Writing to Right the World as a Practice of Love
If you want to change the world, start with opening your own tender heart
In the class I am teaching for the Bard Open Society University Network, "Leadership, Writing & Public Speaking for Social & Environmental Justice" we were talking yesterday about Adrienne Maree Brown's idea that love, rather than competition, is the strongest force for change in the world.
Promoting positive change, Brown suggests (drawing on Octavia Butler and Janine Benyus, among others), begins with strengthening our relationships with each other.
If we think of a social movement as an ecosystem, it is obvious that the stronger the connections between all the individuals in the movement, the stronger the movement itself will become.
Brown's favorite examples of this, in her book Emergent Strategy, are dandelions and fungi. Dandelions grow by spreading their seeds far and wide, and being incredibly resilient and adaptive to whatever spot they find to they take root. Fungi rely on their underground, under-the-radar mycorrhizal network to form reciprocal relationships with other plants—relationships which help everything in the ecosystem thrive.
We humans are herd animals, easily influenced by those around us, in real life or in cyberspace; and the idea of "emergent strategies" is that movements can grow and move without a charismatic leader at the head. Brown's natural model for this is the murmuration, the amazing movement by which flocks of birds will fly together in beautiful synchrony, without any single bird as leader.
Can humans working for a better world attune to each other so that our movements become synchronized in this way? Can we strengthen the nodes between us, grounding ourselves in the rich Earth while also feeding on the dazzling energy of our local star, the Sun?
To do so, Brown says, is to make the practice of love our focal point. Love is another name for the life force that animates our planet, promoting resilience and adaptation in the constant quest for surviving and thriving.
We are going to need a lot of love in the coming years.
There is no way to sugarcoat the difficulties of this period of human history. We are living through a time of great upheaval, the disruption of long cycles of socio-political and natural systems.
As Karl Marx wrote back in 1848, there comes a time when “All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.”
We are in such a time now. It's not an easy time to be talking about and practicing leadership skills with a group of young people, knowing how challenging it is and will continue to be to attempt to "bend the long arc of the moral universe towards justice."
I shared with my class the Vaclav Havel quote made famous in leadership circles by Meg Wheatley: "Hope is not the certainty that things will turn out well. Hope is the certainty that the work is worth doing, no matter how things turn out."
In this sense, hope is like love, it's a positive force that keeps working for growth by encouraging agility and persistence, even in the face of disappointment.
It behooves us, as we work for positive change, to maintain a detachment from outcome, not fixing our sights so strongly on a particular goal that we'll be devastated if we don't achieve it.
Rather we must be nimble and flexible, murmurating with other likeminded individuals in a general direction: towards conditions of peace, stability and well-being that will provide a strong foundation for growth into a thriving future.
Adrienne Maree Brown, following Octavia Butler, reminds us that since everything in our universe is fractal, no action is too small to be meaningful.
"There is a special provenance in the fall of a sparrow," Hamlet said. We can't know what chain of events can be set off from even the smallest action; how the beat of our own small wing can influence the whole flock around us.
As long as our movement is powered by love, we can't get it wrong.
So on this Valentine's Day, let us dedicate ourselves anew to the practice of creating beloved community through love, understanding that when we as individuals open our hearts to love, we open a portal through which the love of the entire cosmos can stream through us into the world.
Come Speak Your Truth and Build Beloved Community with Me this March!
I’m so delighted to be offering a distilled version of my popular college course, Leadership, Writing & Public Speaking for Social and Environmental Justice, for the new Bioneers Learning community.
Come open your heart and build beloved community as you learn how to channel your passions into eloquent, persuasive writing and speech. As we write and speak our truths, we let our generative seeds fly into the future, dandelion style!
Four Friday morning online sessions, starting March 4 and culminating with an optional in-person gathering at the 35th Annual Bioneers Conference in Berkeley CA at the end of March, where I will also be giving a workshop based on my award-winning book Purposeful Memoir as a Quest for a Thriving Future.
Join me!
Come with me to Tuscany this spring!
I’ll be leading another fabulous Il Chiostro writing workshop May 25 - June 1, 2024 at the luxurious Borgo San Fedele, a meticulously restored monastery set in exquisite gardens amid a classic Tuscan landscape of olive groves and vineyards.
Our days will unfold in a perfect balance of guided writing and productive sharing; excursions guided by our Il Chiostro hosts to nearby picturesque medieval towns; coming home to San Fedele to relax by the pools and gardens, eat delicious meals and visit with new friends; and taking time for your own contemplative writing and thinking.
You’ll come away from this magical sojourn simultaneously enlivened and relaxed, with a deeper understanding of your purpose in writing memoir, along with many pages of new writing providing a plethora of potential doorways into the story of your life.
More information (and beautiful photos) here.
Ready to book? Click here.
Come Riding & Writing with me in Iceland this June!
Come along with me for an all-inclusive week of RIDING and WRITING in the spectacular Icelandic countryside, in the height of the bright summer season, June 10 – 16, 2024.
Every day we’ll ride out on sturdy, sweet Icelandic horses through the expansive rolling vistas of western Iceland, led by our experienced guides from Hestaland. Once you’ve experienced the exhilaration of the fast, smooth tolt, a gait unique to Icelandic horses, you may not want to go back to the trot!
We’ll eat delicious meals together at the beautiful Hestaland Guesthouse and participate in thoughtful, open-hearted guided writing sessions.
There will also be plenty of time for sharing and discussing your writing projects and visiting the nearby hot spring spa at Krauma.
Learn more about costs and accommodations on the application form.
Whether you’ve been to Iceland many times, or this will be your first experience there, this trip is sure to be transformative!
More information (and beautiful photos) here. Email me with any questions!
Friends, it’s my pleasure and my passion to support you as we stretch towards living our lives creatively and to the fullest.
The motto of my author consulting business is “Writing to Right the World,” and the motto of my book publishing business, Green Fire Press, is “Books that Make the World Better.”
If these intentions resonate with you and you are working on a book, or have one in mind, don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Supporting creative people bring their work more strongly out into the world is one way the dandelion in me does her work….
oh my dear Jennifer, this is a powerful and realistic (ha!) view of both where we are and how we are, already, moving forward. Huge huge gratitude to you for your steady work...Penny
"We are going to need a lot of love in the coming years."
oh. yes.