On the Wisdom of Revolutionary Women: A Reflection from Killian Noe

As we close out Women’s History Month, we are reminded that the work of revolutionary women—past and present—continues to shape the way we build a more loving world. Killian Noe, co-founder of the Recovery Café Network, reflects on how women like Valarie Kaur and Mata Khivi embody the same spirit that fuels the Recovery Café model: creating places where everyone is welcomed, nourished, and known.

It’s 2025, and yet it remains common for women to be denied equal pay, equal opportunities for career advancement and in their spiritual traditions. In many parts of the world, girls are still denied access to basic education and other fundamental rights.

In honor of Women’s History Month, I want to share the wisdom of activist Valarie Kaur on two themes that are central to our Network’s approach to recovery: practicing radical hospitality and building community.

Valarie is the founder of the Revolutionary Love Project. Her guidance is grounded in the legacy of Mata Khivi (1506–1582), an early female leader in the Sikh tradition:

Begin where you are. Choose a space to practice the world you want to create. In the Sikh tradition, a langar hall is a community kitchen where all are served a meal, free of charge. Mata Khivi’s langar hall was a simple clearing with cover for shade. No space is too small. What spaces are available to you to gather people? 

The first Recovery Café started in a 1,700 square-foot storefront. We served coffee, day-old pastries donated from the bakery around the corner, along with simple soup and salad.  

Start with basic needs. No one near a langar hall has to go hungry. Only when hunger is met is flourishing possible. What are your needs, and the needs of the people around you right now? 

When we moved into a larger space with an industrial kitchen, we began cooking meals that addressed our members’ need for more vegetables and protein. Because many of our members were diabetic, we cut back on pastries and doughnuts. Our ability to meet the specific needs of our members continues to evolve.

Redistribute resources. Mata Khivi collected resources from all who could offer them, and shared them equally among the whole. What resources do you have to offer? What are you ready to receive?

Although storage is a challenge in most Recovery Cafés, for years, our two Seattle Cafés have received and distributed new Brooks running shoes to our members.  It is a much appreciated gift to many whose shoes are worn and whose feet are weary. And everyday Café Members receive and share the resource of life-giving information with each other.  

See no stranger, feel no stranger. Mata Khivi invited people to sit in pangat, an unbroken line, next to those they had been conditioned to see as other. It was embodied community. Where did you land in the social order? How have you benefited, and how have you lost? What barriers will you cross to be in community?

Recovery Café was founded on a call to be a place where real relationships across socioeconomic, racial, religious, gender, and other barriers are formed. Real relationships transform us and ultimately transform our world. 

Make it irresistible. Mata Khivi created an experience that felt good in the body. An anti-racist, anti-hierarchy practice rooted in joy and community. How will you make your practice delicious? 

Warm welcomes into bright and beautiful spaces characterize Recovery Cafes and are two of the many ways they are irresistible

Believe. Mata Khivi started small, but she built a practice that has lasted half a millennium. Our liberation experiments are not soap bubbles that disappear; they are sound waves that reach far into the future. When we embody the world we want, instead of only railing against what we resist, we pass on a blueprint for our descendants.… 

When we come together to feed each other, care for each other, and uplift each other, we create the conditions for beloved community. We weep, we laugh, we live. As the earth gets hotter, and more of us are endangered, we will need to be braver and more reckless with our love. We will need to create spaces that have never existed before. We will need to practice our humanity. This is how we birth the world to come. 

We live in a time when whole segments of our human family are being demonized. Now, more than ever, communities like Recovery Cafés are needed to embody what it looks like when people live like we belong to each other. Because we do.