The light of the mountains as they touch the rising sun, is the same light that we’re holding together, the light that’s just begun...
CHANGE ELEMENTAL
February, 2024
We are still basking in the beauty of our time together, holding close the connection and experimentation, tenderness, and power the magical energy we drummed up (literally and figuratively) in our inaugural Prefiguring Futures Lab! In this memory book, we share some songs, stories, quotes, threads, and photos from our time together. We hope you return to this offering to guide and feed you as needed!
Isabelle: The lands/LANDS is our birthright
Alice: All the wisdom of the people of the circle
Sidney: Inner work
Nat: Love and hope
Saida: Intention
Ericka: Relationship and connection
Haewon: Hope
Gwendolyn: Gratitude for this land and all the being that have been here and are here
Steph: Interdependence to all living things
Kate: Divine intervention
Elissa: Gratitude and grace
Alison: Expansiveness
Cristy: Love and power
Tannia: The magic that has made this all possible
Maria: Community
Diane: Love and connection
Ámate: Wisdom of each of our lineages and ancestors
Tracy: Hope and laughter
Lissett: The courage to stay tender
February, 2024, Santa Ana Pueblo, NM at the Tamaya
DAY 1
Landing, Grounding, Sacred Space Building
LANDS (REAL/DEAL)
Theory of Transformation
DAY 2
Somatic Practice
What We Mean by Innerwork
Multiple Ways of Knowing
Complexity and Shared Power
DAY 3
Feedback + Generative Tension
Experimentation Moving Forward Planfully in Complexity
DAY 4
Experimentation, Part 2
Casting Forward
DAY 5
Resonant Learning
A Ceremony of Gratitude
The altar awaiting the introduction of our gifts
The altar included cornmeal, tobacco, fruit, charged rocks, rosemary, and more. A place to hold us, call us in, and offer sacred gifts, to make introductions to each other and the land.
A jade circle
Tobacco & un cigaro
Sankofa, a rock, beans & cotton
Birch tree bark
Photograph of redwood
groves
Photograph of ancestor Crystals
Thread & buttons
Sunflowers
Sweetgrass
Water
Cascaria
A handmade dish
Drawing of pan dulce
Drawing of Ethiopian
coffee ceremony
Recipes
Balinese jewelry
Oaxacan weaving
Labradorite stone
Incense
Dragon
Cornmeal
Unicorn
The altar holding our gifts
We invite you to listen to how our singing, resonance, creativity, and confidence changed over time. What stands out to you?
Sung in the round
We marked the moment for our grief. We shared our stories and the stories of our communities and kin. We wrote poems. Reflected and collected. We found coconspirators and became thought partners. We honored multiple ways of knowing and inner work: with movement and gesture, with breath, with art-making. We waded through and into complexity and played into the quadrants. We listened—to our selves and each other. We laughed and laughed and cried. We broke bread and busted moves. Rode horses and rested together.
We hope you hold both the play and rigor as you move through your experiments and imaginings for the future!
Liberation
Reparations & Rematriation“This time we're tied at the ankles. We cannot cross until we carry each other, all of us refugees, all of us prophets. No more taking turns on history's wheel, trying to collect old debts no-one can pay. The sea will not open that way.
This time that country is what we promise each other, our rage pressed cheek to cheek until tears flood the space between, until there are no enemies left, because this time no one will be left to drown.”
- from “Red Sea: April 2002” By Aurora Levins MoralesInvitation
How do you locate yourself in ways that aren’t reifying settler colonialism?
“The land tested me, and expanded me, expanded my lungs. Living in relationship to this land has helped me mend the relationships I have to my lands, and diasporic people all across Mexico and Indigenous peoples. There is a long story of how we belong. That story is all of ours.” - Tannia
Cultivating the sacred at the fractal of people. Individual and group (intra- and inter-).
Being in the practices of healing and liberation with attention to source.
Tending to wellness, to “ power within” & “ power with.” Yoking and holding the tension between the water foot and the land foot the vision and the what is such that the vision can lead with what is as a valued and necessary partner.
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
- Jiddu Krishnamurti
1. What gets in the way? 2.
How are you bringing innerwork practices in your movement leadership and accompaniment?
“We don’t have to have all the answers or the dots connected. Change doesn’t happen in 18 months of a grant, or 500 years, or seven generations. We need to know the history to have a different kind of future. Personal interpersonal, institutional, and structural— change has to happen across these spaces. ” - Alice
“We
can transform ghost energy into spirit energy, not just to haunt us but to help us.” - Luis
Multiple ways of knowing includes the many ways we understand and engage with the world such as through our experiences, art, ancestral and cultural wisdom, learning from the natural world as well as more rationalist approaches often overprivileged by dominant culture.
What ways of knowing do you bring on the regular? 1. What do they give you access to? 2.
“In the spirit of growing into yourself, expect rupture, welcome repair (if possible).” - Ámate
“How might we integrate our visions and bridge our ecosystems?” - Haewon
Cynefin Framework by David Snowden
Leadership is a fractal of the vision, and fractals mirror the change we want to create (the small is a reflection of the large). Complexity requires being in power with and power within. Power over alone won’t get us through things that are complex and may make things worse when we are only exercising power over. If complexity requires us to be in multi-stories and engaging multiple ways of knowing, we can’t be one person deciding what all the stories are.
“I feel really strongly that if we can do something small to start weaving the fabric, I want to do that. Something that’s creating new ways of us coming together around centering inner work and not seeing it as separate from [the social justice] work we have to do. I want to build on something we already have going.”
- Maria
When I’m tired or stressed, a part of me will fight actively against [connecting to innerwork and multiple ways of knowing], as opposed to be still and get really rooted in that self. Having that knowledge and using it, is powerful.Saida
” -
CELEBRATORY & CRITICAL FEEDBACK
Feedback is a way to lean into LANDS, inner work, and more!
