I’ve turned this over again and again. In a time when the justice system frays under the weight of its own defiance, when the stories of veterans—any who are not white and male—are scrubbed from the records, when deportations bypass the very framework of due process, soft rebellion might seem like the wrong medicine. And yet, the eighth and final facet of Soft Rebellion longs for breath and light, for mycelial strategies.

Soft rebellion moves like mycelium through the cracks of disinformation, not to conquer but to compost. It does not meet the brittle architecture of falsehoods with a battering ram, but with the slow insistence of roots finding their way through stone. When a lie is presented as truth, soft rebellion does not charge headfirst into the fray, wasting its energy in the spectacle of conflict. Instead, it pauses—listens—senses the fault lines beneath the illusion.

Rather than dismantling a narrative with blunt force, introduce a story, one that feels like breath in the lungs, like soil under fingernails, like the memory of something real. Ask a question so carefully framed that it begins to unravel certainty from the inside. Offer a metaphor instead of a manifesto, a lived experience instead of a lecture. A piece of folklore whispered at the right moment can be more effective than a statistic shouted across the divide.

Disinformation thrives on urgency and spectacle, on the frantic impulse to react. Soft rebellion slows down. It moves at the pace of trust, at the pace of deep listening. It turns the battlefield into a garden, where doubt can take root—not as destruction, but as renewal. Not to break, but to soften, to aerate, to make space for something truer to emerge.

Tending the Roots of Truth: Antidotes to Disinformation

Disinformation is a spell cast over the collective mind, severing people from the land beneath their feet, from the memory held in their bones. It thrives on disconnection—on floating narratives unmoored from the living world. Soft rebellion does not meet illusion with force, does not waste breath in the battlegrounds of the mind. Instead, it moves like water, like root systems beneath the surface, unweaving the false weave and reweaving something truer, something alive.

Here are ways to tend the roots of truth in an age of disinformation:

1. Ask Questions That Crack Open the Story

Disinformation is brittle. Truth is alive, breathing, changing. Instead of directly challenging a false claim, ask open-ended questions that encourage critical thinking:

* “That’s interesting—where did you hear that?”
* “How do you think that idea fits with what we’ve experienced?”
* “What would change if we looked at it from another perspective?”

Questions slow down knee-jerk defenses and create an opening for curiosity.

Instead of being baited into confrontation, ask questions that create space for something new to emerge:

* “What does your body feel when you hear that? Does it tighten or open?”
* “If the land could speak to this, what would it say?”
* “Have you ever experienced something that made you doubt that narrative?”

A rigid belief, when held too tightly, becomes a cage. A good question can be the key that lets the wind back in.

2. Tell a Story That Feels Like Earth Underfoot

Facts alone do not uproot disinformation. But a story—woven with breath, with sensation, with something ancient moving through it—can slip past defenses.

If someone insists climate change is a hoax, do not throw numbers at them. Tell them about the salmon disappearing from the rivers, the bees faltering in the early spring frost, the way the elders say the seasons no longer move like they used to.

Make it real and personal, from your felt experience. Make it something they can taste, touch, remember in their own bones.

3. Speak to Truth Like an Open Palm, Not a Closed Fist

People do not change their minds when they feel attacked. But when truth is offered gently, like a cup of cool water, like a story shared around a fire, defenses soften. Instead of “You’re wrong,” say:

* “I once believed that too, but something changed my mind”
* “Here’s another piece of the story I’ve been sitting with…”

Truth given as a gift, not a weapon, can be received rather than resisted.

4. Reconnect People to Their Own Deep Knowing

Disinformation is loud, full of urgency and spectacle. Truth is quiet, like the way the forest speaks in wind, in fungi threading messages underground. Help people remember how to listen.

* Invite them to step outside, feel the air, notice the patterns of the world beyond the screen.
* Ask what their ancestors might say about this story they’ve been told.
* Remind them that their body, their instincts, already know what is real.

Truth is not a fact to be memorized—it is a way of being in the world.

5. Create Spaces Where Truth Can Take Root

Changing one’s mind is an initiation, a shedding. If people fear exile, they will cling to the comfort of illusion. Make room for them to shift, to soften, without shame.

* “It’s okay to let go of a story that no longer serves you.”
* “It’s brave to change your mind when you learn something new.
* “There is no punishment for waking up.”

Truth flourishes in spaces where curiosity is welcome, where people are allowed to evolve.

6. Resist the Spectacle—Turn Attention to the Living World

Disinformation thrives on distraction, on the endless churn of reaction. Instead of getting lost in the fight, turn toward what is real:

* Instead of debating, plant a garden, gather around a table, sing an old song.
* Instead of amplifying falsehoods, amplify the voices of rivers, of forests, of the unheard.
* Instead of fighting in the theater of illusion, step outside of it.

The world does not need the type of combat authoritarianism attempts to compel us to so they can level us as the actors, the rabid ones. It needs more kinship, more presence, more people tending the soil of reality with steady hands, and mycelial strategies that root from the underground that expose false narratives like pruning invasive weeds.

Because soft rebellion does not battle lies head-on. It composts them. It turns them into the fertile ground where truth—rooted, embodied, unshakable—can grow.