I’m very taken with solarpunk, a movement grounded in reality that points us towards justice and a regenerative world. My solarpunk article I mentioned in Easing Into 2022 is now up on the Center for Sustainable Futures (CSF), Columbia University website. Find it here. I’m thrilled with its reception and the lovely comments I’ve received, especially that more people have discovered the movement and jumped in.
I’m a web-weaver: I love collaborating with others.
Perusing my CSF article, you’ll witness many voices offering their thoughts about solarpunk, including its growing edges and its shortfalls. Reaching out to folks who write, publish, curate, make art, invent, and create with a solarpunk vibe was a lovely adventure for this web-weaver. {{{Thank you to Mary, Sarena, Rob, Justine, Starhawk, Eli, Carly, Meira, and all who answered my call!}}} You’ll find many solarpunk resources embedded in the article.
Solarpunk is a vast umbrella under which many voices and concepts interact for justice, a healthy planet, and regenerative culture and ecosystems. It’s a magical umbrella that changes shape, color, texture, size, voice because solarpunk is never just one thing, never a static definition, and no individual can speak for other solarpunks. Striving for a better world, a realistic and bright future, the aesthetic is antithetical to dystopian futures, despair, and inaction.
Since writing my article for the Center for Sustainable Futures at Columbia University, I’ve become aware of many more solarpunk voices and resources. For instance, see the solarpunk & spirituality series hosted by Solarpunk Station. (The link goes to my essay, but peruse all the offerings.)
Solarpunk is an apt descriptor for my tradition and my work in the world.
I’m part of the worldwide feminist Reclaiming Tradition that strives to be nonhierarchic, antiracist, and activist. Our spiritual form is grounded in the Earth and reality, and we work for justice and a regenerative future. Many of the ways folks describe solarpunk also describe Reclaiming. The movement is amorphous and evolving by definition, as is Reclaiming. Thus, it was a natural for me to write solarpunk stories and to bring solarpunk into my teaching.
I’ll be offering a solarpunk workshop, Storying a Bright Future, at EarthSpirit’s Feast of Lights in February (2022). I’m also working on a project with European colleagues about imagining bright futures as a tool for youth engagement in environmental action. Through that collaboration, I’ve become aware of many faculty and teachers around the world incorporating such tools in curricula: in literature, environmental studies, sustainability education, sciences, and other fields. While educators have incorporated “Utopian” thought in curricula for decades, a growing number are doing so in critical ways to bolster action, becoming activist/solarpunk educators themselves. (My terminology, not necessarily adopted in the field.) So hail the evolving reach of solarpunk to change the world!
Are you a solarpunk? I hope you’ll read my CSF article to catch the vibe! [edit: you might also like my later article, “Writing for the Future.”]
By the way, I had fun creating the doodles embedded here, but you’ll find real art by others in my article!