For me, so much of my life has been this attempt to find my way back into my body. I tried various forms, from promiscuity, to eating disorders, to performance art. And I think it wasn't until I got cancer, where I was suddenly being pricked and ported and chemoed and operated on, that I suddenly just became body. I was just a body. And it was in that, in that finally landing in myself that I really discovered the world in my body.

Wouldn't it be incredible if everyone could be purged, somehow, of the projected not-them badness that they internalized and perhaps have acted out because their souls have been so damaged? Wouldn't it be incredible if everyone could find the joy that comes with committing to our own goodness? Perhaps we would stop dividing ourselves into malignancies of various forms.

I literally would go to see Tina Turner any opportunity I had because being in the presence of Tina Turner was like being in the presence of transformative energy, and feminist transformative energy. I remember thinking to myself, whatever this is, it's revolution. Whatever this is, it's change embodied in a woman.

It really occurred to me at a certain point: women have not been embodied. Feminism has not been embodied. It hasn't gotten into us in a way where it is so undeniable that there is nothing to prove. Do you know what I mean? That we are so in our feminist skin, so to speak, that we are that world now.

I am worried about this word, this notion - security. I see this word, hear this word, feel this word everywhere. Security check. Security watch. Security clearance. Why has all this focus on security made me feel so much more insecure? ... Why are we suddenly a nation and a people who strive for security above all else?

You know I think so many of us live outside our bodies. My dream is that people will find a way back home, into their bodies, to connect with the earth, to connect with each other, to connect with the poor, to connect with the broken, to connect with the needy, to connect with people calling out all around us, to connect with the beauty, poetry, the wildness.

I think for me, happiness is crucial, but I think we think that happiness comes from amassing goods and getting things and being loved and being successful, when in fact my experience of happiness comes when you give everything away, when you serve people, when you're watching something you do make somebody happy, that's when happiness happens.