the capacity to imagine the future –

the capacity to imagine the future that we want to bring into being holds our limits and our possibilities. if we are to co-create another way of being, of living in harmony with a flourishing planet, we must vividly picture it. we must be able to tell compelling stories about it, to inspire each other in the face of all that ails the dominating culture. in tuning into our faltering systems, we are considerably daunted, of course we are. sometimes it feels like nothing we could do could possibly be enough, and the trajectory we are all being dragged along is inescapable . but if we cannot imagine another way of being, we cannot create one. the imagination needs regular engagement just as the body needs movement, and that means a practice of letting it play in whatever ways please us. this is countercultural activism in so many ways, and when we let it, it can also be nourishing, restorative, reviving. it can be a pleasure.

playing with the imagination is naturally something children specialise in, and my children, unschooling here on the farm, becoming a third generation of artists, they received the foundation to take this to another level.

lately, my youngest has wrapped up a storytelling project that spanned 8 ½ years. this was a project only an autodidact or an artist would assign themselves, of nightly stories, improvised on the spot, told to the ducks in their duckhouse. like her parents and grandparents before her, she took to working in series like, well, a duck to water, and first having never missed a night, she never wanted to miss a night, perpetually. devotedly. stories would be invented and spoken, there outside the duckhouse that we built together, the children and i, stories told no matter the weather. in rare occasions that she was away, one of us would take up the baton, and later friends, farmsitters would carry it. sometimes we have told stories with friends, collaborating like a miniature improv theatre. sometimes all of us have been ill, or just so tired, and to value this creative project enough to push through that has been a tremendous achievement. in retrospect, we discovered, her chronic illness began years ago, and persisting through it has been a feat. no matter what, she knows that she can carry a project for years if she so chooses.

what a challenge, to tell a new story, every single night. 8 ½ years of stories have made her an excellent writer, well used to playing in the moment, experimental, the creative flow wide open. for any of us volunteers, we know the test. to honour the streak, to be bold enough to stand there and speak up. the architecture of her creative discipline was simply the original decision to tell a nightly story and we all played within it.

the ducks can be great listeners, fixing an eye on you, gazing attentively, commenting, responding, though i certainly have been told on occasion that my story was really rather dull and they had other things to discuss. yet sometimes, they have listened deeply to me when i really needed to talk through my grief or my challenges or my joy or my ideas about the future. to be in relation to these sweet beings in this way has been an extraordinary gift.

now, reluctantly, my youngest says this project is becoming a hobby, not a habit. now, we give this project to you, when you visit the farm, maybe to stay at the studio. if you’re here at ducky bedtime, or pause to peek in at them where they are tucked in for the night, you might like to tell your own story to the ducks.

when i have told the ducks a story, i notice i am more likely to speak my dreams aloud, to the land, to the air. i’ve seen this bring longings to life, making a pact with the birds, with the sky, setting a powerful intention that catches the wind, rains down, roots into the soil.

perhaps there are other beings in your life who would listen well to your stories, and make you more limber, more bold to tell more stories in more places, of what you would picture into being. to tell it to the trees, tell it to the songbirds, tell it to the lake, to each other and to ourselves. we can begin. here’s what i imagine — picture this.

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for many years i was a patron of the amazing rob hopkins, co-originator of the transition town movement, as he released gorgeously inspiring interviews with diversely skilled people, asking them how they would picture the future into being, given their special take on things. what would the future they want to see feel like, sound like, taste like, smell like? i adored his ministry of the imagination, and his time travel project, which he would do with each pair of guests, or even with rooms full of people. now he has a book out, how to fall in love with the future and you too can lead your community in this radical act of imagining what’s possible. i love that this project was spoken before it was written. i love the idea that creative practice is what will carry us through. i am making more time for scribbling and image-making in this quieter season, inspired by my children, inspired to do the small, persistent work of imagining another future.

also! a group of writers that sustain me are concerned with exactly the project of writing the future we want to see, in fact, rob hopkins kicked off the series with manda scott that brought us together. you can follow my fellow thrutopians here and here.

thanks for reading, sharing, commenting, thanks for supporting my small work, and thank you, ♡ for your small work. before you go, a word from the ducks:

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