Fierce

The word that refuses to be tamed.

Storytime

On a Wednesday March 11, 2026, in South Burlington, Vermont, federal ICE agents raided a house on Dorset Street. The Boston Globe

By 8:30 a.m., the neighbors showed up.

It started as a peaceful resistance. A few dozen people standing on the lawn and front steps of the house, singing resistance songs together.

Over time, more than 200 people surrounded the house, locking arms around federal vehicles, blocking every door. They stood there all day.

When ICE escalated and they got pepper-spraye, and thrown to the ground, they threw dirt and water bottles and banana peels at the cars.

They did not leave.

A state senator stood on those steps.
A UVM professor stood on those steps.
Ordinary Vermonters stood on those steps.
WBUR News

That is fierce.

And I need to tell you what that word actually means — because we’ve been handed back a smaller version of it, and right now, in this moment in history, we need the whole thing.

They Shrunk the Word on Purpose

Fierce entered English in the 1200s from Old French fiers — meaning proud, noble, bold, mighty, great, impressive.

Before that, the Latin root word: ferus was used to mean wild, untamed, uncultivated.

Fierce is an adjective to describe something that has not been fenced in or made obedient for someone else’s comfort. For 300 years, the word held a balance between wild and noble, an impressively bold ability to not be tamed.

I like to think of this like a noble and strong-willed wild stallion that cannot be broken for human servitude.

By the 1500s, that meaning quietly died as the nobility was stripped from the core definition. We were left with a word that now conjures only threat — something dangerous, something that needs to be contained.

Those 200 people on Dorset Street weren’t told their targets were two Ecuadorian sisters and a Honduran man who had nothing to do with the original warrant. ICE had the wrong house. The person they were looking for wasn’t even there. WBUR News

The neighbors didn’t need to know that. They just knew their neighbors were inside. And they showed up to protect them.

---

When I see the word fierce through my synesthetic lens, it burns in deep amber and gold. The F activates the divine feminine, that MamaBear energy. The IER cluster soars, it literally lifts the voice upward when you say it out loud. The soft C ends the sound-spell with a hiss that says “don’t fuck with me.”

This is the energy of sovereignty. Of people who have decided they will not be moved.

Vermont has seen a 1,000% increase in ICE deportations in the past year. A hospital worker named Steven Tendo, who spent his off-hours helping newly arrived immigrants get on their feet was detained at his home while clergy waited outside to walk him peacefully to his scheduled check-in. Vermont Public

The response to all of it, every single time, has been the same: the neighbors show up.

That is fierce, brave, noble, untamed. That is the wild stallion refusing to be broken.

Homework: Reclaim the Meaning Spell

Fierce has been used as a warning word — don’t be too fierce, don’t be too much — for five hundred years. This week, we claim it back.

Say this out loud: “I am fierce,” as you stand up taller and take a full slow deep breath.

Then ask yourself: Where in my life am I showing up fiercely — brave, bold, unbending — for something I believe in? Name it. Write it down. “I am fierce in my ____________.”

And if you feel called: find your local mutual aid network. Find your state’s rapid response line. Showing up is how the word becomes flesh.