What Happens When We Remember the Power of Our Imagination?

The joy of witnessing us dream

More of us are embracing the power in rest, for resting gives us opportunities to dream! And not just the dreams that visit us while we're asleep, but the ones that take shape when we allow ourselves to wander through the possibilities of what life could be. What would we do if we followed every curiosity? What would we create if we had the time, resources, and freedom to explore? What if we followed the little rabbit holes of our imagination instead of convincing ourselves that we ought to be doing something more productive?

So many are envisioning the lives they could lead when committed to the things that bring them excitement. Earlier this week, I shared my excitement with those rooted in my ecosystem: I want us to dream together. My joy comes from sharing what I know and holding space for us to share with one another. And this is the time!

We are collectively remembering the power of imagination and our ability to create endless possibilities. Everywhere I turn, there is encouragement to engage in scripting activities, to elaborate on dreams from our sleep, and to give language to our lifelong desires. We're making vision boards, imagining different ways of living, and giving ourselves permission to want things that might not fit neatly into the lives we've been handed.

I am especially moved to see Black wombxxn imagining and actualizing lives that encompass rest, pleasure, creativity, meaningful work, community, and freedom in all elements of life. There is something beautiful about watching us give ourselves permission to express our unwavering demand for freedom: freedom to exist in our authenticity, to center ourselves in our work, our families, and our households, and to make decisions about the lives we want to live.

It is no secret that when we thrive, everyone is better off. But this is also about reclaiming our power over ourselves: what lives we create, what ideas and whom we nurture, and the value we give to things and experiences. We are remembering that we were always the currency and the traders of our own gifts and produce. We get to determine what we have to offer, what we exchange, what we cultivate, and what is worth our investment.

Growing up, I was always told that imagination is for babies, and that we lose the ability and need to play because real life is too important. I saw it happen around me, but I rejected the sentiment; I fought the practice. And as we collectively dedicate ourselves to imagining and actualizing our joy, I find myself reflecting on just how important that resistance was.

Imagination is not something we outgrow. Our dreams are meaningful in their own right. They represent possibilities for living, loving, creating, and relating to the world with greater freedom. Dreaming is something we need in world building.

What we were taught about imagination

I remember hearing from schoolteachers and other adults that creativity was for art class. The only playing we were supposed to do was a sport or a game. Everything else needed to be out of our systems when recess was over, both during the school day and throughout our school years.

But I also remember the worlds we drew, the scenes we acted out, the competitions we won, and the performances we made. We authentically created our worlds, until we didn't.

Somewhere along the way, we stopped finding it appropriate. We didn't have time. We were taught that the things we found joy in came secondary to our "responsibilities" and a predefined marker of success that never even considered us.

I never could acknowledge this as the reality I was meant to accept. Still, there have been times in my own journey when I've imagined less, created less, and found myself out of sorts. I know that when we're encouraged to prioritize our own joy, we're connected to ourselves in ways that seem to be reserved for straight, rich, white man-boys in this colonized society. We're able to explore, experiment, and hone the skills relevant to our innate interests. We get to follow our curiosities and discover what we're capable of without first having to justify why we're interested.

Growing up with this thought, I concluded that we can all learn and be geniuses; it's the schools and other systems that were stupid. But I didn't know it was intentional. Ha!

I went into education policy hoping to steer programs toward the natural ways people thrive and learn. I wanted to help create conditions where curiosity, creativity, and individual interests weren't treated as distractions from learning. I didn't yet understand just how far this work would reach into the rest of my life.

I've come to recognize that so much of what I do is rooted in reminding and facilitating people's remembrance of their ability to imagine again, and to recreate the worlds in which they will thrive.

More specifically, as I connect with plants, I remember a silent language. I learn to hear the needs of those who have been ignored, and I find my place in our collectiveness. When I support a mother as she grows a life she has created, I listen for her voice and help her recognize and claim the fertile ground she belongs in. I do the same with the wombxxn, girls, and families I blend for. I remind them that their bodies communicate their needs through what they feel, and that the people who belong in their ecosystems will benefit from their thriving.

These aren't separate interests or disconnected professions. They're different expressions of the same commitment: helping us recognize what is already within us, around us, and available to us when we learn to listen.

Dreaming, imagining, and playing aren't just about childhood or individual creativity. They have consequences for how we live as adults, how we make decisions, how we relate to one another, and ultimately, how we build our worlds.

What If the World We're Trying to Create Is Already Here?

Without relying on our own minds and visions of the world, we lose sight of what makes our world our own. We begin to find the work we want to do unattainable because it doesn't resemble the glamour of what's popular. We find ourselves trying to convince our communities of the value in what we find invaluable. At some point, we even began to ignore our own imagery of warmth and coziness for what is sold to us under those very labels. We buy into the picture, bring it home, arrange ourselves around it, and wonder why it doesn't feel like the comfort we imagined. Eventually, the discomfort of buying into these labels becomes the necessary haze of "growth," of adulting. We learn to call it progress even when it costs us our peace.

