This is an excerpt from an article written by Robert Levine and Sue Blythe for TRENDS in Grassroots Organizing, a publication of We, the World.
Illustration from Pacha’s Pajamas: A Tale Told by Nature
On the Road to 2030, 2050 and Beyond envisions a sustainable and creative future through a collaborative storytelling adventure with age-appropriate activities for children, youth, adults and elders. This work incorporates the ongoing tradition of storytelling, the passing of wisdom through the generations. It is essential to provide children with the tools and the support to see that their ideas can come to fruition — especially through collaboration. That inspires bold and courageous action to engage families, friends and neighbors in a community-wide climate conversation-to-action program.
Sue is developing the Climate Collaboratory as a pilot project of We, the World and the University of Florida Extension. She invites people of all ages to tell their own climate stories. These stories inspire, inform and involve people everywhere in a playful, youth-led collaborative storytelling adventure. It’s a sequel to Pacha’s Pajamas: A Story Written by Nature. https://pachaspajamas.com/
Our story begins at bedtime …
Once upon a time an old woman sang quietly to her granddaughter in the dark, “It’s in every one of us to be wise. Find your heart, open up both your eyes.”
They’re open! said Pacha. Gramma Sage whispered, Now close them again and see … what you … can see…
She continues singing softly and Pacha drifts off to sleep with visions of the human family (who all know what I know, and it’s good that it’s so … ) https://vimeo.com/307569350
Then Pacha finds herself in a glorious dream on the Main Stage at the Global NatureFest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3s64WsOyxY
The community of life on Earth has called the humans to respect the rights of Nature. Pacha pledges to plant a billion trees to help reverse global warming. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tt7j2FJ2gk&feature=emb_imp_woyt
From there she travels through time and space at the speed of thought on the Web of Life. In the year 2050, she sees the whole world celebrating the Earth’s temperature coming back down. In 2030, the world is celebrating the Big Win of the Sustainable Development Goals. In 2022. Martin Luther King’s World House is coming to life in one community after another. The interfaith Beloved Community Choir sings songs of peace.
Children everywhere are playing the Earth Charter Game.
Young people host the intergenerational Sustainable World Games Show. They challenge the human family to play the deadly serious game of Climate Chess, to get the right actionable climate resource to the right people at the right time. It’s a race against time. We can win, says Pacha — and we must.
In her dream, Pacha sees that In 2020 Adrian and Rebecca Alvarez planted a Seed Idea on the Earth Charter +20 global call. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyUGSz1p1UY -
In real life, we are helping that Seed Idea to grow from vision to reality in the Gardens of Global Unity, where all things are possible.
We are collecting true stories of the Past and Present, and using those to write stories of our Imagined Future.
Together we are writing the next chapter in the story of life on and with the Earth.
Our intention is to create a 10-minute animated video to set the stage for an intergenerational musical play told with Expressions through the Literary, Visual and Performing Arts. It will be done in the style of Pacha’s Connected Dance …
The Climate Collaboratory is where we develop the bits and pieces of this thing. We stitch them together as a kind of storytelling quilt, with an unlimited number of stories on the human branch of the Tree of Life. onetreeoneplanet.org (click on Tree of Life)
During We, the World’s 11 Days of Global Unity in September 2021, Pacha becomes the next TreeTender, and invites people of all ages everywhere to care for the Tree of Life. treetender.org (click on Watch the Movie)
And We, the World and University of Florida’s Climate Collaboratory partners with the Florida Museum of Natural History and Digital Worlds Institute and (let’s dream big) Walt Disney Studios to create a world-class transmedia collaborative storytelling adventure for the human family.
And we’ll know that our vision from the year 2000, at the launch of the Earth Charter, is indeed becoming a reality:
“Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life.” – The Earth Charter earthcharter.org
To participate in the collaborative storytelling adventure, contact Sue Blythe <sueblythe@we.net>.