As the federal government retaliates against environmental justice programs and cruelly targets undocumented migrants, it may be hard to see a path forward… but our fight for justice remains strong! And our shared vision for healthy communities grounded in regenerative, reparative, and just economies will only continue to grow and flourish.

Driven by our collective confusion and frustration, I have been trying to rest as much as possible. I’ve been spending time inside with my family, playing games, getting good sleep, chilling, breathing, and looking inside. But, as I learned from Women’s Earth Alliance, individual rest is not quite enough. Beyond self-care, we need collective pauses grounded in systems of shared support to make space for creativity and endurance. As the Alliance says, “to sustain social change movements, rest is essential, not optional.” 

Shifting to a mindset where rest is conceived as a crucial element for sustaining a movement, and not just as a distraction, can happen more easily if we realize this work is not all on us. Trabian Shorters’ reflections around narratives that bring people together unpacks how narrative change can help us move on from an identity of “being fixers of a broken world to becoming builders of a better one.” In a way, we just need to continue imagining and building the future we want.