To 'claim sanctuary,' as Bayo Akomolafe might poetically articulate, is to entreat the interstices of existence for refuge, to sink into the cracks of our fast-fading certainties and reimagine our fraught connections to the more-than-human world. It is an invocation of ancestral whispers and ecological harmonies, calling us to a profound stillness where the breath of the cosmos entwines with our disquiet souls. In this sacred claiming, we do not merely seek shelter but engage in a radical act of reorientation — a dance with the unknown that reconstitutes what it means to belong, to be held, and to heal. Here, the boundaries between seeker and sanctuary dissolve, weaving us into the thick tapestry of life's entanglements, where sanctuary itself becomes an ongoing, fluid relationship rather than a singular destination.

See also: making sanctuary, claiming sanctuary, intergenerational trauma, racial justice, late-stage capitalism