“Seeing the wide expanse of sky, feeling rooted, focusing on what I’m building right in front of me. The sun around me, how I want to let that light into my life.”
- Tracy
“When the energy you have is only enough to make the ripple, then you make the ripple...”
- Sidney
Experimentation supports people to strategically and systematically move forward in emergence and complexity by offering a lightweight structure and approach to support iterative, innovative learning.
Not invasive or extractive Creative and expansive
It takes rigor…like art, like life
You should feel trepidation…like this might actually change something. You should feel excitement…like this might actually change something.
(Verse 1)
Gathered here, hearts aflame, a vision in our sights
Beyond the rhetoric, beyond the fights, toward liberation's light
No more talk, no more delay, the time is now to rise Prefiguring the future, where justice fills the skies (Chorus)
Practice what we preach, not just a song, a guiding star Power with, power within, reaching near and far Organizers, funders, artists, hand in hand we stand Building bridges, breaking chains, across the shifting sand (Verse 2)
From coaches, leaders, guides, a chorus strong and clear Compassionate action, banishing all fear
No longer waiting for the perfect day, the seeds we sow today In community we flourish, paving liberation's way
(Chorus)
Practice what we preach, not just a song, a guiding star Power with, power within, reaching near and far Artists, activists, healers, hand in hand we stand Building bridges, breaking chains, across the shifting sand (Bridge)
The future's not a promise, it's something we create
Living into its essence, sealing hate's fate
Every role, every moment, a chance to make a mark
Love and justice intertwined, leaving our sacred spark (Chorus)
Practice what we preach, not just a song, a guiding star Power with, power within, reaching near and far Accompanists, educators, hand in hand we stand Building bridges, breaking chains, across the shifting sand (Outro)
This February, a turning point, let our actions ring Prefiguring liberation, the change we yearn to bring With power shared, with purpose strong, the future we demand
In unity we rise, hand in hand, across the promised land
With the land, we moved and laughed and ate and prayed. Made offerings and took gifts. For some, this was a return, for others a first knowing. We count this land as one of the Lab facilitators, abundant with wisdom, questions, and stories.
Photograph by Sidney
Photograph by Isabelle
Photograph by Tannia
The purpose of our collective learning was to be in practice together, moving and breathing synchronously, bringing in body, and connecting to power with and strategy.
Moving with our blessings, cont’d
“One of the most regenerative, inspiring and nurturing experiences in years.”
Run with your experiments, revisit the deck and reach out with those who signed up to support your journey!
Continued connection by joining us for a peer coaching call and staying in touch on the Signal group, and through the February 2024 Lab listserv (PFLFeb24@ChangeElemental.org)!
Dive deep in the learnings, visit the Lab slide deck. Co-create offerings for the field to share our learning and practice.
Keep dancing and singing with us! Vibe with the Prefiguring Futures Lab collaborative playlist.
Engage with us as we plan for more 5-day experiences, a cohort experience, and as we work to find funding sources!
Look out for more communications from us and email PrefiguringFutures@ChangeElemental.org with questions!
Remember you are not alone. There are networks to be weaved. Tend to those relationships.
1. Staying connected to the rhythm of the land— sunrise/sunset through consistent rituals
2. Morning meditation and journaling
3. Experimentation starting with How Might We
4. The container matters
5. Deepening understanding of LANDS— regrounding in 5 elements
6. More inner work/including nature walks
7. Spaciousness—sitting with mountains, trees, birds
8. 10-step taiji
9. Practicing/including song/sound
10. Practice joy
11. Integrate singing
12. Practice generative conflict and bring this to teaming
13. Bringing in more of the elements, stories of the land, etc. into learning containers
15.
14. Waking up for sunrise every morning and offering a prayer
Stay in touch!
Name Affiliation
Saida Agostini-Bostic Funders for LGBTQ Issues
Haewon Asfaw Abolition Dream Lab
Natalie Bamdad Change Elemental
Cristy Chung LongMa Wellness and Collectiva
Aina Dang Collectiva
Stephanie De Wolfe Indepedent Consultant and Liberatory Coach
Tannia Esparza GiraSol Descendants
Gwendolyn Forrest Coach & facilitator
Sidney Hargro The LeadersTrust
Kate Johnson Buddhist Peace Fellowship
Alice Hom CHANGE Philanthropy
Name Affiliation
Diane Johnson Mmapeu Consulting
Lissett Lazo Abolition Dream Lab
Alison Lin Change Elemental
Isabelle Moses ProInspire
Amate Perez LREP
Maria Rogers Pascual The LeadersTrust
Elissa Sloan Perry Change Elemental
Ericka Stallings Leadership Learning Community
Luis Alejandro Tapia Emergent Strategy - Illuminate Systems Change Network
Naima Yael Tokunow Change Elemental
Tracy Zhao
Independent consultant / Partners in Social Transformation
Breathing out. . .
Isabelle: The lands/LANDS is our birthright
Alice: Grace and compassion for all of us
Sidney: Commitment to the collective work
Nat: Love and hope
Saida: Fierceness
Ericka: Self and mutual love and accountability
Haewon: Hope
Gwendolyn: A commitment to the collective to the end of my days
Steph: Love
Kate: Perspective
Elissa: Love and connection
Alison: Gratitude and care
Cristy: Spaciousness and gratitude
Tannia: The courage to hold the long story
Maria: Determination
Diane: Deep, deep love and connection to the divine
Ámate: Commitment and love to our divine connection
Tracy: Releasing cynicism and seeing the opportunity
Lissett: Emergence
ALL OF OUR LOVE, THEPREFIGURING FUTURESLABTEAM