Updates
A chronological view of all updates and changes to tender.garden.
August 5, 2025
7 updates
Hope
"Hope is a discipline" - Mariame Kaba How can we cultivate hope while not ignoring the reality of oppression and violence that is currently happening? Imagination and hope are closely related. What is possible of we work on a better world together?
Imagination
Growing our capacity to imagine how life and the world could be is a light work technique that cultivates hope. - Visualization techniques, e.g utopianism - Affirmations
Article Series: Because We Need Each Other
"Because We Need Each Other: Conversations on Cancel Culture" is an article series by Erika Sasson, Celia Kutz, Kazu Haga, and Shilpa Jain that was published on The Forge and Convergence. You can access the full series here. Find the article here "This first article shares our origin story. We were all part of a gathering called “Because We Need Each Other,” in which 25 people from across the US came together to grapple with the impacts of a punitive pattern in social change/movement left spaces." The authors share the motivation for the gathering and the importance of improving the ways we collaborate in movement spaces. "Given the profound political moment we are in—with the unraveling of many democratic rights and freedoms—it feels more important than ever to strengthen the ways in which we come together on the left" "Our capacity to mobilize is strengthened by our ability to work through disagreement and come back from conflict." They also share important insights from the gathering: "The key takeaway from our gathering—beyond any discrete action steps—was the power of airing our questions in a trusted environment." "Because we need each other, we understand that we also need worldviews that reflect and commit to wholesome, spiritual practices in our movement spaces. We came together to remember, in the important words of one of our beloved Indigenous elders, that we are all cousins. And that we want to continue treating each other as relatives in our work and communities as we go forward in these times."
Affirmations
Affirmations are short, positive statements that help reframe thoughts and reinforce desired beliefs and intentions. By repeating them regularly, we can affect how our consciousness perceives ourselves and the world around us. Since affirmations are typically used to shift thoughts and perceptions toward positive outcomes, they can be seen as a light work technique. - Choose an affirmation that reflects a belief, intention, or quality you want to strengthen - Keep it short, present-tense, and positive (e.g., “I am a source of calm, strength, and hope.”) - Repeat it regularly It is even possible to create a mantra out of your affirmation and repeat it over and over to focus your mind on it even more. Affirmations are not inly relevant on the individual level. We believe it's very important for the collective to use them to envision a better future. May our affirmations be as bold as our imagination allows. Examples:
Transformative Magic
Transformative Magic is the art of changing the world by changing ourselves. In an era of widespread burnout, social fragmentation, and institutional collapse, many of us are waking up — but we’re unsure what to do with our awakening. Below, we intend to offer a map to reorient and rebalance. We believe that profound transformation happens when we focus on both polarities of the work: - Shadow Work: Integrating the hidden and denied parts of our psyche - Light Work: Shifting our energy toward luminous behaviors and outcomes It is important to find a good balance. Too much focus on Shadow Work could mean we're stuck in the past and its patterns, missing the bigger picture and hope. Just doing Light Work may result in unquestioned beliefs and an inflated ego. <Image src="../img/light-work-shadow-work.jpg" size="medium" alt="Light Work and Shadow Work"
Light Work
Light work means using tools that help us shape our world in a positive way. While shadow work is about recognizing patterns that might be holding us back, light work is about cultivating new, healthy patterns that have previously been beyond our imagination. While a lot of light work techniques are focused on the self, the act of imagining and building a better future for everyone is an important part of collective liberation. On an individual level, we can have an impact by taking responsibility for the energy we bring into the human organism. On a collective level, we can work together and envision a world that's beyond our current imagination, for example through utopianism. - Exercising our imagination of what's possible, for example using visualization techniques and affirmations. - Training ourselves to be in the present and cultivating awe, for example through gratitude journaling and awe walks.
Utopianism
Utopianism is a light work technique with the goal to envision a better future where humans live together in a healthy, sustainable way. It stretches our muscles of imagination and allows us to step outside of our current systems and thought patterns. How does the human organism live together in the future? How do people spend their lives together, how are they organized? How do members of the society see themselves?
July 31, 2025
12 updates
Book: We Will Not Cancel Us
We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice is a book by adrienne maree brown that explores cancel culture within abolitionist movements. "With each of the pieces in this collection, my goal is to bring transformative justice to life within our movement spaces–not as a futurist theory we are demanding from the larger world, but as a practice we are rigorously in with each other as believers, growing the capacity to invite other into." The book starts with a beautiful visualization: "I know that we are co-creating the future with each word, each action, and with our attention." "I can see it–in the short-term we generate small pockets of movement so irresistibly accountable that people who don't even know what a movement is come running towards us" "In my mid-term vision, movements prioritize building the capacity, skill and wide hearts to receive new comrades, while practicing daily and deeply what it means to sustain our relationships and collective visions, uphold our values, and adapt towards purpose." "We get skilled at critique that deepens us, conflict that generates new futures, and healing that changes material conditions." "In the longest term vision I can see, when we [...] inevitably disagree, or cause harm, we will respond not with rejection, exile, or public shaming, but with clear naming of harm; education around intention, impact, and pattern breaking; satisfying apologies and consequences; new agreements and trustworthy boundaries; and lifelong healing resources for all involved." "It is our time and responsibility to try something else."
Fetishization
When people wake up to their own prejudices and discriminating socialization, a first reaction can often be to overcorrect. Fetishization, although meant in a good way, is still a form of othering. The path towards equality and liberation means recognizing this part of the process.
Manifestation
Manifestation is the moment an idea transitions from the spiritual realm into the material world. Often, when people talk about manifestation, they mean visualization, which is an important part of the process.
Organizing
Building collective power and community care structures.
