The Worldbuilder’s Way

An Algorithm for Actualization

In 2021, I shaved my head months before answering the invitation to move to land that has been in my family for five generations. This photo was taken while standing on a well that was in the front yard of the family owned home I moved into in order to write Cykofa: The Seeda Origin Story in Dawn, Virginia — tucked in between the ancestral lands of the Mattaponi and Youghtanund. Photography by: Chukwudumebi Ezefili

“...We cannot defer the work of dreaming and practicing new worlds to some imaginary, more visionary people; we need to exercise the discipline of making that work part of our everyday conversations and actions even as we fight the violence of this one.”

— Andrea J. Ritchie, Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies (2023), pg. 51

I’m listening to Ever New¹ by Glenn Copeland and watching a child dance across the ecosystem of my veins. Somehow from somewhere, somethingidontknow, like shame crawls through for not considering this work. But isn’t this breath and is…