Week 6: Vision

“Poetry is not only dream and vision, it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.” —Audre Lorde

What is possible when we are well? What is possible if we could imagine new, liberatory futures for ourselves and our communities where we all had what we needed to thrive and flourish?  

Trauma specialists have long noted that one impact of trauma is to directly impede one’s ability to imagine a different world or future. Prentis Hemphill defines oppression as “how society organizes itself to control the distribution of trauma.”  One reason we talk about politicized healing at the Chicago Torture Justice Center is because we know that when we are unwell—or holding trauma upon trauma upon trauma—it serves the systems of institutionalized racism and structural and state violence. 

As organizers, activists, and allies our work is not only to challenge and dismantle these systems of harm, but to also imagine and bring to life new systems of care and accountability. adrienne maree brown states her belief “that all organizing is science fiction—that we are shaping the future we long for and have not yet experienced.” 

What future are you building and visioning towards? 

This week of practice is about cultivating the vision we need to create the world we deserve, rooted in the knowledge and memory passed down to us by previous generations. As Toni Morrison writes, “I want my imagination as unencumbered as possible and as responsible as possible…” (p. 322, 2019)

This kind of visioning requires courage, imagination, grace, and love anchored by a righteous rage. It requires remembering who you are, where you come from, and what is your inheritance. It requires tapping into your deepest longing and desire.

Let us practice collectively to de-colonize our imaginations—to remove the white supremacist lies that limit our view of what can be. Instead let us cultivate wild imaginations—a horizon of possibilities grounded in abundance, care, and connection. 

We are so grateful to have been in liberatory practice with you these past six weeks. May Satisfaction, Strength, Abundance, Release, Care, and Vision carry you from this year into the next!