ENVIRONMENTAL & SOCIAL JUSTICE
Creative Interventions... ...continued from page 67
activist work, as our purpose and calling leads us. As you undertake your own journey as an agent of social change, there are many steps to prepare you to be both persuasive and adaptive, sustaining both the energy to persist and the solutions to bring balance. Your first step should be building your knowledge, understanding, and awareness of the complex web of beliefs, facts, and historical pat- terns that shape the cause you embrace. Ask good questions, gather verifiable information, and expand your awareness of the reasons this focus can ease the crisis that signals a tipping point. This serves as your why, a doorway into systems thinking. Your second step should be to get creative in your thinking about what you want to do, and how you want to be present as an activ- ist. They’re related intimately, in a holistic view of social change. It helps to find coalitions of like-minded folks who can be partners and support us as we work towards the changes we want to see. These al- lies will help us remember what we’re building towards, and celebrate momentum along the way. They also keep us alert and aware of the complexity of social change. Your third step is less an action than a way of moving forward. En- hance your activism with creativity, reframing your ideas with play and improvisation, learning through change, observing with flexibility of mind, spirit, heart, and soul. Your voice is an important one. Make sure it’s authentic and energized as well as informed and focused. Play is a serious gift, for yourself and the world, opening up the complexity of observation, pattern-recognition, and creative problem-solving. Of course, all of these steps are “lather, rinse, repeat!” You’ll need to recharge and claim every resource to sustain your momentum, be- cause systemic change and social change are interlocked. And along the way, it’s important to remember what the last words of that now famous Dumbledore quote are: “Remember this…. You have friends here. You’re not alone.” Carol Burbank is a writer, writing mentor, and teacher, a specialist in the arts and social change. She teaches at Pacifica Graduate Institute, and is working on a book about creative leadership and personal/social change. She also trains educators in building equity for at-risk students, and researches systemic and organizational change in education. Find out more at www.storyweaving.com.
of varied, evolving activism. If social change activists had been shut down by the fact that legislation was so long in coming, the equity in the law would never have been achieved. These social activists, in growing numbers, understood the path to balance is a marathon, not a sprint. Each step mattered; and even the ultimate goal achieved be- came momentum for further social change. There are other examples of creative and holistic activism that can inspire us as we choose the steps that call us to action. Gandhi’s non-violent Salt March in 1930, protesting the British government’s tax on salt, was a twenty-four-day journey to the ocean, where march- ers made their own salt, renewing the non-violent resistance move- ment that ultimately led to Indian self-rule after many interrelated actions. This movement also inspired Martin Luther King, who used non-violent civil disobedience to fuel an inter-racial, inter-generation- al civil rights movement in the United States — a movement still active and striving for balance. Why are these forms of social change more effective than linear thinking? Holistic coalitions and the networks of activists created across causes and nations generate immediate challenges to crises as well as energy for problem-solving. They shift cultural beliefs through three key aspects of activism: 1. Creatively engaging people in new ideas that show the status quo is neither permanent nor always right. 2. Honoring and asserting more balanced and healthy ways of being and becoming. 3. Acknowledging we are all interconnected, and must grow together. Becoming a Social Change Agent Each of us will choose one node of the cultural web to start our
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68—PATHWAYS—Fall 23
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