What spring teaches us about possibility
Softening skies, budding trees, and bright days — all of spring's scenes collectively speak to awakening. Hope takes a life of its own as emergence of life becomes our soundtrack for the next few months.
This season of growth, gratitude, and revival reminds us to walk in and build on our ancestors' dreams to secure the prosperous and self-determined future Black Washingtonians deserve. From Colville to Wapato, Vancouver to Bellingham, and everywhere in between, cooperative and collaborative efforts are being led by Black leaders, communities, organizations, and movements to realize our community-defined vision of Black well-being across the state. Spring reminds us of why connectedness and community are essential in attaining this vision and why it will forever be embedded in grounding principles at the Black Future Co-op Fund.
Here are three things the season teaches us about possibility:
We carry the will and wisdom of our ancestors, who forged new possibilities for us to step into and build upon.
Winter imposes a stillness on us as we watch nature shift and are reminded of the Earth’s adaptability. Under harsh conditions, plants, ever committed to sprouting, enlist time-tested ways of persevering. Some plants drop leaves, some create an antifreeze, and others go dormant, turning gardens and fields of green into beds of possibility. The blooms this month are a result of the dependable growth strategies each one inherited and evolved to have. Their inherent wisdom and insistence on blossoming each year reanimates life each spring.
This same tenacity is reflected across the diaspora. Our people have always leaned on ancestral wisdom when shaping new possibilities. When Black Washingtonians gathered nearly two years ago to shape the Black Well-being: Moving Toward Solutions Together report, we enlisted the same organizing tactics our ancestors employed throughout history, intentionally carving out space for togetherness, in person and digital, to set an agenda, define approaches, and steer our collective brilliance and work toward the same direction to maximize impact. As future ancestors, the solutions we've engineered together are a launchpad for future Black Washingtonians to step into and build upon in pursuit of our liberation.
Unified under the same collective goals, we take up space in impactful ways and can claim new possibilities.
Every spring we get to witness the majestic dance of honey bees, who, in a process called swarming, move as a massive contingent and split their flourishing colonies into different locations. What strikes many as a threat is a mass of tens of thousands of agents seeding prosperity for future generations. They fly together and rest together as they carefully select ideal environments to thrive. The new hives the honey bees build are based on the learnings and successes of their old ones. With livability being the unifying goal, each bee works toward building up their new comb, constructing it in a similar image to the prosperous one shaped once before.
Just as swarming honey bees move en masse to establish new possibilities, so do Black Washingtonians in their work to shape, secure, and seed the systems that support Black well-being. Last May, we shared the public safety, education, health, economic mobility, and civic engagement solutions identified by us and for us with the world. Each solution clarifies the collective goals we want to achieve and are working toward realizing together. Mirroring the ever-expanding honey bee colony that builds on what's working, we leverage our connectedness in establishing new possibilities.
We bloom where we’re planted, and from careful sowing comes transformation.
The budding that characterizes this season is the outcome of sowing that occurred long before spring began. The life cycle of the apple trees in Washington's river valleys is a beautiful reminder of this. In late winter, after leaves fall, limbs are pruned to maximize the trees' sunlight intake. By spring, apple trees begin to bud and bees cross-pollinate — without which, we wouldn’t have blooms. The better the pruning and pollinating, the better the fall harvest, the brighter the apples' color, and the sweeter the apples' taste.
The potential of and promise in each seed is a result of rich soil and the right inputs. Our collectively-defined vision of Black well-being is a seed; the truth about our lived experiences is its bedrock. Black Washingtonians have named and mapped the systemic harm happening across the state and the complex solutions it requires. We've created a bed of possibilities ripe for realizing and are watering it with love and intention daily as we work toward a liberated future. The Black Well-being: Moving Toward Solutions Together report reflects what we've always known—that we are our greatest resource and we are the bloom we've been waiting for. We have done the sowing, and now it’s time to bloom.
Black Washingtonians, the Black Well-being: Moving Toward Solutions Together report is yours to own and craft new possibilities from. Bring its discussion guide to your next gathering with family, friends, and colleagues!
