The theme this week has been “Regenerating and Re-patterning.”

Today’s topic is New Patterns, New Visions 


01 Learn

At FSNE, we believe that vision and imagination are powerful “leverage points” in systems for finding a path forward beyond oppressive structures and extractive mindsets. And we know we are in good company! In her book Emergent Strategy, adrienne maree brown writes that we are engaged in an “imagination battle”, that the current conditions are the result of someone’s imagination, a de-humanizing and domination-oriented view. There are so many other alternatives, if we would be bold, broaden our view, and band together with one another to create new living and life-affirming stories.

Barbara A. Holmes is author of the book Race and the Cosmos, and she appeals to all of us to expand our views with the help of science and cosmology so that we can pull from a wider sense of who we are and could be. Watch this short video meditation (3 min) from Dr. Holmes offered by the Center for Action and Contemplation . 

In addition, we invite you to watch two short segments of this video from a talk given by Penobscot educator, author and attorney Sherri Mitchell (Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset) on her book Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change (start at 19:35 and end at 24:12; then start at 29:12 and end at 33:02).

And lastly, watch the 2 minute video embedded on this webpage on “Othering and Belonging” from the Haas Center for a Fair and Inclusive Society.

02 ReflectThere is a growing sense that these times are calling to live more concertedly into better ways of being and doing, ways that are just and regenerative of patterns of equitable well-being. 

What thoughts, feelings and sensations did the videos provoke in you? 
As you consider systems, including organizations and communities, that work for everyone (characterized by equitable belonging and well-being), what comes to mind and heart? What do you see, hear, feel, taste, sense?

Have you had even small glimpses of that future, in a moment, or interaction? What was that like? How could that be nurtured? Consider sharing seeds of what might become a collective vision in this Google doc.

03 Act

  • Reach out to a friend, family member, or colleague to have this conversation. What is their imagined world? How can we encourage and support the imaginations of others?
  • Engage you organization, community, school, business in an imagination conversation. See if you can weave “opportunity narratives” to counter the narratives of fear that are out there, especially in these times of pandemic.

04 Digging Deeper, Time Permitting…

  • Othering and Belonging Curriculum “Bridging Not Breaking”  
  • Check out the science fiction inspired project for justice curated by adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha, Octavia’s Brood.
  • Richard Haynes is an African American artist who resides with his family in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and is originally from Charleston, South  Carolina. Richard calls himself “a cultural keeper and maker” who “uses his art not only to make society aware of the invisible in this world but also to provoke unity.” One of his projects focuses on revisiting and re-visioning the past the way it might have gone differently with respect to racism and othering, so as to get a different vision of what the future could be. How might you retell the past as a way of creating inspiration and ideas for a just and liberated future? 
Advertisement