Making real the inner world.
Open
I have always been drawn to people who are able to pull the ideas, images, and thoughts out of their mind and into the world.
Everything from the Kyle Abrahams Alvin Ailey piece, Are You In Your Feelings? piece, to TBC by Ama Lou to “Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement, to Sunrise, the youth movement that I’m organize with… were just concepts and configurations of ideas in people's heads, made real.
It’s magical, no? To solidify in the material world, machinations of one’s inner world.
Recently, I have been working to exhale a wild animal of an idea in my own inner world, waiting to be let loose and made real.
Why?
Before talking about what it is, [the wild animal], I wanna share a little bit about why this thing.
Organizing. First, I’m an organizer. I will be an organizer for the rest of my life. An organizer is someone who believes that when individuals (with their own dreams, desires & self-interests) are brought together into a collective, they are far more powerful than the institutions, governments, or corporations that claim to be powerful. There are union organizers, who organize workers in the workplace and fight for things like better working conditions and better wages. There are tenant organizers, who organize tenants in apartment buildings to push back against exploitative landlords. There are youth organizers, like myself, who organize young people.
As an organizer, I have begun to run into the limitations of the craft. While I dream of doing things like putting on massive Green New Deal demonstrations with enough people to fill out Madison Square Garden or the United Center, we have not.
Artists. Artists have figured something out about people and how to organize them. They have a way of awakening the hearts of people; making them feel. Organizers could learn a thing or two from this. Both, on figuring out how artists do things like turn out millions to music festivals, billions to theaters around the world, or thousands to local exhibitions, and on organizing artists to use their platforms -- the bases of people already organized in their fanbase -- for more dramatic change in society.
Healing. The other realization that I’ve come to the urgent need for healing & spiritual practices. I could be the best organizer, winning campaign after campaign, or the most influential artists, with millions, if not billions of followers, but if I did not have a moral & spiritual grounding, a way to process the trauma and limiting beliefs from my childhood, and roadmap to navigate the suffering that is inevitable as a human life, and way to live more in the present, I would be unable to do the work sustainably, over the long-term.
So first things first; I think organizers, artists, and healers have a lot to learn from each other. And I think something powerful could come out of them being in more relationships and practice with each other.
Second, I am a dreamer; I have a lot of visions about the world that I hope to make real. I did not always dream this expansively though.
Growing up in Chicago, I was deeply frustrated about the world around me. It pissed me off to see the stark differences in the way Black people and white people lived, the stark difference in access to resources, whether it be good schools or good food or good jobs. Though angry, I didn’t believe there was anything to be done about it. (Which was even more frustrating for me!!) We live in a world with a set of rules and a set of people in power, and there was nothing to shift those things; I did not believe it was possible to change things.
It wasn’t until I joined Sunrise that the belief began to disintegrate. I had joined Sunrise off the wave of momentum that was created when about a hundred young people sat in Nancy Pelosi’s office in the winter of 2018, demanding climate action from the Democratic Party. The group of young people, doing bold things, sparked a massive movement moment inside of Sunrise; hundreds if not thousands of young people were inspired to join, including myself.
What that moment did for me, and what many moments and interactions across my timeline of being in the movement has done for me, is agitate me to think bigger, and think bolder, about what I demand of myself, of the people around me, and of society. To have the audacity to ask for nothing less than what is necessary.
After joining Sunrise, the scale of my dreams and visions grew in orders of magnitude. And in my body & bones, that expansion in dreaming has felt gratifying, liberating, and empowering. I know that to thrive in the midst of the many crises we’re up against, we’re going to need way more people pushing up against the boundaries of what we believe is possible. And then having a community behind them to do it.
What.
So with that. The what. The vision.
To build towards a cultural, political, and spiritual revolution in society by bringing artists, healers, and organizers into community to connect, create, rest play and heal.
Who is at the core?
Black-led, multi-racial collective
My sister and I have been core dreamers but many hands (friends) are helping shape it!!
The foundations, who is the audience:
Organizers & movement builders: Those committed to transforming social structures and institutions to achieve collective liberation (e.g., organizers, activists)
Artists: Those committed to using art as a means for cultural revolution in society (e.g., dancers, painters, writers, filmmakers, photographers, musicians)
Healers: Those committed to the health, wellness, and spiritual development of the individual and collective (e.g., farmers, cooks, healing practitioners, yoga and meditation teachers)
Our core values?
Liberation & social justice: Commitment to re-imagining a new world, to creating movements and art that work to liberate and free all people
Creativity, play, healing: Commitment to personal transformation, to moving through blocks that get in the way of our self-actualization; a commitment to presence, mindfulness, and full embodiment of all we aspire to be; a commitment to play, laugher, rest, fun, joy
Community & collective: Commitment to building relationships, and strengthening the collective; deep understanding that what we can do collectively is far more powerful than what any one of us could do alone
Spiritual ecology: Commitment to grounding in the foundational role the Earth and planet play in one’s spiritual development; we come back to nature to come back to ourselves
Vision & boldness: Community for people to bring their wildest ideas & visions to life
What type of programming?
Retreats (free or pay-what-you-can scale)
Daylong: Theme around looking into past & stories on moments brought into work dong, present & grounding in body, and future & visioning and dreaming about what’s possible and sharing, in collective, the challenges getting in the way
Weekend retreat: Overnight experiences, think adult summer camp vibes, where people can to connect, rest, create, swim in beautiful lakes, dance & play, and think & dream big about their crafts
Membership Model (pay-what-you-can scale)
Online offerings include quarterly member online gatherings, member-led workshops, connection & network, etc.)
Physical space
Retreat center, has alternative house, gallery space, place to rest, relax, create
So. Back to the opening. I’m beginning to make this dream real inside of me, a seed that has taken root over the past ten years of my life (from working on urban farms, to swimming in ocean with sharks, to environmental summer camps for Black youth in Chicago to senior thesis on food apartheid to creating wellness offerings for Black communities in Chicago to joining Sunrise & being deep in movement building), with different experiences leading me to this point.
I don't yet fully know how we’ll bring this thing, in its totality, to life, but I know that we will.
I’ve been reading The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin, and so will leave you with this quote:
“Ultimately, your desire to create must be greater than your fear of it.”
