Medicine Stories in Puerto Rico
Donation protected
Dear friends,
The land and people of Puerto Rico have a story to tell and we are asking for your help to tell it. The earth's temperature, tidal and atmospheric flows, and story of connection is shifting and we are asking for your help as we listen to it.
This is a call to support writer, poet, and mentor Aurora Levins Morales as she travels to her homeland, Puerto Rico, on a journey of water listening, and of feeling the webs of connection between lands and lives. Writes Aurora:
This will be my first visit to my homeland since Hurricane Maria, and will allow me to feel my way into the stories I most want to tell, to directly experience both the current impacts of colonialism and climate change and the creativity and resilience of my people, and to think deeply about what healing justice means for my country.
Aurora was born in Indiera Baja, Maricao, in the western highlands of Puerto Rico, and it’s her deepest root, the land from which her writings arise, among themRemedios: Stories of Earth and Iron from the History of Puertorriqueñas ,Kindling: Writings on the Body and the new and greatly expanded edition of Medicine Stories: Essays for Radicals, works that, for many, place Aurora as the grandmother of the healing justice framework, in which true healing responds to the trauma held by land and by bodies.
We want you to support Aurora to spend time in Puerto Rico, listening to and learning from the land and being in relationship to Aurora’s homeland and home culture. We are hoping to raise $6,000 for travel, accessibility needs and follow up work. This amount will support Aurora to stay at hotels and rentals that are chemically safe, buy high protein organic food in order to stay healthy, and pay for car rental for several weeks. Anything raised over $6,000 will go towards writing that Aurora will be doing about Puerto Rico after our return. We are asking you to join us as co-creators of this work and, because all resources exist in a circle, we want to give while we receive.
For those who donate $50 or more, you will receive a signed copy of the brand new edition of Medicine Stories , with twelve new essays and nine substantially revised ones.
For those who donate $100 or more, you will receive signed copies of both Medicine Stories and Kindling .
All donors at any level will be invited to participate in a Zoom conversation in late May, reflecting on the trip and on what has been learned.
With gratitude to Ricardo Levins Morales for the image at the top of the page, cover art for the new release of Medicine Stories.
“What our bodies require in order to thrive, is what the world requires. If there is a map to get there, it can be found in the atlas of our skin and bone and blood, in the tracks of neurotransmitters and antibodies. When I write about cancer and exhaustion and irritable bowels in the context of the treeless slopes of my homeland, of market driven famine, of xenoestrogens and the possible extinction of bees, I am tracing that map with my fingertips, walking into the heart of the storm that shakes my body and occupies the world. As the rising temperature of the planet births bigger and more violent hurricanes from the tepid seas, I am watching the needle of my anger swing across its arc, locating meridians, looking for the magnetic pulse points of change. When I can hold the truth of my flesh as one protesting voice in a multitude, a witness and opponent to what greed has wrought, awareness becomes bearable, and I rejoice in the clarity that illness has given me."
-- Aurora Levins Morales, from Kindling.
The land and people of Puerto Rico have a story to tell and we are asking for your help to tell it. The earth's temperature, tidal and atmospheric flows, and story of connection is shifting and we are asking for your help as we listen to it.
This is a call to support writer, poet, and mentor Aurora Levins Morales as she travels to her homeland, Puerto Rico, on a journey of water listening, and of feeling the webs of connection between lands and lives. Writes Aurora:
This will be my first visit to my homeland since Hurricane Maria, and will allow me to feel my way into the stories I most want to tell, to directly experience both the current impacts of colonialism and climate change and the creativity and resilience of my people, and to think deeply about what healing justice means for my country.
Aurora was born in Indiera Baja, Maricao, in the western highlands of Puerto Rico, and it’s her deepest root, the land from which her writings arise, among themRemedios: Stories of Earth and Iron from the History of Puertorriqueñas ,Kindling: Writings on the Body and the new and greatly expanded edition of Medicine Stories: Essays for Radicals, works that, for many, place Aurora as the grandmother of the healing justice framework, in which true healing responds to the trauma held by land and by bodies.
We want you to support Aurora to spend time in Puerto Rico, listening to and learning from the land and being in relationship to Aurora’s homeland and home culture. We are hoping to raise $6,000 for travel, accessibility needs and follow up work. This amount will support Aurora to stay at hotels and rentals that are chemically safe, buy high protein organic food in order to stay healthy, and pay for car rental for several weeks. Anything raised over $6,000 will go towards writing that Aurora will be doing about Puerto Rico after our return. We are asking you to join us as co-creators of this work and, because all resources exist in a circle, we want to give while we receive.
For those who donate $50 or more, you will receive a signed copy of the brand new edition of Medicine Stories , with twelve new essays and nine substantially revised ones.
For those who donate $100 or more, you will receive signed copies of both Medicine Stories and Kindling .
All donors at any level will be invited to participate in a Zoom conversation in late May, reflecting on the trip and on what has been learned.
With gratitude to Ricardo Levins Morales for the image at the top of the page, cover art for the new release of Medicine Stories.
“What our bodies require in order to thrive, is what the world requires. If there is a map to get there, it can be found in the atlas of our skin and bone and blood, in the tracks of neurotransmitters and antibodies. When I write about cancer and exhaustion and irritable bowels in the context of the treeless slopes of my homeland, of market driven famine, of xenoestrogens and the possible extinction of bees, I am tracing that map with my fingertips, walking into the heart of the storm that shakes my body and occupies the world. As the rising temperature of the planet births bigger and more violent hurricanes from the tepid seas, I am watching the needle of my anger swing across its arc, locating meridians, looking for the magnetic pulse points of change. When I can hold the truth of my flesh as one protesting voice in a multitude, a witness and opponent to what greed has wrought, awareness becomes bearable, and I rejoice in the clarity that illness has given me."
-- Aurora Levins Morales, from Kindling.
Organizer
Susan Raffo
Organizer
Minneapolis, MN