Moorings for Beginning Well
Welcome to the Climate Justice Field School (CJFS) learning out loud space. This is where CJFS collaborators reflect on what we’ve been doing and learning in our field school. Thanks for joining us on our journey, and if you have any thoughts on what you’re reading we’d be happy to hear from you.
At the onset of launching the Field School, we were asking ourselves questions about how to begin well. What sorts of forces, values, and principles could guide how the collective shows up in this experience? What are the ways in which we are trying to do things differently from the status quo when it comes to enacting climate justice? The idea to think about these as “moorings” arose during our hosting team dialogues with one another.
The idea of moorings appears in many places. We are especially inspired by Resmaa Menakem’s use of moorings in his work on somatic abolitionism. He invites people to identify anchor points that they can stay grounded in and focused on to help with wayfinding when navigating and working to heal (from) generational and ongoing racialized trauma and the deep and widespread culture of white supremacy.
In the Field School we are navigating big, complex, emergent and turbulent waters. The following moorings are what we stay tethered to, knowing that as we set out on the ocean there may be other moorings that show up that we want to tie onto, some that we might want to let go of, and ones that we may want to retreat to or reflect from.
Our Moorings
Joy
- As in orienting to joy for ourselves, other beings, our families, other members in the field school, our colleagues
- As in choosing that which uplifts us, which makes us feel light and easeful
Embodiment
- As in checking in with the body, using the body as a compass for how to relate to my inner and outer world
- As in recording new practices with the body, deep in our bones
Depth
- As in depth conversations, in which we “risk being changed by what we come to know” (Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures)
- As in seeing and acting below the surface
Accountability
- As in taking personal responsibility for how you are showing up
- As in creating trust through reciprocal relationships and consistency of the alignment between our word and action
Agency
- As in what do I give myself permission to courageously step into?
- As in what is in my power at any given point in time?
Teetering
- As in contending with how balance, how distribution happens
- As in reckoning with the reality that many things are true at once
Edges
- As in meeting personal, relational, organizational, systemic and collective community edges in order for growth and change to manifest
- As in knowing and tending to what we need as we stretch ourselves
Special thanks to the work of Resmaa Menakem, Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Transforming Cities from Within, Bayo Akomalafe and the Aniwa Community for inspiring the development of these moorings.
With thanks to the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance, Mitacs, and the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia for their funding support. With thanks to Emily Carr University of Art + Design and the City of Vancouver for hosting this work.
Disclaimer: the opinions and perspectives expressed within each of these posts are solely the author’s and do not reflect the opinions and perspectives of all CJFS participants.
