kindling & sage (2025)

04/12/2024

4 years of kindling & sage!

It’s been a quiet year for the magazine. I took a step to the side this year to focus on my research, but honestly I’m itching to make a new issue. I sat this morning with these four beauties and marvelled at the path I can see from Issue 1 to the latest. I re-read many of the stories and snapped a quick photo of the ones that called to me most. But every single story we’ve shared over the last four years is a world and together they weave the community that I’m so lucky to be a part of. I hope you feel that way too.

Thank you for your support - as I often write in the postcards I send when you purchase, it truly means the world to me. With all my heart I thank you all for helping me build this project.

Join me in celebrating this milestone! Jump online and head to our website. The code BIRTHDAY4 will give you a 20% discount on magazines and merch

06/10/2024

Long live the resistance 🔻

11/09/2024

I wrote this piece nearly a year ago, just after the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the civic-military coup in my homeland. Today, it’s 51 years. 51 years of injustice. 51 years of waiting. 51 years.

I cannot fathom the pain of this day for those who still wait to hear of their loved ones. The pain of reliving, on this day more than on others, the horrific days of the dictatorship. My generation is called the children of the dictatorship - 17 years of horrors raised us, shaped us, continues to shape the way we inhabit this world. And when it was over, it wasn’t.

A man was murdered yesterday, during the march to honour the martyrs of the dictatorship. Police brutality escalates across the country. The dictatorship ended 34 years ago and yet, the democracy - the defence of democracy- which is so often spoken of so fervently by politicians, has come to mean submit and obey, do not question, do not ask about the disappeared, the corruption, the inequities, the indignities. Do not ask.

And so I hang on to Luisa Toledo’s words, let’s be beautifully violent. Resistance, until dignity becomes customary.

03/09/2024

I'm meant to be writing my thesis but instead found myself writing this instead. Thinking of who recently launched an amazing book series and who is constantly bringing me to tears with her moving poetry and who is taking her writing to the next level and who has an incredible project coming up and whose debut novel I can't wait to read. So inspired by you all 🥹💖

06/08/2024

Sista Zai Zanda writes a compelling open letter to Global Majority Settler-Storytellers. Who are we and what could we be, if we were to exist in true solidarity, free of the white supremacist gaze?

An important reflection and prompt from a brilliant thinker and storyteller. Have you read it yet? Tell us in the comments!

29/07/2024

I love this magazine so much and it is by far the best project I’ve ever contributed to. Sometimes I hold these 4 issues in my hand and it feels surreal to reflect back on everything that has transpired in the 4 years since the first seed of it came to be.

It’s not just the creation of the magazine - kindling & sage forced me to think deeply about many things, so much so that I’m now in the process of writing a thesis on these reflections. On what it means to be an economic actor, on the radical possibilities of working in anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist ways. More on this in the months to come.

I haven’t spoken enough about issue n°4 and this weighs heavily on me. I feel I haven’t honoured all the incredible, valuable, fierce writing contained in its pages. I wish everyone could read it, sit with the perspectives that have been shared, and allow it to move you.

As we move into the second half of the year, I will do a better job at sharing all of the beautiful content created for this issue - I hope it inspires you xx

If you've read any of our beauties, leave us a comment. It fills my heart to read them 🥰

23/04/2024

Thank you to everyone who purchased this week and everyone who shared and sent their love and support. It means so so much ❤️

Our store shipping will be on pause for the next 6 weeks. During this time, our digital magazines will be on sale. They're a really great option for flipping through on your favourite device and you can get all 4 issues for $30!

Shipping commences again in early June.

love,
natalia

16/04/2024

New article up on the website - snippets in this post: Medical cannabis in 'australia' and its ties to 'isr**l'. This is work in progress, so please feel free to share your own experiences and contribute to the discussion.

Read in full and view sources on www.kindlingandsage.com, link in our bio.

Many thanks to .here and for their support in getting this out ❤️❤️

#420

15/04/2024

Friends, as you may know, the launch of our much anticipated Issue n°4 coincided with the escalation of the heinous acts of jen oh syde being committed by the apartheid state. As such, nothing has felt as relevant and vital, and to promote our work - while recognising it’s importance and contribution to discussions on solidarity and interconnectedness - has felt off, or at least less pressing. Additionally, even while our following has increased, the visibility and reach we’ve had over the last months has decreased significantly.

There have been dire financial consequences to that and, once again, the future of this space is up in the air. I’m not sharing this to bemoan my decisions or position, but for the sake of transparency. I’m running a sale this week in the hopes of raising some much needed funds. If you can contribute in any way, by making a purchase, donation, or sharing with friends, I am so incredibly grateful. Our shop will be closed in May, reopening in June.

