“What a time to be alive,” adrienne maree brown has written. “Right now we are in a fast river together — every day there are changes that seemed unimaginable until they occurred.” adrienne maree brown and others use many words and phrases to describe what she does, and who she is: A student of complexity. A student of change and of how groups change together. A “scholar of belonging.” A “scholar of magic.” She grew up loving science fiction, and thought we’d be driving flying cars by now; and yet, has found in speculative fiction the transformative force of vision and imagination that might in fact save us. Our younger listeners have asked to hear adrienne maree brown’s voice on On Being, and here she is, as we enter our own time of evolution. This conversation shines a light on an emerging ecosystem in our world over and against the drumbeat of what is fractured and breaking: working with the complex fullness of reality, and cultivating old and new ways of seeing, to move towards a transformative wholeness of living.

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adrienne maree brown is the author of wildly influential books including Emergent Strategy, We Will Not Cancel Us and Pleasure Activism, as well as a workbook for facilitation and mediation, Holding Change. She is the co-editor of Octavia’s Brood and co-hosts several podcasts, including Octavia’s Parables and How to Survive the End of the World. She is the writer-in-residence at the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, which she founded.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.