When we forget that we can make decisions about our own lives and realities, we find ourselves living with what plagues us now: the dominance of capitalism, imperialism, and patriarchy. Paternalism has a way of making itself at home in our lives. We allow others to decide for us, to determine what is worthy, what is possible, what is permitted. We are made to work to become worthy of living LIFE, as though life itself were not ours to participate in until someone deems us deserving.

We may not choose to surrender our agency, but we do and normalize it where we have power. We are conditioned to believe that agency must be earned, that freedom is reserved for a select few deemed worthy of it. That is an abusive arrangement. And while we may not have chosen it, we continue to inherit and perpetuate it, generation after generation. We see what conformity costs us. We feel how it narrows our lives, diminishes our quality of living, and asks us to trade the fullness of ourselves for the privilege of getting by. And we challenge those who still embrace their whimsical agency to create their experience around their joy. 

There is gravity in that. There is a reason to be defensive if you can acknowledge that you've relinquished some of your power. But let that heaviness remind you to be protective of your imagination, and be unwilling to let anyone convince you that your ability to shape your life is something you must first earn.

What has become difficult to imagine when survival consumes so much of our attention? We accept being charged for natural resources. We lose sight of thriving and begin to mistake surviving for the whole of living. We sacrifice our uniqueness and authenticity to keep pace with arrangements that were never designed with our fullness in mind. We accept the scam of being drawn into work that does not fulfill our personal missions, work disconnected from our innate interests, our curiosities, our divine purpose. We become so occupied with making a living that we have less room to make a life.

Many of us eventually return to ourselves. We return after growing to distrust what we feel about the experiences curated for us, and rightfully so. But often that return comes after considerable discomfort and dis-ease from following systems and regimens that have taken us far from our natural balance. We spend so much time learning to fit that we have to relearn how to feel where we belong.

What if we created more space to be ourselves?

We are worthy of the space and opportunity to create: to honor all parts of ourselves and imagine the lives in which we want to continue to thrive. What possibilities might we recognize if we stopped treating the world imagined for us, the world handed to us, as the only world available?

What if the world we're trying to create isn't somewhere we have to go, but something we have to remember how to participate in?

I often return to this question because our imagination doesn't lead us to escape reality. If anything, when we daydream and use our imagination, we’re led to look at reality more closely. To notice the trees that seem to walk when the wind moves through them, the birds playing jokes on the land-walkers below, the small worlds unfolding beneath our feet. There is so much happening around us that we've been taught not to notice. Perhaps our vantage point has become so low, so fixed on the ground immediately in front of us, that we mistake the limits of our view for the limits of the world.

Dreaming doesn't automatically dismantle oppressive systems. But it can help us recognize that the way things are is not the only way things can be.

What if we had more space to gather, the way wombxxn do, around femininity, strength, creativity, softness, and sensuality, in rhythm with the feminine energy of the moon? Remembering our power is one thing. Seeing what it means to exercise that power while living alongside other people is another.

Freedom doesn't require us to dream alike

We don't even need to share the same dreams, goals, or visions of the future to build together. In community, as I know it to exist, each of us authentically pursues what moves us, refrains from intentional harm, and takes collective responsibility for addressing harm when it occurs and can be remedied. We make room for one another's becoming. We protect one another's right to create, to change, to name ourselves, and to name our craft in the language that feels true to us.

Freedom in all aspects of life also comes with a responsibility: to help create the conditions in which other people can pursue their dreams. Sometimes that means actively offering support. Sometimes it means simply refusing to participate in the forces that arbitrarily clock our movements, measure our worth, and dictate how much room we're allowed to take up. We cannot say we value freedom while demanding uniformity. We cannot ask people to be authentic and then punish them for expressing themselves differently.

Building together does not require everyone to share the same dream. It requires that we stop making sameness the price of belonging.

I like to think of myself as a community vibe curator. I conjure ways to hold space for many of my intersections because I want people to experience the possibility of being authentic. Not performative wellness. Not another space where people are expected to demonstrate growth, announce goals, or arrive as their most polished selves. I want us to have room to arrive as we are, to explore what moves us, and to experience what becomes possible when we don't have to edit ourselves into someone else's idea of a whole person.

What has been calling me is ritual, space, and the opportunity to remember that we are part of the forces of nature we so often forget ourselves to be. The circle is a place to practice being together without requiring everyone to want the same things. One month, your energy may be high; you may participate in a way that many noticeably feel. Another circle down the line, you may need to be held, supported, or carried. We have seasons within us, too. Our energy ebbs and flows, like the earth's waters, like waves that gather, crest, recede, and return. The expectation is not that we arrive with the same energy each time. It is that we show up as our authentic selves and intend no harm.

The community becomes something we build through our presence, our relationships, and our willingness to make room for one another. Through the vulnerability of having ever-changing energy, and the trust to navigate those changes together. We learn to hold space, to be held, to give, to receive. We learn that our presence is not measured by how much we produce or how visibly we participate. Sometimes we are the ones bringing the warmth. Sometimes we are the ones who need to sit closer to the fire.

