TLDR: Valarie Kaur is traveling across the country this fall to build a movement of revolutionary love—an approach to courage, collective action, and resistance rooted in ancestral wisdom. On October 3rd, she'll gather with Coloradans at Mile High Church's Teel Sanctuary, accompanied by world-renowned Afghan musician Qais Essar, master of the rabab, an ancient instrument historically used to ignite courage in the darkest times. This event is part of a larger call for people to show up together, strengthen each other, and act as the majority opposition to tyranny.
What Is Revolutionary Love and Why Does It Matter Now?
Valarie Kaur frames revolutionary love not as sentiment but as a form of resistance and collective practice. In a moment when many people report feeling breathless, hopeless, or pulled toward despair, Kaur's message centers a simple but radical claim: the majority of people oppose authoritarianism, tyranny, and brutality. Yet the majority often does not act like the majority. Revolutionary love becomes the framework through which ordinary people can reclaim their collective power and show up for each other in tangible, courageous ways.
The Colorado event is designed not as a lecture but as an evening of nourishment, inspiration, and fortification. This reflects a deeper principle: that resistance and change require bodies in rooms together, music, ancestral connection, and the felt experience of not being alone. In times of political and social crisis, the togetherness itself—the gathering—becomes an act of defiance and renewal.
Who Is Qais Essar and What Does the Rabab Represent?
Qais Essar, a world-renowned Afghan musician, brings a specific historical and cultural dimension to the Colorado event. He is a master of the rabab, an ancient stringed instrument with deep roots in Afghan and Central Asian musical traditions. Kaur explicitly identifies the rabab as "the musical instrument our ancestors used to ignite courage in the darkest times." This framing is not metaphorical—it points to the rabab's actual role in Afghan culture as a tool for storytelling, resistance, and the transmission of courage across generations.
By centering Essar and the rabab at this gathering, Kaur signals that revolutionary love is not a Western invention but draws from ancestral wisdom and artistic traditions that have already been used to sustain people through occupation, war, and oppression. Music becomes a language through which courage can be transmitted without words, reaching the body and spirit in ways that spoken argument cannot.
How Does This Fit Into a Nationwide Movement?
The Colorado event is one stop on a fall tour across the United States. Kaur emphasizes that "we're traveling across the country this fall. We're building the movement of revolutionary love." This language suggests a distributed, grassroots approach—not a single march or one-time action, but a repeated pattern of local gatherings where people come together to strengthen, inspire, and fortify each other.
The structure of these events—gathering in community spaces, bringing musicians and storytellers, inviting people to bring "all of your people"—reflects a strategy of horizontal organizing. Rather than top-down messaging, the model is community-by-community activation, where people leave each gathering with renewed sense of their own power and their connection to a larger movement.
What Does It Mean to "Be Brave With Our Lives"?
Kaur closes her invitation by saying, "Together, we will strengthen each other, inspire each other, fortify each other to be brave with our lives." This phrase—"brave with our lives"—signals that the call is not abstract. It asks people to show up as their full selves, to take risks, and to step into forms of resistance and care that may require personal courage. In the current historical moment, this can mean many things: speaking up in unsafe spaces, organizing with neighbors, showing up for people whose rights are under threat, or simply maintaining one's own humanity and hope in the face of dehumanizing systems.
The emphasis on mutual fortification—"Together, we will strengthen each other"—also suggests that bravery is not an individual achievement but a collective practice. People do not become brave in isolation; they become brave when surrounded by others who are doing the same work, when they see it modeled, when they feel held by community.
Where to Go From Here
If you are in Colorado, the October 3rd gathering at Mile High Church's Teel Sanctuary is an entry point into this movement. Bring people you know and trust. Come prepared to listen, to be moved by music, and to experience the power of collective presence. If you are not in Colorado, Kaur invites you to look for one of the other stops on the fall tour—the movement is being built in multiple cities, and there are likely gatherings near you.
Beyond attendance, the invitation is to think about revolutionary love in your own context. Who are the people in your life who feel breathless or hopeless? How can you strengthen each other? What would it look like to act as though you are part of the majority, even when systems make it hard to feel that way? These are the questions Kaur's movement asks us to sit with.
