Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds

by Adrienne Maree Brown

“One time I went walking among the Redwoods in this park. There was all of this information about how the trees take care of themselves. You could see how every species living in the area was related to and reliant on each other. The whole place was full of triumphs, sacrifices. Full of beauty accumulated over centuries, and the remains of unexpected disasters. A true collaboration of all the elements that all living things need to sustain life on this planet. So many living things thriving and so many dead things being absorbed back into the earth. That is a powerful system, older than anything I know. It has to be saved from poachers or it wouldn’t exist in these times. I learned to try to organize in collaboration with what is around me and to try to leave something useful for those yet to come. I have to live, organize, work with a consciousness to the environment around me that sustains life.” —Toshi Reagon