, see the film ‘Yintah.’

“My hope is that this humble zine inspires you to imaginatively blur the line between ritual and resistance, until the death machine sputters and stalls, and all that then moves freely is life. For it is us, side by side, that can make all sacred against the profane of this world. Because our love knows no borders.”

#RitualAsResistance
#DefendingTheSacred
#TryAnarchismForLife

https://itsgoingdown.org/ritual-as-resistance-18-stories-of-defending-the-sacred/

Friendly reminder: I’m still seeking submissions for the next zine I’m curating, titled “Ritual as Resistance: Defending the Sacred.”

Length: 125 words, give or take
Deadline: May 11
Email to: cbmilstein {at} yahoo [dot] com

Please share this “call” far and wide!

I’m looking for concrete examples of rituals you’ve held space for and/or participated in; that draw on your own cultural practices and/or ancestral traditions; that blur the lines between sacred and rebellious, or shake up what the spiritual+political feels like; and especially, that are collectively and/or publicly done. (See fuller description in my previous post.)

Here’s a sample of one that I’ll be using in the zine, as inspiration and to offer a sense of what I want (though please note, I am NOT only looking for Jewish rituals—though we anarchist Jews love our rad rituals!):

“Fascists sticker-bomb your neighborhood. This hurts. Not merely because the memory of eleven people killed at the Tree of Life building—your childhood shul—still lingers, but they’re crafty bigots. They deliberately drop provocative flyers on people’s doorsteps to try to break solidarity between Palestinians and Jews. This inspires you to counter with agitprop. The ritual technology of prayer, in Judaism, allows us to make the most mundane moments holy. The eating of bread and sipping wine. Through the language of our ancestors, we make these acts sacred, connecting us with all who’ve performed them across the axis of time. You arm yourself with new ritual implements: a paint scraper, sharpies, and wheat paste, along with an extending pole for higher spots. Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh, even these moments where we cover up white supremacist drek can be holy!”
—Anastasia bat Lilith (@stormbringer_press)

(photo: glimpse of an elaborate, bilingual grief and ritual space that I and three beautifully caring anarchists set up for the whole weekend during the May 2023 @montrealanarchist)

#RitualAsResistance
#DefendingTheSacred
#TryAnarchismForLife
#NoSpiritualSurrender (with love and blessed remembrance to Klee Benally)

We must read (and write) against the grain, not merely to illuminate all that must be fought and abolished, but to emphasize what we’re already doing to love and tend to each other.

Not simply to decry the absences we feel and experience so deeply under christofascism, but to declare all the countless presences we sustain through our solidarity in the here and now.

Not only to remind us of the dangers around every corner, but to keep in the forefront of our minds all the innumerable acts of individual and collective bravery, often arising from surprising quarters.

On this cloudy-cold day, with ominous omens swirling all around us, with German elections boding a further storm, with sieg heils becoming as “normal” as climate catastrophes, it’s good to spot signs of rebellious life, of “falling in love, not in line,” all the ways—in bold brushstrokes, visible and subterranean—that we articulate not merely what we are (and must be) against, but all we’re steadfastly for and already experimenting with.

#LoveAndRage
#TryAnarchismForLife

(photo: two tags, serendipitously sprayed on the same outdoor pillar, one in black and the other in red, illustrating the complementary dimensions within anarchism of wanting to destroy and create, fueled by our rage and love, as seen on the streets of Athens, Feb 23, 2025)

If May Day, among other things, is about sharing the “wealth” (aka abolishing capitalism), there’s nothing quite like going to a small but sweet Really Really Free Market on this May 1 and being gifted a sheet of freshly printed stickers that feel just right for these suddenly rebellious times. (After all, #AllComradesAreBeautiful!)

Then, soon after, redistributing that “wealth” to others at a nearby May Day rally, made merry because of the danceable tunes of @brassyourheart (which may now have some tiny water jugs on a drum or two because this marching band can #AlwaysCarryABeat!).

There are so many others reasons, of course, to wear one’s #ACAB on their sleeve (or water bottle) this May Day, when so many universities and colleges are liberating spaces of solidarity for Gaza, and in the process, powerfully demonstrating that #AutonomousCommunitiesAreBeautiful.

And likewise, so many police are painfully demonstrating that #AllCopsAreBrutal—underscoring that cop cities (aka policing) everywhere must be abolished, from every river to every sea, just as the Haymarket martyrs also fought and alas died for, in part.

Next May Day, in liberation!

#CareNotCops
#CommonsNotCapitalism
#SolidarityNotStates
#TryAnarchismForLife
#UntilAllAreFree

(Ongoing love+solidarity to the brave+bold folks at @occupycalpolyhumboldt for gifting the world the joy of a humble water jug vs. cop during their occupation)

Someone asked me recently if I have hope.

I have rage.
Fear.
Despair.
Sorrow.
Depression.
Impatience.
Anger.
Worry.
Grief.
Horror.
Heartache …

Not hope.

But I do hold out promise.

