What We Can Learn from Nicaraguan Paramilitary Blockades | Dragon 🐉 Letter #92

Dragon 🐉 Letter #92: Sloth Medicine, Street Rituals & the Power of Collective Defense

As reports disseminate about the data “breach” by DOGE allowing Russian operatives to access sensitive data of U.S. citizens, and the unlawful kidnappings of immigrants in the U.S. sent to concentration camps in El Salvador, everyday USians (U.S. Americans) are having their limits tested.

It is apropos to revisit what I witnessed in the Spring and Summer of 2018 — not to stir fear, but to spark memory and strategy. I hope people will consider how to protect themselves and their neighborhoods from the coming paramilitary in the U.S.

But before I get into that nightmare, I need to share how my lineage shaped my thinking. How protection is not just tactical — it’s ancestral.

In 1942–43, while my Grandpa Jack, an Army soldier, was burning my abuelita Bea’s love letters to keep his feet dry in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, she was walking the streets of Los Angeles as an Air Raid Warden. Her job was to knock on doors after sunset and make sure lights were out during potential Japanese air raids. This wasn’t just compliance — it was care. A neighborhood pact of watchfulness.

The civil defense movement later evolved into Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs). After Hurricane Katrina in 2006, I knew I couldn’t wait for the state to show up. I became CERT-certified, and, alongside a coalition of concerned citizens, helped organize teams in our city. We got Petaluma to take preparedness seriously — bringing together nonprofits, city agencies, and neighbors across sectors. We became HAM operators. We learned how even video could be transmitted over radio waves.

So when I left the U.S. and found myself living through an uprising in Nicaragua in 2018, I paid close attention. I had been training for moments like these. My role as an outsider would be to witness and record. After all, I’m the recordkeeper in my family.

What began in April 2018 as student protests against the selling of jungle hardwoods quickly erupted into a national outcry. When police began killing students who were occupying campuses and holding classes hostage in protest, the public response grew. And when Ortega’s police opened fire on Mother’s Day (May 30th) protests over state-sponsored violence and social security changes, everything changed.

That’s when the bloqueos began.

Blockades sprang up across the country, including along the Panamerican Highway, a strategic act of disruption that would garner the attention of the world.

The bloqueos effectively became a national strike (huelga) and economic freeze, halting the flow of goods from Panama to the north. And in the cities? Cobblestones were pulled from the streets and repurposed to build barricades. In our neighborhood, the removal of stones meant roving bands of police and paramilitaries — riding in pickup trucks with masked gunmen — couldn’t drive through. They couldn’t dominate the streets with fear. Not easily.

For the 33 kids killed when Ortega’s Cuban-backed “Limpia” came through Matagalpa that terrifying summer night, I will never forget you.

Thank you for keeping us safe. 🕯️

These blockades did more than block. They bought time. They created space. They held the line.

People gathered at them. Talked. Shared food. Traded news. Protected each other.

In Jinotega, when the police tried to hold the city, it wasn’t just the youth or students who pushed back — it was the mothers. They filled the streets, beating pots and pans in unison. The sound was thunderous. A protest and a prayer. Their collective rhythm rose into the hills, echoing power back into their own hands. And the police, overwhelmed and disoriented, left the city. That is the power of sound, maternal rage, and synchronized courage.

In today’s rapid escalation, the power of the bloqueos was their intentional slowing. They disrupted velocity. Like sloths moving through tangled forest, people learned to be present, observant, and deliberate — choosing connection over chaos.

It’s time to apply this wisdom to your neighborhoods — right now.

🛠️ TACTICAL WISDOM FROM NICARAGUA

Disruption = Power: Blockades slowed the regime’s ability to respond, exposing the brutality on a national and international scale.
Decentralized Power: No one blockade held the whole system — they multiplied, spread, and shifted.
Community Roles: Everyone had a job. Some built. Some cooked. Some were lookouts. Some filmed. Some prayed.
Cobblestone Defense: Removing bricks made streets unusable for tires.
Strategic Placement: Blockades weren’t random. They targeted transit routes, police stations, economic choke points.
Visibility: The blockades made government violence undeniable.

Meet your neighbors. Get curious, quietly. Begin to map:

who is enraged
who is vulnerable (“the unproductives” as CF47 calls them)
who is ‘eligible’ for deportation
who has access to elected officials willing to help make permits ready for blockades (think versatile block parties)
who has materials: cones, rope, tarps, wood, sandbags, bollards

And ask yourself: Who has medicine? Who has muscle? Who has memory?

If you have active or dormant CERTs in your city, find out how to tap into those networks. Remember your HAM operators. #73

Find the old guard — the retired, the curious, the neighborhood watchers. Enlist them. Ask them to keep an eye on the vulnerable. Record unwanted ICE or cops entering, parking, casing. Use live video when safe.

Who are the pissed off Veterans losing their health care access, their treatments, everything they served for? Get them enlisted in organizing. Their rage, experience, and wisdom fuel them for this moment.

Build pods — small, agile groups that check in weekly. Form Signal threads. Phone trees. Practice with purpose. Use block parties as drills. Create rituals for watchfulness. Practice not just fire drills — but emotional and spiritual drills, too.

Here’s the truth: We’re not at the edge. We’ve crossed the threshold. The paramilitary isn’t coming. It’s already here — in laws, in rhetoric, in quiet permissions granted under the guise of “order.”

No more disappearing immigrants (or ‘homegrowns’)!

