Cultivating celebration, pleasure, and moments of transcendent joy as essential organizing practices and forms of spiritual resistance.
Rabia's devotion was characterized by ecstatic love and joy in connection with the divine, expressing spiritual liberation through celebration rather than grimness. In community organizing, this translates to recognizing that joy, celebration, and ecstatic experience are not luxuries or distractions but essential practices that sustain movements and declare freedom. Organizing can include dance, music, feasting, laughter, and moments of collective transcendence that remind people why they're fighting and connect them to deeper sources of power. Pleasure activism becomes central: designing meetings that are fun, celebrating victories with genuine festivity, and creating beauty in otherwise austere activist spaces. Joy becomes resistance because oppressive systems depend on communities being demoralized, isolated, and joyless. When organizers cultivate ecstatic experiences—moments where people feel fully alive, connected, and powerful—they strengthen resilience and declare their people's right to joy. This also makes organizing more accessible to families and people who need pleasure and beauty in their lives, not just political analysis.
Peri can explain this concept, give practical examples, help you decide whether it applies to your situation, or recommend a journey if appropriate.
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