Resonance and the power of storytelling for the future
A bold vision for what’s possible begins now
Resonance is that experience of knowing that you have tapped into a shared frequency by the quality of the vibration that is created.
We know that creating a more compassionate and just world is resonating across the country and beyond.
We also know that there’s a difference between change and transformation. Change happens incrementally, using external influences to modify actions. Transformation is holistic. It shapes belief systems and culture and our worldview so that a desired vision can be sustained over time.
Creating the world we want requires innovation. While dominant perspectives tell us innovation is a skill set to acquire, we know that our long-term survival has been dependent on organic, iterative innovation. Our existence and evolution on this planet as a species is evidence that innovation is in humans’ very DNA.
A network is a constellation of people who work, experiment, innovate, share, and learn together. Networks are dynamic and flexible, designed to adapt, evolve, and scale in response to changing contexts and current events. This dynamic form not only mirrors the way change happens in the natural world, it also makes broad transformation possible.
Resonance Network participants know that violence is held in place by a complex system of power and beliefs, and that transforming it will require an integrated and multifaceted approach. We bring together organizers, storytellers, students, advocates, healers, teachers, faith leaders, artists, and other individuals across the country who are committed to working toward the thriving of future generations.
We’re curious about who else sees the world this way and wants to be connected with others who are taking this on.
Join our mailing list to learn how to connect with this amazing bunch of humans. Learn with us. Transform with us. Build community with us so that we can create the systems and structures that will ensure our collective thriving.
This is Emersyn. She is my goddaughter.
Richard Flanagan, born in 1841, is her great, great, great, great grandfather, and my great, great, great grandfather. (You can learn more about his story here.)
I believe it is our duty to future generations to travel to the future and write a better story — with transformed and equitable systems and better relationships between humans, the earth, and all who share it with us.
So this is the future I imagine for Emersyn. I tell a story that goes like this:
2040
The US has passed a comprehensive Reparations Act, which among many things, returned land in Georgia to the Muskogee Creek people. The Reparations Act also turned over endowments of predominantly white higher education institutions that were built on slave labor to Historically Black Colleges and Universities. This wealth was transferred in such abundance that Emersyn attends Spelman College in Atlanta for free — along with all students who are descendants of enslaved Africans in the US.
2044
Emersyn graduated with a Bachelor’s of Arts and Healing in Land and Water Studies, and a minor in Community Building and Collective Healing. She was taught by professors who are descendants of the first peoples of the land who have returned together with the descendants of Africans who cared for the land on plantations.
Emersyn decided to stay in Georgia and live communally with a community of artists and healers who have created a self-governing community on land that her great, great, great, great grandfather Richard worked in the 1850s as a person who was enslaved by an Irish settler.
2064
Emersyn is reflecting on her last two decades living in a just and compassionate, intergenerational, multi-gendered and multi-racial community. She is sharing the story of her beloved godmother, now an ancestor, who would tell her stories of the future.
These were not stories to control or determine her path but to give her a big enough vision of what could be possible for her and future generations.
