I'm going to anchor this experience with the voice and wisdom of Adrian Marie Brown.

I cherish her way of seeing and living and writing, how she shines a light on an emerging ecosystem

in our world over and against the drumbeat of what is fractured and breaking.

She works with the complex fullness of reality to move towards a wholeness of living.

And in exploring the idea of hope, the meaning of it, the practice of it, it also feels really

important to begin with someone who works to shift realities on the ground.

Adrian Marie Brown does write, but she's primarily an organizer.

She is a social creative, and many words and phrases have been used to describe what she does

and who she is, who she is to so many people, especially in younger generations. She is a student of complexity,

a student of change and how groups change together, a scholar of belonging. She grew up loving

science fiction, as I did, and thought we'd be driving flying cars by now. But she has found

in speculative fiction a transformative vision and imagination that in its way for her might, in fact,

save us. And we're starting with her because how she lives and works with the notion of imagination

itself really beautifully illuminates what I mean when I say that hope is an act of imagination

with real world consequences.

So I want you to hear her voice and some of her thoughts.

You're going to hear her mention Octavia,

and that would be Octavia Butler,

a science fiction writer,

20th century science fiction writer who is enjoying a very well-deserved 21st century renaissance. You're also going to hear

Adrienne lavishly at every turn credit her friends and teachers, her ecosystem of support and living.

And so in this way modeling this new way of seeing and living, as I spoke about in the

...