Patron Hunt

Aurora Levins Morales is a storyteller and social justice activist living on the island of Puerto Rico who has been a storyteller and social justice activist all their life. Their words have gone all over the world and been translated into many languages. They are taught in schools and study groups, incorporated into posters and performances, turned into prayer in synagogues, churches and temples, and shared among all kinds of people who want a world of justice and peace. Metaphors are their superpower. Metaphors, and a deep faith in a really big vision of what human societies could become. They write about the world around them and the world they know is possible. They tell stories that expand what we believe we can do, make unexpected connections between realities that seem separate, encourage us to have bigger dreams, hopes and expectations, and cultivate resilience and imagination. They write about principled ways of working together, across many kinds of difference, so we can build the world we want to live in and leave to the generations after us. In fall of 2018 they traveled down the Mississippi River with Naiomi Robles, and then spent five weeks at A Studio in the Woods writing Silt: Prose Poems about the natural and social landscapes of the river as seen from the Caribbean, about the rivers in the earth and in their body, and the ways water holds our stories. In April, 2019, Duke University Press released a new and greatly expanded edition of their 1998 book Medicine Stories:Essays for Radicals. In December, 2019, they moved back to their childhood home in rural Puerto Rico to be part of the climate justice movement, which is also a movement to end colonialism in their country. It is also a movement for food sovereignty and agroecology, and they participate as a storyteller, not just in words and artwork, but working with the land itself to tell stories of possibility. They are planting tradition mound gardens with food and medicine, planting a food forest, and moving toward aquaculture, creating micro-projects that illustrate what sustainability could look like. Through the Rimonim Liturgy Project, they work with partner organizations to create new and revised liturgical poetry that draws on the deep traditions of Judaism while rising to the challenging times we live in, and centers the many kinds of Jews who are marginalized in mainstream Jewish institutions. They do all of these things with the heart, mind and hands of a feminist and radical, a queer identified woman, a Puerto Rican and Ashkenazi Jew, a person living with with chronic illness and disability, with the aftermaths of environmental and sexual violence, an immigrant, a single mother, and an artist. They do a lot of different kinds of work that are all connected. They post their work here on Patreon, write books, create podcasts, teach and mentor. They recently launched the Resident Apprentice program in which they invite one person at a time to stay at Finca la Lluvia for 4-6 weeks, receiving one on one mentoring of their creative process in exchange for housing and help with household and garden chores and driving. They love doing this work as part of a large, interwoven web of people who share their values and become connected through the stories they gather and tell. They would love for you to become part of that web.

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