Shadow
The concept of the shadow was introduced by Carl Jung. It is based on the observation that there is a large part of the human psyche that is being kept hidden, remaining in the subconscious. The shadow usually consists of parts of ourselves that we don't like, that we repress and deny. This denial, however, can lead to us repeating subconscious patterns. The more we repress it, the more it wants to make itself heard. Shadow Work is the process of integrating the shadow aspects of the self.
Stages of Grief
The 5 stages of grief is a framework developed by Elisabeth KĂĽbler-Ross with a goal to understand how humans deal with emotional loss. The stages are: - Denial - Anger - Bargaining - Depression - Acceptance These don't have to happen in linear order or in the same order by everyone. While this framework is typically referenced in cases of death, we believe it can also be mapped to the process of awakening to social injustice.
Visualization
Visualization is a light work practice that helps envision something that has not manifested in the material realm yet.
Learning about Cancel Culture
We've dismissed the term cancel culture for a long time because we saw it mainly as a way for people in power to evade accountability when confronted with mistakes. What’s often forgotten is that the roots of this practice lie in Black liberation movements, where calling out harmful behavior publicly became a vital way to seek justice outside of systems that fail to protect marginalized communities. Over time, however, the term has been co-opted and repurposed—often by those in power—to deflect criticism. Rather than taking responsibility for the harm that was caused, people often focus on how the injustice is communicated. This shifts the attention away from the root of the issue. We believe it's crucial to listen to people experiencing violence and injustice, no matter how it is delivered. There should always be space for righteous anger. However, the more we reflected on our own behavior during conflict, we realized there is more going on. We noticed how punishment and fear of punishment–so deeply ingrained in our culture–affects how we show up in our relationships and results in hurt and disconnection in cases where more effective conflict resolution could be possible. We experienced this not only in personal conflicts, but also when trying to help organize for Palestine and collective liberation over the last year. There is a growing number of people in movement spaces highlighting the importance of finding more effective and connective ways of working together. As big believers in the transformative magic of conflict resolution, we feel drawn towards better understanding the underlying dynamics of cancel culture and how they show up in ourselves, our personal relationships, and our movements. We are exploring this as two white Germans. This means we're currently focusing on: - How German socialization affects our conflict behavior - The process of white Germans waking up to being complicit in structural violence - Doing the necessary shadow work to be able to show up in movement spaces in increasingly healthy ways
Free Palestine
How can we help end the violence Palestinians are facing, putting pressure on our governments to stop enabling the oppression and genocide? Our focus the last 2 years has been mainly on the external: Trying to raise awareness and amplify voices with the goal to have more people stand up and get loud agains the horrors of Israel's actions against the Palestinian people. Because we were socialized in Germany, this means specifically doing the shadow work in recognizing our own Anti-Palestinian and Anti-Arab racism and talking about this with other Germans, especially highlighting the media bias and state repression against Palestine solidarity here in Germany. There is a shift in public perception happening that shows that staying loud works! However, we're still focused a lot on making other people join us instead of trying to work together and organize more effectively. With collective power, we can build more sustainable infrastructure and put pressure on people in power. This is why we want to direct our energy more towards internal work and help empower the resistance, for example with conflict resolution.
Cancel Culture
We've dismissed the term cancel culture for a long time because we saw it mainly as a way for people who are confronted with making a mistake to evade accountability. What’s often forgotten is that the roots of this practice lie in Black liberation movements, where calling out harmful behavior publicly became a vital way to seek justice outside of systems that fail to protect marginalized communities. Over time, however, the term has been co-opted and repurposed—often by those in power—to deflect criticism. Rather than taking responsibility for the harm that was caused, people often focus on how the injustice is communicated. This shifts the attention away from the root of the issue. We believe it's crucial to listen to people experiencing violence and injustice, no matter how it is delivered. There should always be space for righteous anger. However, recently, we started reflecting on our own behavior, how punishment is ingrained in our culture and how this leads to judgment and finger pointing in cases where more effective conflict resolution could be possible. When we focus too much on outer spheres and neglect the necessary inner work, this can lead to externalization and cancel culture.
Article Series: Because We Need Each Other
"Because We Need Each Other: Conversations on Cancel Culture" is an article series by Erika Sasson, Celia Kutz, Kazu Haga, and Shilpa Jain that was published on The Forge and Convergence. You can access the full series here. Find the article here "This first article shares our origin story. We were all part of a gathering called “Because We Need Each Other,” in which 25 people from across the US came together to grapple with the impacts of a punitive pattern in social change/movement left spaces." The authors share the motivation for the gathering and the importance of improving the ways we collaborate in movement spaces. "Given the profound political moment we are in—with the unraveling of many democratic rights and freedoms—it feels more important than ever to strengthen the ways in which we come together on the left" "Our capacity to mobilize is strengthened by our ability to work through disagreement and come back from conflict." They also share important insights from the gathering: "The key takeaway from our gathering—beyond any discrete action steps—was the power of airing our questions in a trusted environment." "Because we need each other, we understand that we also need worldviews that reflect and commit to wholesome, spiritual practices in our movement spaces. We came together to remember, in the important words of one of our beloved Indigenous elders, that we are all cousins. And that we want to continue treating each other as relatives in our work and communities as we go forward in these times."
Shadow Work
"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it fate." – Carl Jung Shadow work describes the process of examining and integrating the hidden shadow parts of ourselves. It is about making unconscious patterns conscious, and integrating them so that we don't get controlled by aspects of ourselves that we deny. While shadow work is often used for individuals, there are also a lot of hidden and subconscious aspects in society as a whole. Carl Jung used the term collective unconscious. As above so below means that the collective shadow influences the shadow of human individuals, and vice versa. By working on recognizing our own subconscious patterns, we also help breaking patterns at the collective level.