THE FUTURE IS US, with possibilities as abundant as the dreams of our ancestors and our hopes for our children. The senselessness of our now is giving way to a collective stirring, the conviction that there is a better way — that abundance, health, justice, love and belonging are things we can grow in this world by our own hands.
WE ARE THE NARRATIVE ANIMAL with the unique power to imagine and manifest new choices, to write new stories together.
THE EXTRACTIVE ECONOMY demands our separation, striving to digest us and all our wonder. Our complicated and humbling interdependence with the natural world. Our common cause, joy, and pride as working people. Our sprawling and expansive insistence on family and care. It would have us believe that there are no alternatives. That our choices are few — a warming planet and thoughts and prayers, the best we can hope for.
RADICAL IMAGINATION is our antidote. It is finding joy in creative connection and playing a game whose rules we wrote ourselves. We practice radical imagination when we reclaim our childhood capacity to disentangle our imaginations from the status quo, and re-entangle them with our friends, loved ones, and communities— a rewiring of ourselves to each other.
Radical imagination is a thing we do together
We co-create the rules of play, lifting each other up to see over the fences and beyond the stories racial capitalism has in store. Who on the frontlines has the expertise and leadership we need?
Radical imagination is rooted in place
From our neighborhood to our watershed, where we are is the essential starting place for play and imagination. Re-engaging with land re-grounds us in its finite abundance and fragile bounty. How does our relationship with the rest of the natural world shape what’s possible, as we envision a transformative future?
Radical imagination is time travel
Time turns in spirals, bringing constant opportunities to reach in both directions ‘round the twist. We recall the future from our past, reaching at once for ancestor’s wisdom and new futures. What lessons from the future, and the past, inform our strategy?
RADICAL IMAGINATION is a collective, place-based practice of play and exploration to conjure new choices where there appeared to have been none before. We can only walk where our hearts have first tread.
The products of our radical imagination need not be urgent, dramatic, or shiny new things — they need only grasp at the root. Practicing radical imagination is claiming our narrative power — the ability to shape what’s possible and determine what’s politically realistic — and moving beyond the limiting vision of extraction and power-over.
All power to our radical imagination
Join us! Together, we will cultivate visions for just futures, build a movement culture of joy and play, root our work in the land on which we depend, and grow in love and accountability to our ancestors and descendants.
In 2021, and beyond, we call on our movements to take action in manifesting our radical imagination. In the months ahead, we’ll be sharing and discussing opportunities to expand and manifest our radical imaginations together!
We’ll start with three simple ideas:
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Download Radical-Imagination-themed graphic wallpapers! As a small symbol of our gratitude your work as a changemaker, we're offering these inspirational wallpapers for your phone, laptop, and Zoom, with illustrations by resident CSS artist Angus Maguire.
