Serendipity Map
Rabbit Hole Unit 1
Rabbit Hole Unit 2
Rabbit Hole Unit 3
Rabbit Hole Unit 4
Stuff and Things Branch
Stuff and Things Branch
Random Ideas Branch
Random Ideas Branch
Random Ideas Branch
Stuff and Things Branch
Random Ideas Branch
Stuff and Things Branch
Creative Inspiration Branch
Creative Inspiration Branch
Creative Inspiration Branch
Creative Inspiration Branch
Sticky Quotes Branch
Sticky Quotes Branch
Sticky Quotes Branch
Sticky Quotes Branch
adrienne maree brown on Pleasure Activism
Queer Afrofuturism: Utopia, Sexuality, and Desire in Samuel Delany's “Aye, and Gomorrah”- Clayton D. Colmon
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/utopianstudies.28.2.0327#metadata_info_tab_contents
Queer Afrofuturisms?
Janelle Monáe’s body of work is a masterpiece of modern science fiction Monáe spent years crafting a dystopian universe. Then in Dirty Computer, she unleashed rebellion.
https://www.vox.com/2018/5/16/17318242/janelle-monae-science-fiction-influences-afrofuturism
Emergent strategies in my own life, in my work
How can I include emergent strategies in my work?
"Emergence is one of the best concepts I have learned for discussing this wow, this wonder. 'Emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.'" (Brown 1)
"Emergence is our inheritance as a part of this universe; it is how we change. Emergent strategy is how we intentionally change in ways that grow our capacity to embody the just and liberated worlds we long for" (Brown 2).
"This book is for people who want to radically change the world" (Brown 2).
Questions:
How do we turn our collective full-bodied intelligence towards collaboration, if that is the way we will survive? (Brown 4).
What are we as humans, what is our function in the universe? (Brown 5)
What does depth require from us, from me? (Brown 5)
The Sufi poet Hafiz said, “How do I listen to others? As if everyone were my Teacher, speaking to me (Her) cherished last words.” (Brown 5)
Why can’t they love me? Should I love them anyway? How can I hold these massive contradictions? (Brown 8)
How can we, future ancestors, align ourselves with the most resilient practices of emergence as a species? (Brown 8)
This is collaborative ideation— what are the ideas that will liberate all of us? (Brown 9)
How do we create and proliferate a compelling vision of economies and ecologies that center humans and the natural world over the accumulation of material? (Brown 9)
"One thing I have observed: When we are engaged in acts of love, we humans are at our best and most resilient... If love were the central practice of a new generation of organizers and spiritual leaders, it would have a massive impact on what was considered organizing. If the goal was to increase the love, rather than winning or dominating a constant opponent, I think we could actually imagine liberation from constant oppression. We would suddenly be seeing everything we do, everyone we meet, not through the tactical eyes of war, but through eyes of love" (Brown 5).
"In my longing for depth I have been re-rooting in the earth, in myself and my creativity, in my community, in my spiritual practices, honing in on work that is not only meaningful but feels joyful, listening with less and less judgment to the ideas and efforts of others, having visions that are long term" (Brown 5).
"This practice lets me connect to the part of myself that is divine, aligned with the universe, and the place within myself where I can be a conduit for spiritual truth—I don’t know what else to call it. What comes forth, as lessons and realizations and beliefs—doesn’t feel political, or even about organizing. It feels like spirit leading me to the truth.
Things like: The less I engage in gossip, the less I harbor suspicion, the more space I find within myself for miraculous experiences. When I fear the universe, I fear myself. When I love and am in awe of the universe, I love and am in awe of myself.9 Imagine then, the power when I align with the universe. Nothing is required of me more than being, and creating. Simultaneously being present with who I am, who we are as a species...and creating who we must become, and within that who I must become" (Brown 6)
"Oak trees don’t set an intention to listen to each other better, or agree to hold tight to each other
when the next storm comes. Under the earth, always, they reach for each other, they grow such that their roots are intertwined and create a system of strength that is as resilient on a sunny day as it is in a hurricane" (Brown 7).
"...if we can’t articulate more viable futures, and adapt, our human future is pretty hopeless" (Brown 8) [talking about discovering Octavia Butler)
"The more people that collaborate on that ideation, the more that people will be served by the resulting world(s)" (Brown 9).
"And I think it is healing behavior, to look at something so broken and see the possibility and wholeness in it. That’s how I work as a healer: when a body is between my hands, I let wholeness pour through. We are all healers too—we are creating possibilities, because we are seeing a future full of wholeness" (Brown 10).
"Strategy is a military term simply meaning a plan of action towards a goal" (Brown 10).
"Emergent strategies are ways for humans to practice complexity and grow the future through relatively simple interactions" (Brown 10).
"We are living in the ancestral imagination of others, with their longing for safety and abundance, a longing that didn’t include us, or included us as enemy, fright, other" (Brown 10).
Emergent Strategy:
was, initially, a way of describing the adaptive and relational leadership model found in the work of Black science fiction writer Octavia Butler (and others).
then it grew into plans of action, personal practices and collective organizing tools that account for constant change and rely on the strength of relationship for adaptation. With a crush on biomimicry and permaculture. Biomimetics or biomimicry is the imitation of the models, systems, and elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems. Permaculture is a system of agricultural and social design principles centered around simulating or directly utilizing the patterns and features observed in natural ecosystems.
which evolved into strategies for organizers building movements for justice and liberation that leverage relatively simple interactions to create complex patterns, systems, and transformations—including adaptation, interdependence and decentralization, fractal awareness, resilience and transformative justice, nonlinear and iterative change, creating more possibilities.
and now it’s like...ways for humans to practice being in right relationship to our home and each other, to practice complexity, and grow a compelling future together through relatively simple interactions. Emergent strategy is how we intentionally change in ways that grow our capacity to embody the just and liberated worlds we long for.
and maybe, if I’m honest, it’s a philosophy for how to be in harmony and love, in and with the world (Brown 11-12).
What is Transformative Justice?
"...see something impossible (based on the families and society they’d been born into) as not only a possible way forward, but as the best way forward" (Brown 15)- discussing her parents
"I have learned that feeling matters, that feeling is an important and legitimate way of knowing" (Brown 19).
Burling a project that is rooted in transformative justice