"Emergence emphasizes critical connections over critical mass, building authentic relationships, listening with all the senses of the body and the mind."
"But emergence notices the way small actions and connections create complex systems, patterns that become ecosystems and societies."
"While my default position is wonder, I am not without critique, disappointment, frustration, and even depression when I contemplate humanity."
"I follow other people's leadership around math, I offer leadership around healing, which comes more naturally to me. That give and take creates room for micro-hierarchies in a collaborative movement."
"Perhaps humans' core function is love. Love leads us to observe in a much deeper way than any other emotion."
"I am listening now with all of my senses, as if the whole universe might exist just to teach me more about love."
"She also said 'all that you touch you change/ all that you change, changes you.'"
"Grace started asking us what our movements would look like if we focused on critical connections instead of critical mass."
"Emergent strategies are ways for humans to practice complexity and grow the future through relatively simple interactions."
"We all need a place where we can weep and be held and feel our feelings and figure out how those feelings can direct our next evolution."
"... what happens at the interpersonal level is a way to understand the whole of society."
"internalize demands
you are the one
you are waiting for
externalize love
bind us together into
a greater self"
"Grace taught me dialectical humanism - the cycle of collective transformation of beliefs that occurs as we gather new information and experiences, meaning that, over time, we can understand and hold a position we previously believed to be wrong."
"I apply this to my songs, my self-portraits, my poems - understanding that when a Black, queer, thick artist woman intentionally takes space, it creates a new world."
"There is a conversation in the room that only these people at this moment can have. Find it."
"Grace often said that every crisis is an opportunity, which is amazing theoretically, and requires great emotional fortitude in practice, as well as the maturity to understand that the negative realization of that theory is 'disaster capitalism.'"
"We learn to bond through gossip, venting, and destroying, rather than cultivating solutions together."
"Perhaps the most egregious thing we are taught is that we should just be really good at what's already possible, to leave impossible alone."
"... until we have some sense of how to live our solutions locally, we won't be successful at implementing a just governance system regionally, nationally, or globally."
"In movement work, I have been facilitating groups to shift from a culture of strategic planning to one of strategic intentions - what are our intentions, informed by our vision? What do we need to be and do to bring our vision to pass? How do we bring those intentions to life throughout every change, in every aspect of our work?"
"As an individual, get really good at being intentional with where you put your energy, letting go as quickly as you can of things that aren't part of your visionary life's work."
"This is something I have been working on, engaging my anger and actually releasing it in harmless ways when it's live in me."
"... 'do here what we are seeking to do in the world.'"
"Do you already know that your existence - who and how you are - is in and of itself a contribution to the people and place around you?"
"On so many levels, interdependence requires being seen, as much as possible, as your truer self."
"I love knowing how incredible it feels to have a need met, to be loved and cared for, and also know how incredible it feels to meet an authentic need."
"No one is special, and everyone is needed."
"Don't sit this out. It has room for you. Find out, start, or help shape what is happening in your town."
"Uprisings and resistance and mass movement require a tolerance of messiness, a tolerance of many, many paths being walked on at once."
"Be able to say: 'I invest my energy in what I want to see grow. I belong to efforts I deeply believe in and help shape those.'"
"It is only in relation to other bodies and many somebodies that anybody is somebody. Don't get into your cotton-picking mind that you are somebody in yourself."
"...This may include being far away from each other (physically, and in social media, and in all communications) in the short term.""
"You have to tell your story. The silence and shame around these dynamics makes people think they are alone and especially flawed."
"Pick one person in your life right now, someone you want a more authentic relationship with, and tell them exactly that. Ask if you can practice radical honesty together. It is difficult at first, but the results are unparalleled freedom and satisfaction."
"Sometimes this was because the takedown wouldn't have had the impact I wanted; destroying a person doesn't destroy all of the systems that allow harmful people to do harm."
"The more people who cocreate the future, the more people whose concerns will be addressed from the foundational level in this world."
"In beginning this work, notice who you feel drawn to, and where you find ease. And notice who challenges you, who makes the edges of your ideas grow or fortify. I find that my best work has happened during my most challenging collaborations, because there are actual differences that are converging and creating more spaces, ways forward that serve more than one worldview."
"'... The most powerful thing for organizers to have, I believe, is faith. This belief that we can win, that we can change the world, that we can all be better.' - Terry Marshall"
"... conversation is a crucial way to explore what we believe and to make new understandings and ideas possible."
"I also think consensus is like water. Many paths, but the future is the ocean. Like we can resist, but it is inevitable, we will have to get together eventually."
"I have sets of woes - people who know my north star, who know my challenges, and who hold me accountable to my own development, celebrating my self-awareness and growth."
"Often the biggest support we need is to speak the truth out loud to those who will hold it with us from a vantage point of unconditional love."
"All organizing is science fiction. If you are shaping the future, you are a futurist."
"The best way to practice visionary fiction is to get to writing."
"Metta meditation is a very simple ritual of developing lovingkindness towards yourself and the whole world. As you meditate you say, to yourself or outloud, 'May I be happy, may I be wealthy, may I be free from harm and suffering.' And then you repeat it for someone you love, someone you feel aversion to, and then for the whole world."
"There are always a ton of relevant conversations that could happen, but there is usually a very small set of conversations that a particular group, at a particular moment in history, can have and move forward, given their capacity, resources, time, focus, and beliefs."
"We will not wait to be perfect, because we believe the time is now and we would rather be held accountable for our mistakes than forgiven our inaction."
"Be open to someone else speaking your truth."
"The vision of an organization is the furthest it can see."
"Identifying what your group can do well, is passionate about, and is needed - that's the sweet spot. That's your mission."
"Learning in community helps us see how our own ideas are shifting over time. Hopefully we develop a change with time, applying life experience to our way of seeing the world."
"Community is an incredible way to get access to information you might not come across on your own."
"Without intention, we are usually practicing what the dominant society wants us to practice - competing with each other to be cogs in a system that benefits the owning class, vaguely religious, vaguely patriotic."
"Practice saying 'yes' to the ideas that come from others, growing the idea with yes after yes. When you are tempted to say 'no,' try asking 'how?' instead."
"It changed the world, even if it is/was only in tiny ways that can't be seen, measured."
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