The promise held in the most minuscule bud on a branch way before leaf out begins.

The promise of tiny clusters of blossoms that just might open up into flowers if the conditions are right.

The promise of a pink-purplish sky embracing the skeletal outlines of trees at the end of a long day just before darkness descends.

The promise in that dark night of seeing the faint glimmer of the first star, and then maybe a second or third one.

The promise of stars as our guides to keep us to the time-space of rituals of resistance, just like our ancestors, even and especially when there’s little to celebrate.

The promise of people and places that have no hope, but still hold to the sacred, still listen to the cry of a migratory bird, still let the wind carry their dreams and the moon cradle their pain.

Still assert life.
Still honor our dead.
Still resist when no one else will.
Still fight without knowing we’ll win.

“The women are lying down
in front of the bulldozers
sent to destroy
the last of the olive groves.”

That promise.

(photo of a handwritten Diane di Prima “Revolutionary Letter” placed on an altar at a recent Palestinian solidarity gathering in southern Appalachia, followed by three hints of spring promise in that same ecosystem)

#TryAnarchismForLife
#UntilAllAreFree

Just another “record highs” day on imperiled planet earth.

So even as I try extra hard to savor the sacredness of an abundant canopy of vivid-green leaves gently dancing to and fro in the breeze, a peppy-blue cloudless skies above, and a shimmering-aqua lake with its rhythmic waves looking like glitter in the sun, I feel distracted by my rage for capitalism, which ruins everything good in the world.

#CapitalismKills
#KillCapitalism
#CommonsNotCommodification
#CommunityNotCapitalism
#TryAnarchismForLife

(photo: fluorescent blue-pink-yellow sticker reading “For the earth to live, capitalism must end,” as seen a couple weeks ago on the streets in so-called Pittsburgh. Of course, the earth will live on, even if vastly transformed by “record weather,” but it’s a lot less clear in relation to our species if capitalism keeps chugging along.)

My longtime friend @spirochristoff sat down with me on a park bench this past winter, both of us bundled in coats and scarves, to chat about anarchism. It wasn’t all that cold outside. Still, it was March in Montreal—meaning there is often a long way to go before one reaches the possibility of warmth, (re)emergence, and blossoming.

Perhaps it was the perfect time for a conversation—or rather, interview for Stefan’s Free City Radio show—about trying anarchism for life, because we often have a long way to go, too, as warm-hearted rebels before the possibilities we offer up against this icy-cold social order start to (re)emerge and blossom.

Now Stefan’s labors have flowered into episode 169 of Free City Radio, recently broadcast on five stations in so-called Canada, and I’m delighted to share the link with you, if you feel so moved to listen.

https://soundcloud.com/freecityradio/169-cindy-milstein-try-anarchism-for-life

Ostensibly, the show was supposed to revolve around my latest book, #TryAnarchismForLife (@tangled_wilderness, with joyous cover design by @eff_charm using a circle A by @landonsheely). Yet one of the many things I appreciate about Stefan, who has been and remains anarchistically awesome for years, is that he curates all sorts of imaginative cultural spaces, leaping off the predictable (in this case, a straightforward book interview) to weave artful alternatives and dreamy otherworlds.

Not that this short radio chat does all that. Nonetheless, I like to think that our real-life friendship shines through and our shared commitment to not merely the #ArtOfResistance but also conversing and organizing as if social relations matter. As if promise and possibility and care matter.

One can only do that, I think, if one hangs onto prefigurative politics, which brings us full circle to my book—made up of picture-prose that look at some of the many beautiful dimensions of anarchism.

Which circles us to one of the artists in my book, @the_sabot_cats, who sent me these two photos of their circle A framed by their adorable graffiti!

#AllCatsAreBeautiful
#TheBeautyOfOurCircles

How rad to be side by side with @margaretkilljoy for this early May Day celebration—at least in spirit via our books, both published by the equally rad Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness collective!

And while our anarchist holiday thankfully doesn’t revolve around shopping, anarchist books have a long, storied history in educating, agitating, and being the inspiration for all sorts of good troublemaking. They also make for good bedtime reading given that they’re filled with the stuff of sweet dreams. Plus in this case, you can get both our new books through May 7, so you can focus fully and freely on May 1.

That said, I hope you do decide to snag copies of my “Try Anarchism for Life: The Beauty of Our Circle” and Margaret’s “Escape from Incel Island.” I also hope that my book encourages you to remember some of the many beautiful reasons we’re in the streets, forests, cities, and elsewhere, not merely fighting for a better world, but already living as if it were here.

May Day and books—and who we are and what we put into this world—are crucial carriers of the flames of liberation and freedom, especially in a time that feels and is so antithetical to all we strive for and try hard to prefigure. We need our blessed flames more than ever as the gloom and doom of fascism descends.

So write, read, and rebel, knowing that words can shape and transform lives, that words can be our weapon and collective defense, that words can keep us going and lend comfort and joy to each other. Words can sabotage the current social order by sharing stories of what’s possible instead.

