This activity to help us imagine the future is taken from the book Active Hope by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone. There is much more free material available on the website:
Active hope
Being from the future
We recommend doing this activity in groups of 2 or 3 – 15 to 30 minutes.
Close your eyes and imagine yourself travelling forwards in time, some 200 years. Many changes have taken place that have led to a more just and regenerative society and human life has continued throughout those 200 years. Lots of changes have taken place to undo the damage of the wars, inequality, environmental crises, pollution, biodiversity loss that we experience in 2025. Stay in the future for a little while and observe it. Watch people and other species moving about their daily lives. When you are ready, open your eyes.
Working in groups of 2 or 3, one of you will be a future being that you imagined in the distant future. He or she has travelled in time to visit us. The other one (or two) in your group are from the here and now of 2025. The future being has 3 questions for you. Those of you who are from 2025, respond intuitively when the future being asks you:
Being from the future: Ancestor, I hear stories about the time you are living in, with wars and climate change, great alterations in the natural systems, there were a few very (absurdly) rich people while others were starving and their land will not grow food, there was pollution in the water, the air, the soil, you were losing biodiversity all over the world… even now we are still working to turn back some of the effects of all of that. But how much of this do you know about? What is it like for you to live with this knowledge?
People of 2025: answer intuitively.
Being from the future: Ancestor, we have songs and stories that tell what you and your friends did in those times to get things to change, but they don’t tell how it started. You must have felt very alone and confused sometimes, especially in the beginning. What were your very first steps?
People of 2025: answer intuitively.
Being from the future: Ancestor, I know you didn’t stop at these first actions in defense of the Earth. How did you find the strength to keep working so hard in spite of all the obstacles and setbacks?
People of 2025: answer intuitively.
Reflect on what you talked about
These questions are only a guide:
What did the exchanges across the centuries make you think? Did you notice something unexpected?
What stood out most for you from the conversation? Was it surprising, unexpected, something you had never thought of before?
What do you think about how we can create regenerative futures together?
Are you ready to create our images with fabric and stitches to represent our vision?