Use the code APRILSALE at checkout for 20% off all orders over $50, valid between now and the 22nd of April. This is your chance to stock up on some beautiful, thoughtful, moving stories and merch - help us spread (and grow) the kindling & sage fire :)

07/03/2024

If IWD - if IWWD - means anything to you, if feminism means anything to you, if equality, equity, justice, mean anything to you, then speak up for the oppressed. As Chelsea Watego and Jamal Nabulsi said, BE LOYAL TO THE OPPRESSED.

Speak up, use your voice, your strength, your work, your passion, your fight, your energy and BE LOYAL TO THE OPPRESSED. Don’t speak over, don’t speak for, be with. Learn, unlearn, join, collectivise, reflect, look at yourself with honesty and see where you can do better. We can all do better, always.

If there’s a slogan for this year it’s BE LOYAL TO THE OPPRESSED. Do it. For Palestinian women, for Sudanese, Congolese, Uyghur, West Papuan, for First Nations women here and everywhere. Be loyal to the oppressed, now. Do it now.

22/02/2024

For the past couple of days I’ve felt like I’m choking on rage, fury, disappointment.

My inbox overflows with proforma responses from organisations and politicians, full of the same vacuous sentences, long paragraphs with zero meaning and even less impact. And then, the publications that I admired, looked up to even, come out with the same thing.

I remember poring over their pages and websites when I started kindling & sage. Wondering if I would ever contribute to building anything that reached as many people as they did, share as many stories as they had, exist for as long as they have. But if this is the price to pay - silence, followed by vacuous, flowing paragraphs of words that amount to nothing more than cowardice, words styled across the page, pretending to be staunch, arguing against neutrality when they still condemn just resistance - then I don’t want it.

I have no eloquence, no overflow of words, because how dare they invoke the world solidarity and in the same breath continue to repeat the discourses that only serve the oppressors. How are they not embarrassed and ashamed - after everything we’ve witnessed over the last nearly 5 months, after everything we know has happened over the last 75 years - how are they not ashamed to print these words that serve no-one?

14/02/2024

I wrote this ode, with grief and rage for my homeland. Homeland, not as in a flag or the national symbols - homeland as in the mountains, the land, my loves. Its a reflection on the 50th anniversary of the civic-military coup in 1973 and the 4th anniversary of the uprising, as I search for a space/place/action to direct my fury at the persistent injustice and indolence.

Read "'the revolt is permanent in my rebellious heart': an ode to grief and rage for my homeland" in print or digital format ❤️ available in our online shop.

13/02/2024

What a privilege to publish this testament to the deep, undeniable solidarity that exists, and has long existed, between First Nations people on these lands and Palestinians.

Dr Chelsea Watego & Dr Jamal Nabulsi wrote this fierce collaborative piece 'be loyal to the dispossessed' and it is absolutely unmissable.

Read in full in digital or print format - issue n°4 is available now in our online shop.

Share your thoughts in the comments ❤️

29/01/2024

Inside Issue n°4: Solidarity

Hunter Lee writes an important essay on transgender liberation and individual & collective self-affirmation, noting compelling reflections on the NGO-industrial complex along the way. A vital read in this issue: 'We must look to each other' - don't miss it.

*Issue n°4 is available in print & digital formats in our online shop - link in bio*

Read it already? Tell us in the comments what you thought xx

26/01/2024

Always was, always will be 🖤💛❤️

25/01/2024

The colonies will fall. Glory to all resistance fighters, everywhere. Land back, liberation, self-determination, from Gadigal to Falastin to Wallmapu and beyond.

See you tomorrow on Gadigal Land (Belmore Park) for the Invasion Day 🖤💛❤️ rally & on Sunday at Hyde Park for the 16th week of rallying for a free Palestine 🍉

19/01/2024

Inside Issue n °4: Solidarity

Deen Kafina tackles diaspora survivor’s guilt in this devastatingly timely, moving piece. Where does our grief go and what do we do when we feel helpless? "On diaspora survivor’s guilt" is an unmissable call to solidarity - read it in full in print or digital format.

**Issue n°4 is out now and available in our online shop**

This piece resonated deeply with us - leave a comment or a ❤️ if it did for you too xx

18/01/2024

Inside Issue n°4: Solidarity

Mililma May's essay "In sisterhood, solidarity begins within" is a compelling reflection on solidarity, sisterhood, and colonialism.

**Read in full in print and digital format. Available now in our online shop.**

The beautiful imagery of kinship and love, along with the important reflections on the brutal violence of colonialism make this an unmissable piece within Issue n°4 ❤️

Have you read it yet? Let us know in the comments x

kindling & sage