Offering the Wisdom and Skills from Your Journey of Transformation
For The Worldbuilders Ep. 059
There is a difference between being put out and being put outdoors. If you are put out, you go somewhere else; if you are outdoors, there is no place to go. The distinction was subtle but final. Outdoors was the end of something, an irrevocable, physical fact, defining and complementing our metaphysical condition. Being a minority in both caste and class, we moved about anyway on the hem of life, struggling to consolidate our weaknesses and hang on, or to creep singly up into the major folds of the garment. Our peripheral existence, however, was something we had learned to deal with — probably because it was abstract. But the concreteness of being outdoors was another matter — like the difference between the concept of death and being, in fact, dead. Dead doesn’t change, and outdoors is here to stay.
— Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (1970), pg. 17
Dear Worldbuilder,
I have been slowly working my way through every Toni Morrison book on Audible just to hear her read to me in her voice, in her intonation, in her song. Some of the physical books are already in my library, marked front, back and sideways with codes, dreams and water in the margins. Somehow, someway The Bluest Eye hadn’t made it into my library yet. I started peeling back the story this past week and the passage above ran circles in my mind. Over and over.
I began to think about the metaphysical condition of exiting the colonial imaginary and a culture of white supremacy. I began to think about the cartographic wisdom, skills and tools we have to forge to navigate the “outdoors”. I began to think about the offerings that might emerge from this journey of transformation.
Inside this Episode We…
♾️ Reflect on the infinite amount of creative decisions and acts it took to get us to this moment in time
🧑🏾🏫 Explore creativity, teaching and learning as the spiritual disposition of our species
🚶🏾 Take a walk through my journey of transformation where I tell the story about the critical decision to leave my job in 2020
💭 Examine the ways white supremacy culture asks us to compromise our wellbeing in exchange for myths of safety and certainty
🫂 Imagine how we might return to and care for each other “outdoors”
Tune into the 59th episode “Offering the Wisdom and Skills from Your Journey of Transformation” on the podcast For the Worldbuilders via Spotify or Apple Podcast.
Then come back and let us know what came up inside reflecting on your journey of transformation. 🕯️
🌐 Worldbuilding Workshop Registration
Inside the episode I mention that this story also arises in Seeda School’s Worldbuilding Workshop. Inside the workshop I invite you to reflect on your story as well. It is from inside this ongoing journey of transformation that I believe we are all called to serve — it is from here that we are reminded of our creativity which reminds us of our power and it is from here we are reminded of how we are forever, simultaneously, guides and learners.
I crafted a framework using the seed data from my journey of transformation and inside Seeda School, you will learn how to do the same. Alongside a cohort of worldbuilders we will create a framework and a map of the journey inside your offer that others can follow as they embark on a path all their own.
🍁 Registration is now open for the fall season’s 2-PART Worldbuilding Workshop where you'll learn more about resourcing your interdisciplinary practice through a creative offer! If you’ve been wanting to experiment with releasing a creative offer inside the support of a creative retreat then join us on October 8th at 12PM EST.
Feel free to share this flyer with a friend or study buddy you’d love to workshop and retreat with! 👇🏾
...i love it that you said you use ms. toni's audio ooks in order to have her read to you! i do the exaxt same thing with barack obama's works🤩
also, i cannot wait for your 2 part workshop series! eeeek! have an awesome sauce day💜