Community –

This year we have witnessed continued transformation and upheaval that has impacted nearly every level of our collective lives. We have been honored to serve as members of Headwaters’ Board of Directors during a year that has once again shown community’s power to respond to crisis.

We have seen people in every corner of the Headwaters community show up to reaffirm their commitment to movements in Minnesota. We’ve seen incredible movement wins and power in the face of deep loss and ongoing grief.

Transformation is hard work – even when it is in the service of liberation, and even when it is life-giving. We suspect you know and deeply feel this. The work Headwaters’ grantee partners do each day to create pathways towards our liberated futures is complex, generations-long work.

And so, we must rest. Since we believe in our shared, innate humanity, we know that we don’t earn rest. We deeply need rest – on every level.

So we’ve been asking ourselves, how do we sustain ourselves for our movements?

It is white supremacy and capitalism that tells us that we–individually–must hold all the work on our shoulders, unable to ask for help, and unable to rely on others to carry the weight with us. It’s also the oppression of white supremacy and capitalism that makes rest out of reach for so many–BIPOC communities, low-income communities, women and transgender people from those communities in particular.

In this context, rest is radical.

We each play a role in creating space for all of us to rest. At Headwaters, we invite community to share the load of resourcing our movements. In our own ways, we attempt to make our work collective, so we can each take our space to rest.

As the natural world enters its season of rest, how can we resource ourselves, each other, and our communities? How can we move slowly, with intention, and with care to make sure that we’ll be here and be healthy for the long haul – for ourselves, for each other, and for our movements?

Thank you for being a part of the Headwaters community. Thank you for your dedication to our shared futures.

Be well,

E. Coco and Camille Cyprian

Current Co-Chairs,
Headwaters Foundation for Justice Board of Directors