I think about Marvin Gaye and 'Sexual Healing.' What a radical idea that sex was healing. I learned my politics through that music.

I think what all of us have in common is that we've been taught and trained and programmed to focus on fixing and mutilating ourselves. That's a core reason why women do not have power in the world.

There is a beautiful expression in Nicaragua: "struggle is the highest form of song". I love that. We are in the struggle. It's like a river. Once you step into it you become the river. It's not, you go out and click on a couple of charities that you believe in, march in the Women's March, and you're done. Struggle becomes your life, transforming a paradigm that is based on domination into a paradigm of co-operation. Fighting for the liberation of women, of people of color, of indigenous people, of lgbtq communities. Fighting to protect immigrants and assuring the safety of refugees.

We're always learning. We're all in the process of decolonizing ourselves - removing all the parts of us that are sexist, homophobic, transphobic, racist. I mean, everybody in society needs to be in this process because everybody's been brought up in a misogynist, racist, homophobic, transphobic culture.

You have to give to the world the thing that you want the most, in order to fix the broken parts inside you.

I finally know the difference between pleasing and loving, obeying and respecting. It has taken me so many years to be okay with being different, and with being this alive, this intense.

Denial is really death. People think that when you're connected with other people it's more painful. The opposite is true. When you're connected to the river you have despair, but you also have joy, and there's a flow in the river.