Plus both our books, in this specific instance, are fun to read.

To order, see www.tangledwilderness.org

Use the promo code: MAYDAY.

#TryAnarchismForLife
#BeautyOfOurCircle
#ReadWriteRebel
#AlwaysCarryABook
#AnarchistsCareAboutBooks
#HappyMayDay

(photo features the covers of the two books—Margaret’s with a drawing of swords and palm trees sticking out of an island, and mine sporting a big, bright pink circle A with a simple floral pattern in it surrounded by a spring-green background)

It’s a bittersweet challenge these days to figure out, much less practice, what it means to “live like the world is dying.” After nearly three pandemic years, given how much has died, “living life” can feel more elusive than ever.

I’ve been thinking a lot—on obsessive #FuckCOVID19 walks again—about an observation that @mbsycamore made in a tweet-story recently: we squandered the “we take care of each other” opening at the pandemic’s start and now the widespread loss of “communal care” feels “all the more brutal.” Especially when the abandonment of collective care for all (emphasis on “all”) occurs too often now in our own circles, as if the pandemic were over. That “squandering” has been cutting me to the core.

So it was not merely an honor to be asked to join @margaret and @house.of.hands for an episode of Live Like the World Is Dying; it felt reinvigorating to hear their words on the joy of living anarchism for life.

https://www.liveliketheworldisdying.com/s1e55-cindy-barukh-milstein-on-trying-anarchism-for-life/

Since we recorded that podcast, many days haven’t feel reinvigorating. And even when recording it over a month ago, I was speaking/dreaming of the world I yearn for and wish I lived in, not the one I inhabit, as if voicing my aspirations can conjure them into existence.

I’ve been reflecting on that a lot ever since, but keenly once the podcast came out. I was struck by the unusual number of folks who messaged me to say that listening to this episode gave them “care,” “kindness,” and “love”—and reasons to go on with “living life” for themselves and others.

Around that same time, some friends who I hadn’t heard from in a while randomly reached out to me for a catch-up phone call, text exchange, or walk—just when I desperately needed extra support. Their words gave me “care,” “kindness,” and “love”—and reasons to go on with “living life” for myself and others.

I write. And talk. So even if I’ve forgotten of late, I know that words count—as political practice, as lifeline and love letter, and as the stories that we swap to tangibly reshape this miserable world for the better.

Let’s reinvigorate #CommunalCare with words that remind us to engage in life-giving deeds.

#WeAreAllWeHave
#NoOneLeftBehind
#PathsTowardUtopia
#TryAnarchismForLife

(photos: Live Like the World Is Dying logo, which is a drawing of a camo-green gas mask with yellow and white flowers growing out of it, promoting the episode I did on “Trying Anarchism for Life”; “you are loved” street heart, black words written on a pink heart, attached to a tree, as seen in Tio’tia:ke/Montreal, summer 2022)

(Part 4 of 6): By way of celebrating my new book “Try Anarchism for Life” being in print and out in the world, and because I have a backlog of photos of circle As in the wild, plus to honor and thank the folks who took the time and care to write blurbs for this book, here’s a trifecta of what I hope are some beautiful expressions of anarchism: street art + the book’s cover + a blurb.

I’ve been thinking a lot—or more than I already do—about “tipping points, when phenomena palpably shift from bad to worse—such as, to my queer Jewish anarchist mind, proto-fascism tipping to fascism after the US midterms—and how those of us who are anarchists see train wrecks coming long before the train has even left the station and beautifully prepare all sorts of infrastructures of #Solidarity way ahead of time. Infrastructures of #MutualAid, #CommunitySelfDefense, #RebelliousMourning, and #FierceLove. It’s shattering my heart that we must increasingly use those infrastructures *merely* to try to lessen the genocidal impacts of Christian fascism here. Yet they are also, always, gesturing toward #AWorldWithoutFascism.

“‘Try Anarchism for Life’ is both a beautiful homage to the countless fragments of ephemeral resistance that constitute everyday antiauthoritarianism and a principled call to commit to stitching together those fragments of daily autonomy-making into flourishing lives of resistance. Paired with unique renditions of the classic circle A, Milstein’s poetic phrases endow age-old concepts like mutual aid and solidarity with renewed vitality and urgency.”

—Mark Bray, author of “Antifa,” “The Anarchist Inquisition,” and “Translating Anarchy”

Copies of the book are available from the publisher, @tangledwild, at www.tangledwilderness.org (for folks in and outside of the US too), @akpressdistro at www.akpress.org, or your favorite anarchist(ic) bookstore, and libraries.

(photos: the rock-solid strength of our circles, as portrayed on a sticker seen in mid-Oct at @defendatlantaforest; beautiful book cover, designed by @eff_charm with circle A by @landonsheely)

#TryAnarchismForLife
#TheBeautyOfOurCircle
#AnarchismOrFascism
#FuckFascism #FTP
#WeAreAllWeNeed
🖤💖🌿