Be kind. Be connected. Be unafraid. … When fear is used to control us, love is how we rebel. Rivera Sun, The Dandelion Insurrection
The burden of continual injustices and angers is more than one person can bear–or should. And consequently I’m constantly replete with admiration and love for the people I’ve painted who so fiercely bear those burdens. Rob Shetterly
We as readers of these stories who are holding a collective vision of them have the power to create the reality we are walking into by choosing what we give our attention to. What more powerful message could we be receiving at this time when we feel so powerless? Sherri Mitchell
Rivera’s words and their spirit have been with me this week as I’ve looked out at the world which seems ever more on the brink of explosion and as I’ve witnessed the constant efforts to spread fear in order to control. I’ve called on her words in the midst of challenging conversations around a family matter this week, holding them in my heart as reminders pointing the way forward on my path. They are with me as well as I engage in exploration of building new systems to create a bright future story in community with others. I resonate with their simplicity and their power.
Rivera’s stories live in me as visions of possibility and promise, reminding me of the world that is possible if we are willing to hold its vision, its hope, its promise and to step into whatever is our role to be and to do on the path of co-creation.
Be kind. Be connected. Be unafraid. … When fear is used to control us, love is how we rebel. Powerful words embedded in power stories reminding us all of what is possible and reminding us to step into our power to create that world.
Today, I want to continue the honoring of the mother of these words that began this weekend past at the unveiling of her portrait by artist Robert Shetterly to join with the portraits of 270+ other truth tellers in Shetterly’s mission to put attention on courageous American truth tellers, past and present. Honoring Americans Who Tell The Truth https://americanswhotellthetruth.org/. Today, I want to introduce you to or remind you of the work of my friend, author and activist Rivera Sun. A truth teller. One who shows the way. https://riverasun.com/.
One of the speakers at the unveiling was Sherri Mitchell, Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset, an Indigenous attorney, activist, and author from the Penobscot Nation. Mitchell spoke about her experience of working with Rivera and said of her, … she has the ability to shift us from the common themes of warfare and conquest and domination and destruction and dismantling to ones of building a path forward that we can all walk upon … a way that invites us into the story as real people … she writes authentically about the very real challenges that we’re facing in ways that give us a pathway forward that is an option that has not been presented to us in real time in the world we are living in. We need these stories to exist. We need young people and old people and all of the people in between reading and imagining and believing into these stories. We as readers of these stories who are holding a collective vision of them have the power to create the reality we are walking into by choosing what we give our attention to. What more powerful message could we be receiving at this time when we feel so powerless?
I frequently speak about our current need for new stories and in series like The Dandelion Insurrection, a prescient novel about the challenging time we are living in now and the Ari Ara series for young readers about building a world of peace, Rivera offers us such stories to read, to imagine, to believe, and to live into. Indeed, if one turns their attention away from the mainstream, there are vast, real-time stories of people changing the world to be discovered. She inspires me to do just that. To not get mired in the toxic swamp of fear, but eyes forward to march onward to the horizon of peace and possibility that is beckoning our attention. This, as I often implore here in The Pivot, is where our attention should be if indeed, we desire a new world.
Rivera is one of my sheroes, and my grandchildren love her too. Who are your heroes and sheroes? Where is your attention? Who/what is calling you to build and co-create the future anew?