“What each of us practices at the scale of our individual lives is what is then possible for us at a large scale. I’m a microcosm of all the possible liberation, justice, pleasure and honesty in the universe, and I act accordingly.” adrienne maree brown
E146 – adrienne maree brown on Future Visioning, Layered Time and Grief
Microcosms of Liberation, Justice and Pleasure
Listen to the conversation:
If you love the show, you can subscribe through iTunes, Stitcher or Spotify and listen offline on your favourite device. Podcasts are great for long drives and commuting!
About this interview:
How can we imagine and practice freedom in this time of limitations?
“What each of us practices at the scale of our individual lives is what is then possible for us at a large scale. I’m a microcosm of all the possible liberation, justice, pleasure, and honesty in the universe, and I act accordingly.” adrienne maree brown
In this episode, Amisha speaks with adrienne maree brown, a writer, activist, and Black feminist. adrienne is the author of ‘Grievers’, ‘Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Meditation,’ ‘We Will Not Cancel Us’ and ‘Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good’ and many more important books that help us create transformative strategies and movements for our time. She is the co-host of the ‘How to Survive the End of the World’ and ‘Octavia’s Parables’ podcasts.
Amisha and adrienne explore ideas on how we can come to imagine and embody a future in which we are free. adrienne shares that the visioning of our futures is a fundamental practice that can create alignment between our behaviours and visions. It is a way to grow our individual practices into compelling futures; futures that we want to be alive for, futures that are free and that can become large-scale community freedom movements.
Together they acknowledge that we live in a time of spiritual awakening where we are learning to grieve. We exist in crumbling systems that can no longer continue if we wish to continue as a collective species. adrienne shares that rituals of grief and spiritual practices are a way to prepare ourselves individually and at a systemic level to let go of systems that we are embedded in and often comforted by. adrienne believes that we are closer to our free futures than we have learnt to believe and that the structures of western school education distract us from envisioning the kind of humans we need to be to participate in this future.
We learn that in order to embody the visions for our compelling futures we must be willing to practise honesty and boundaries, allow ourselves to experience pleasure, make ourselves vulnerable and engage in relational learning to co-vision in relationship with others in our communities. We need to question the construct of linear time and imagine it as layered, moving in many directions, in cycles, something that is mysterious and therefore opening up possibilities for spiritual shifts and for what our actions could mean.
“I like the idea of layered time, that what I’m doing in this plane in this moment of time, has reverberations beyond my comprehension.” ~adrienne maree brown
adrienne maree brown is the author of Grievers (the first in her novella series with the Black Dawn imprint), Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Meditation, We Will Not Cancel Us and Other Dreams of Transformative Justice, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds and the co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements. She is the co-host of the How to Survive the End of the World and Octavia’s Parables podcasts. adrienne is rooted in Durham.
To connect or work with adrienne, visit adriennemareebrown.net
To connect or work with Amisha, visit amisha.co.uk
artwork: Rob Woodcox
Resources and links from this episode:
- All That We Are – From Me To We
- adrienne maree brown Instagram account
- adrienne maree brown Books – Ak Press
- Makhani Themba
- Octavia E Butler
- Angel Kyodo Williams
- Alexis Pauline Gumbs
- Grace Lee Boggs
From Me to We
find out more about our latest learning journey, and join us on May 2nd – here.
Connect more with us:
- Beautiful Leadership mentoring
- Amisha’s One-to-One sessions
- Amisha’s book – INTUITION
- all that we are membership
←Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode →
You must be logged in to post a comment.