Rab's Roots Wombxxn Circles: Making room for the possibilities

Rab's Roots Wombxxn Circles are returning with the next moon cycle! On Monday, November 9, we'll gather for the New Moon Fire, and on Tuesday, November 24, for the Full Moon by the Water.

The fire is a place to release what we can no longer carry, honor what our experiences have taught us, and intentionally kindle the beginnings we're ready to make. The New Moon marks both an ending and a beginning. As we close out a cycle and release what we can no longer carry, we make room for a new time, a new era, and new possibilities.

This is a time to call in warmth, comfort, reflection, and dreaming. Before we begin planning and putting things into motion with the First Quarter Moon, we pause. We set our intentions. We tend to ourselves. The experiences, relationships, and elements of previous cycles that will no longer serve the lives we envision do not have to be discarded as though they were meaningless. What we've lived has taught us something. What we've learned becomes fuel for our progression, something to sustain us through transition. We intentionally burn what we've released, fuel for the fire that warms us through the cold and darkness. The fire warms us while sparking the intentionality we need for our beginnings. We release the hold, but we do not waste the wisdom.

The Full Moon by the Water carries us into another kind of gathering. At its fullest, the moon's pull draws the waters, and its light illuminates what has been growing. Under the full energy of the sun, the moon brings abundant water to the high grounds, creating fertile ground for our dreams and carrying our efforts outward, to all corners of the earth. We gather in that fullness and create tools that magnify our efforts: to bring things into focus, to reveal what is worthy of our energy in this cycle, and to recognize what can begin to be released for the next. Where the New Moon invites us to turn inward, the Full Moon gives us an opportunity to see what is coming into view, what is gaining momentum, and what we are ready to bring into the world.

During our Moon Circles, we gather around femininity, strength, creativity, softness, and sensuality, in rhythm with the feminine energy of the moon, whether we are releasing or intensifying. We celebrate femininity, wombxxnhood, girlhood, motherhood, aunties, grandmothers, and our daringness to dream. These circles are intergenerational. Girls are encouraged to join us. Mothers, your children are welcome.

Looking toward the menstruation celebrations

And these circles are expanding. I am developing recurring ceremonies to celebrate the transitions of Wombxxnhood, beginning with menstruation. I envision welcoming new girls into Wombxxnhood every six months, continuing the intergenerational sharing of knowledge among wombxxn and girls. A space for women and girls to share experiences too often navigated alone; for girls to hear from elders willing to share what they've lived and learned; and for those becoming elders to recognize and honor their own transitions, too. We are not only welcoming someone into a new season of life. We are also making room for those who have traveled further along the path to remember, reflect, and be received in their own becoming.

These gatherings are opportunities to deepen our relationships with our bodies and recognize experiences that may have been normalized, dismissed, or endured without sufficient understanding. Some of the worlds we want to create require us to restore relationships with knowledge, traditions, and one another. Menstruation ceremonies naturally fall in the winter and summer, and those are the seasons I would love to honor. If I were to hold one ceremony each year, winter would be my choice. I also recognize that many are still finding their way back to the pull of the natural seasons, and that spring may offer more people an opportunity to participate. I am tending to the possibilities, and more details will come to those who choose to Stay Rooted in the Rab's Roots ecosystem and receive Community Updates.

In the meantime, I want you to consider your own dreams.

Write them down for at least two weeks. You might begin on the first day of your period and continue until your energy feels at its fullest. Or begin on the night of the New Moon and continue through the Full Moon. Let yourself notice what comes up when you give your imagination somewhere to go.

Record the grand ideas that light you up, too, however feels appropriate for you. Journal. Create a poem. Turn it into a song. Draw it out. Design an outfit or a whole new look that lets you step into that reality. Make something with your hands. Move your body. Follow the thought a little further than you normally would. Give the dream a shape, a sound, a texture. Let it take up space.

And while you're dreaming, notice the people around you. How do they express their desired realities? How do you encourage them to live their best lives? Do more of that for the people whose joy you benefit from seeing. Notice the people in your ecosystem, both active and passive. Who is present? Who is quietly contributing? What does it look like for your community to be supported? What does it look like for you to support your community and the grander scheme of things? And how might your community support you in imagining and actualizing your dreams?

What would it mean to create without permission? To be in relationship with ourselves and the natural world, recognizing, acknowledging, and honoring that relationship? To protect one another's ability to live differently, not by asking everyone to follow the same path, but by refusing to make conformity the condition of belonging?

Perhaps this is part of what it means to remember how to participate. To notice what is already alive. To create what we have not yet seen. To make room for what someone else is bringing into being. To keep our hands, our hearts, and our imaginations open enough to build a world where more of us can thrive.

Are you a dreamer? I'd love to hear about the world you continue to thrive in and imagine yourself frolicking through.