To Sing a Future Not Yet Known {April 2023}

FUTURE MAGIC • ESSENTIAL CREATIVITY • SPONTANEOUS COLLABORATION

Beside time we make a circle
Behind the mind we find a home
Within the edge we clear a hollow
To sing a future not yet known

We’re all pretty familiar with dystopias. Watch a post-apocalyptic movie and it’s easy to think, you know, our reality’s got that fictional dystopia beat. They might have zombies but we have capitalists. Those of us who have been fighting for environmental and social justice for decades are familiar with losing, but the losses right now feel exponential and existential.

There can be comfort in pessimism or nihilism—If we’ve already lost, maybe we can let ourselves rest. That exhaustion is so real. Rest is critical. And so is grieving what we’ve lost and are continuing to lose. But we also believe in the powerful, creative resilience we can find together when we are willing to stay engaged—with each other and with the unknown. This part of the movement doesn’t have to feel like a struggle, it can feel like having your voice lifted and amplified by a full, wild chorus.

We have completed the first stanza of our year-long spell, which tells us what we’re here to do in this space we’ve encircled, protected, and cleared. We’re here to sing. And we’re not here to sing of the past, or to sing the past into the future. We don’t yet know the words of this song and are making it up as we go.

Let’s sing of a world of beauty, nourishment, and rich diversity. Let’s sing our relationships full of healing, justice, and repair. Let’s move from the abstract to the specific and make ourselves and our reality stranger, more idiosyncratic, more uniquely us. When your voice gets tired we’ll keep singing for you.