Vision + Values

At some point in a caterpillar's life it forms a chrysalis and turns into a butterfly. But how does this actually happen? First, the systems and structures of the caterpillar dissolve into a very messy cellular soup within its cocoon. Then imaginal cells, which have lived in the caterpillar since birth and hold the instructions for transformation, begin their work. Although at first these cells are independent, they can only do their work by resonating together at the same frequency, eventually forming clusters and groups before moving as one multi-cell organism, the butterfly.

Caterpillars and imaginal cells teach us that sometimes we need to dissolve, break down, and unlearn existing structures in order to make way for something better. We must learn to be with the vulnerable, messy, and uncomfortable process of deconstruction before we can reconstruct ourselves and our systems. Dissolving, breaking down, and unlearning these systems that we participate in but do not serve us will be a messy, tense, and uncomfortable process. But what will be possible when we prepare the moment for transformation? As we work together, decomposing and recomposing, emerging into a future form, we imagine greater future possibilities as we do the hard but necessary work of creating change.

Fractals are a series of repeating patterns that increase in scale. Simple at a small scale, fractals build in complexity. We can see fractals in natural patterns all around us: snowflakes, ferns, lightning, broccoli, fungus. As they exist in nature they exist in human behavior, systems, relationships, and interactions. As adrienne maree brown writes, “How we are at the small scale is how we are at the large scale… Grace Lee Boggs articulated it in what might be the most-used quote of my life: ‘Transform yourself to transform the world.’ This doesn’t mean to get lost in the self, but rather to see our own lives and work and relationships as a front line, a first place we can practice justice, liberation, and alignment with each other and the Planet.” Embodying the human concept of fractals, we trust that small changes that we make in the ways we live, work, and are in relationship can have profound ripples outside of our own realities. We can make large-scale change by focusing on bringing attention and shifting our smaller, everyday practices to better align with the future we hope to create.