Seeding Hope: A Meditation
As 2024 continues to unfold, we are sitting with a question: what will it take to realize and sustain a peaceful, thriving, and interdependent world? We invite you to meditate with us.
First, notice where you are right now — the state of your family, your community, our world. What comes to your mind, to your heart? It’s not surprising if suffering rises to the surface and if hope starts to slip.
The next step is even more difficult: We open our hearts — and let them break — in order to dream a new world into being.
How might we do this?
REMEMBER LOVE BEGETS LOVE. The story of Rudo Chigudu inspires us. In the midst of a family health emergency, feminist changemakers from across the world — known and unknown to Rudo — came to their aid. Rudo was forever changed. She left us with this insight: “I do not need to know you to love you.”
Our invitation to you: How might you be loving in small and big ways, especially with those you may not yet know? With yourself?
UNPLUG AND NOTICE WHATS GOOD. Take a break from unrelenting news cycles. Tap into a memory that provides refuge and light when things get hard.
Our invitation to you: Take 15 minutes for yourself to reach back to that which has made you laugh, inspired, or perhaps delighted you recently. Savor that memory and notice what you feel and where you feel it in your body.
EXPRESS GRATITUDE. Expressing your gratitude amplifies it. Remember to include gratitude for yourself!
Our invitation to you: Who might you express gratitude to today? Yourself? A loved one? A stranger who has extended a kindness to you?
COMMIT TO LIFE. Taking a moment to remember — and commit to — what you truly care about helps you navigate the most difficult moments with courage and purpose.
Our invitation to you: Who are you at your core? What matters most to you? What is the next most courageous, loving move you can take towards that?
When we consciously practice we keep hope alive. We seed futures for our descendants that are beyond our wildest dreams.
As we shift seasons — from winter to spring — we invite you to join this Revolution of Being! As the year unfolds we will create even more opportunities for you to engage in an expanding community of pollinators.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article is part of our new initiative: Reports from a (r)Evolution of Being.
In late 2023 Root. Rise. Pollinate! held our first two Inspiration Sessions, ‘Governance for Collective Thriving’ and ‘Embodying Love And/With Power Within Our Organizing and Organizations.’ Inspiration Sessions are space for feminist changemakers to come together to learn and share new developments and exchange narratives that shape understanding and strategies for transformative feminist praxis. This work is part of our project, Reports from the Revolution of Being — a place to tell stories of the future, the big transitions we need to make, and how these transitions are unfolding now.
This article is part of a series of posts, over the next few weeks, draw on reflections we shared with participants after each Inspiration Session and also highlights new reflections and invitations into transformation drawn from the wisdom and experiences of our ‘Inspirators’ who currently call home India, Kenya, Puerto Rico, South Africa, the United States, and Zimbabwe.