This regime thrives on speed — on reaction, urgency, confusion. But we are not obligated to move at their pace. Sloth medicine reminds us that stillness is not passivity. It’s perception. It’s power. It’s the refusal to burn out for someone else’s machine.

And yet — we are not powerless. We are not unprepared. We come from lineages of protectors, whisper networks, signal flags, and coded songs. We remember blockade as boundary. We remember vigilance as prayer.

Now is not the time to wait. Now is the time to shield what we love. To make the invisible visible. To turn our grief into strategy.

Before you gather your neighbors, gather the memories of the dead. Light a candle. Ask the ones who watched the air raid sirens, who walked through checkpoints, who dug trenches, or hung white sheets as signals:

“What do I need to remember?”

Your ancestors are watching. Make them proud.

Before you gather your neighbors, gather your nervous system. Tune it to the wisdom of the slow ones. The ancestors of the trees. The sloths who teach us how to stay suspended, breathing, alive — even when the canopy shakes.

✧ Ritual for the Street + Spirit ✧

Light a candle.
Call on the Air Raid Wardens of your line.
Call on the students who held the lines in Managua.
Call on the ancestors who taught us to disappear, to survive, to fight.

Drum once for each direction.
Once for each neighbor.
Once for the ones who won’t make it unless we move.

Speak this:
“We are not alone. We do not forget. We remember how to shield. We remember how to strike. We remember how to thrive together.”

🕵️️ Neighborhood Vigilance Circles

(aka CERTs for the Soul and Street)

Know Your People

Who is vulnerable? (Immigrants, Trans, BIPOC, queer, disabled, poor, houseless)
Who has resources? (tools, land, tech, food, meds)
Who’s ready to act? (anger and courage go far when organized)

Make the Invisible Visible

Document ICE or suspicious police presence
Train neighbors in Copwatch and de-escalation
Create signal systems (lights, bells, whistles, codewords)

Build the Network

Form pods (4–6 people) for weekly check-ins
Join or reactivate CERT teams
Connect with HAM radio folks (#73)
Create Signal groups + phone trees

Practice Now

Block party as blockade training
Fire drill as street shutdown rehearsal
Potluck as food supply dry-run
Spiritual circle as resilience care
Sloth Medicine: Practice slow scans of your environment. Who’s being overlooked? What rhythms are out of sync? Move at the speed of presence.

🛜 Signal Group Starter Kit

1. Choose Your Purpose: Decide if your group is for:

Neighborhood safety and rapid alerts
Mutual aid coordination
Political organizing and protest response
Emotional/spiritual support during events

2. Create the Group:

Title it with clear intent: e.g. Oakland Pod Watch or River Valley Mutual Aid
Set a short group description with core values and purpose

3. Add Safety Protocols:

Share group rules and safety reminders as a pinned message
Use disappearing messages (1 day or less) for anything sensitive
Rotate group admin roles for resilience

4. Build a Web of Communication:

Pair each Signal group with a backup phone tree
Have a satellite contact in another part of town (or a buddy in another group)

5. Maintain the Channel:

Check in weekly with quick pulses: “What are we seeing? What do we need?”
Share updates, resources, videos, or key alerts from trusted sources

6. Stay Human:

Post reminders to hydrate, breathe, rest
Use emojis and voice notes to maintain warmth — community is also emotional protection

Remember: This isn’t surveillance — it’s solidarity. Protect each other like it’s already happening — because it is.

Want more ritual protection and slow medicine?

I go deeper into these practices in my free workshop Ancestral Ways for Precarious Times. If you missed it live, the 24-hour replay is still available — but only until tonight.

🖥️ Watch now ▶︎

In it, I teach ritual boundaries, Flow strategies, and the medicine of slowness — inspired by one of the most tender, resilient creatures alive: the sloth.

To close this letter with beauty and awe, I invite you to witness these beings in their element. Watch this PBS short from In Her Nature about sloths and the work of the Sloth Conservation Foundation in Costa Rica:

🦥 Saving The Slowest Mammal on Earth | In Her Nature — PBS YouTube

Let their medicine move through you. Let your resistance be rooted in reverence. Let your next steps be slow — and deliberate.

Stay wild, love fiercely. Your presence is golden.

With rhythm + reverence,
Ciao! xo Ixchel

P.S. The 24-hour replay of Ancestral Ways for Precarious Times disappears tonight. If you’ve been feeling raw, restless, or off-rhythm — this is your invitation to recalibrate.

You’ll learn how to work with ritual protection, neighborhood preparedness, and yes — the unexpected power of sloth medicine.

🦥 Catch the replay here: →

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Land Lineage

I was raised and bore children on the traditional, unceded, and stolen lands of the Coast and Central Valley Miwok (colonized as Petaluma, CA) and Nisenan (colonized as Sacramento and Fair Oaks, CA), past, present, and future. I also write, work, and live in the highland forest of the traditional, unceded and stolen lands of the Totonac, Nahua, and Mexicah, past, present, and future, in what is known as Coatepec, Veracruz, Mexico.

P.P.S. I do not live or consent to the colonial impositions regarding the construct of Time. I also practice honoring rhythms of work, play, and rest so that I can serve you with embodied presence and with loving care. This means I may take several days to respond to your requests and questions. (h/t Eva Glamaris)

P.P.S. A mention is not necessarily an endorsement of someone. It’s an acknowledgment, a citation, of the origin of information in my process of understanding. (h/t Kelly Diels)

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