Just as my Mother taught me when growing food as a child, I encourage Liberation Spring participants to pull weeds and plant seeds. We begin by unlearning, so that participants will be less likely to perpetuate aspects of the oppressive status quo in their work and lives. Rather, they’ll have increased capacity for their work to be liberatory if they’ve cleared their metaphoric soil of weeds that would otherwise rob their creative seeds of vital nourishment, water, and sunlight. We critically identify elements of our unjust socialization that are unintentionally expressed in transformative spaces to uproot these poisons and make room for more medicinal interventions. This strategic leveraging of limited time, energy, and resources is of the essence in a moment of so many intersecting social, political, economic, and ecological crises. Frankly, we don’t have a moment, dollar, or initiative to waste on false starts or business as usual anymore!

The Liberation Spring solution, then, is offering scalable templates and educational materials with a global appeal for communities to gather together and unlearn with. Once we’ve cleared the soil, planted seeds, and nourished them with knowledge and wisdom, our interventions are more likely to grow.