We Dream in the Dark
It’s dark.
War, corruption, ignorance. These are all nothing new, but seem more pervasive, more relentless. As though we’re in a movie where the bad guys win more often than not, dodge their rightful comeuppance, and look poised to come back for an even more horrific sequel the next news cycle.
“Enough! Bring the house lights up. This movie sucks, I want a refund!”
Are we stuck in this darkened room? Each moment battling fear and despair—of shadows, unfamiliar and familiar—of monsters under the bed, among us, within?
But what if our eyes became accustomed to the dark?
In a post introducing a report on how funders can develop new capacities to resource alternative futures, Milly Shotter and Cassie Robinson invoke the darkness and invites us to expand our tools for perception:
“Right now we are in the in-between. That moment when the lights go out and there is a pause of darkness while our eyes adjust. Before outlines appear, then shapes, then detail. In this uncertain moment of darkness, instead of turning away or reaching to switch the light back on, what if we trusted that there are other ways of seeing?”
Absent night vision, how do we vision in the dark? We dream.
And we have BEAUTIFUL dreams!
In a DesignShifts session last month, cohosts Ida Persson and sahibzada mayed shared the results of a pre-session survey that prompted: “I dream of a future that is…” The result (presented graphically here and perhaps not coincidentally on a dark background) amounted to more than four typed pages of phrases revealing both a shared yearning for and belief in liberation, justice, and belonging.
These dreams of ours have power. Held with intent, in collective practice, they are spells to bring about the alternative futures we and the planet deserve.
Our dreams deserve repeating and remembering. The more we tell them to each other, the more adept we may become at navigating in the dark, the more skilled in assembling what we need to strike a spark and kindle a flame to light a new path ahead.