The Arrow

Episode 2 of our Like Water series is here!
In this conversation, Brooke Lavelle and katie robinson speak with movement leader, relational facilitator, and martial artist, Cynthia Ong. Cynthia shares lessons on warriorship from her kung fu teachers and how she’s applying those lessons in political and ecological organizing work through her incredible organization, Forever Sabah in Borneo.

Our Like Water series— with Cynthia Ong, Paloma Schultz, Reverend Greg Snyder, and Autumn Brown—launches tomorrow, April 7th!

To join us for the series, visit: https://courage-of-care.teachable.com/p/like-water

These interactive seminar sessions will be recorded if you can’t join us live on Tuesdays from 12-1:30pm ET, beginning April 7, 2026.

Sumud, or “steadfastness” in Arabic, is a Palestinian practice of perseverance in the context of settler colonialism, occupation, apartheid, and genocide. It is a practice grounded in deep reverence and connection to the land, culture, and traditions as well as collective identity, family, community care and solidarity, political resistance, and spirituality.

Print versions of our special issue, “Steadfastness & Solidarity Through Genocide: SWANA & Ally Voices”, produced in partnershipo with , the  and , and released earlier this year, are now available for purchase via the link in our bio. (Free digital editions were made available earlier this year and can be accessed via our substack.)

”The pieces collected here are a testimony of voices, practices, teachings, and ancestral wisdom of Palestinian, Arab, and SWANA-heritage teachers, guides, healers, scholars, activists, and practitioners, who share with us the many expressions of sumud as practiced across different generations and multiple tragedies as well as through the land, ancestors, sacred grieving, food sovereignty, ancestral plant wisdom, Dabkeh, and art. To read each of these pieces is to experience the aliveness and sacredness of Palestine and the SWANA region—the land and her people.”