What if we nurtured our creativity instead of fear?
In times of upheaval, our responsibility is to heal and co-create together
BY PUI-LING LEW
Illustration by Ada Cuadardo Medina
It’s a beautiful fall afternoon in the Bay. The air is crisp and the sounds of people laughing and mingling float through my friend’s backyard as we all take turns filling our plates with food from the communal table. We had originally planned on hosting a cozy indoor dinner party, but because one of our friends has a condition that makes them very COVID-cautious, rather than excluding them, we pivoted to an outdoor gathering.
Reflecting on how this backyard garden came alive, I’m appreciating how the call to embrace creative thinking instead of fear around COVID-cautiousness, led us to something beautiful, joyful, and inclusive. It’s been over a month since election day, and the world is tumultuous and full of fear. Savoring a bite of leftover stew, I find myself wondering—what if we nurtured our creativity instead of our fear as a way to move through this time of upheaval?
We are co-creating with the world around us.
In a multigenerational commitment to liberation for all, the work is just beginning. Amidst the grief and uncertainty this season brings, I am keen on noticing moments when I feel most energized, resourcing myself for the long game. Quiet time with ancient trees, stories of the future as prayer, and gathering with beloved community.
My perspective is expansive these days—holding visions of a future of liberation for all, as well as the glimmers of liberation that are all around me. The stories we share are a powerful portal for this kind of time travel.
The dominant culture we’re steeped in, feeds us extractive ways of thinking and being that have led to incredible harm. Thinking back on our US elections in November, it’s clear that neither major party would’ve created the transformative change we needed for liberation for all life on Earth. How could they, when the foundations of our democracy were founded on stolen land and genocide? To live in this time of great decomposition is to be in the process of creating new worlds, new possibilities. We are co-creating with the world around us.
“I think we're trying to find the right cultural container that can hold us, so that we can do the grief work. I often talk about the need to compost past failures in order to get to this place where we can reckon with the cultural insanity of this current time…The work of our times is to create a culture of belonging.”
ROWEN WHITE
Mohawk Seed Saver
Making space for grief opens space for creation.
Seeds begin in darkness. Their role is to grow. They have what they need to find their way towards the light. Towards the water. To meet this moment and continue to grow, I acknowledge the darkness around me as part of this process. And when sadness and grief knock on my door—demanding to be seen—I let them in.
i went on a walk with sadness
we walked at the pace of old time
i saw ancient trees, ancient water
they sang wisdom, mystery, cycles
we talked about good heartbreak
i listened to softening
i burrowed my head into the womb of grief
from my soft belly
a flame was born
PUI-LING LEW
Food Culture Collective
When I make space for loss and grief, I feel more grounded. They are teachers for the change that is needed. They clear space for rooted imagination and new creation. Holding grief and creativity tethers me to the bigger cycles of healing and transformation. There is no one without the other. They’re siblings.
I am inspired by the creators in our Food Culture Collective community who are not only sharing food, stories, and community, but nourishing their communities’ ability to create.
“Food justice is profound, beautiful, and offensive to the oppressor. Food justice is self-love & care. Food justice is queer, free of charge, and extraordinary. Food justice is compost.”
ISA JAMIRA
Into the Black Femme Ecoverse
We need creative spaces to play with what’s possible.
It strikes me that one of the most liberatory cultural containers we can hold is creative space. Creative space allows us to step beyond colonial thinking. We can immerse in new configurations of reality that we might not have given ourselves permission to explore before. In creative spaces, we can play, explore, break rules, and be in a liminal unknown.
I notice this in art and poetry—a mystery and curiosity when words, punctuation, rhythm go sideways. I notice in ceremonies and rituals, there is a quality that makes space for something you can’t always put words to, but deeply feel. There is embodiment. There is a deeper intuition. There is trust and faith. We loosen our control on an outcome, and we let it flow. In creative space, we strengthen our ability to be with the intangible, the unknown, those things beyond human lifetimes and perception, connected to deep time, this long arc in which I am shouldered by my ancestors and descendants.
“There are no endings that are devoid of traces of the new, spontaneous departures from disclosure, and simmering events that are yet to happen. The middle isn’t the space between things; it is the world in its ongoing practices of worlding itself.”
BAYO AKOMALAFE
These Wilds Beyond Our Fences
Creativity happens in relation to all that’s around us.
Creativity is a conversation, an interaction—play. It is often not happening with my head down. By returning to our true nature of interdependence and harmony, we look to each other, and, together, we learn, listen, and create. When we create from this relational place, we ensure that those who are at the margins are at the center of liberation.
We cannot do creative work alone—our communities are ecosystems, and we each play a role. Together with our human and and more than human kin, we are weaving the world through our relationships.
Illustration by Anjali Kamat
“Creative work is still relational, even when done in solitude. You are in conversation with all those who came before you, and all those who will come after you. You are co-creating with the universe, your muses, your genius, your ancestors, your guides, your communities, your systems of support and care, with nature, with magic, with mysterious forces beyond your human comprehension.”
YUMI SAKAGAWA
Second-generation uchinānchu Japanese interdisciplinary artist, author
When we embrace liberatory power—moving together with agency & mutuality—we can create life-affirming systems, and stop replicating systems of supremacist power, extraction and dominance.
Tremendous change is underway, the question is, how will we face it? Looking ahead to the next several weeks, months, and years—I’m taking care to resource myself and my communities with spaces to ground in our multigenerational stories and our responsibility to be creative.
About the Author
Pui-Ling is a queer child of the Chinese diaspora, finding their way home through food.
As Co-Director of Purpose and Practice, they are in a curiosity- and wonder-led inquiry and practice of emergent strategy. Their full-hearted engagement, passion, and practice is expressed in their work to deepen and grow relationships within the Food Culture Collective community and beyond. Pui-Ling’s dynamic experiences with food, natural inquisitiveness, attention to detail, and unabashedly warm and generous presence help to ensure all FC Collective programs run smoothly and support collective healing and transformation for all participants, in authentic and meaningful ways.
Pui-Ling is currently based on unceded Ohlone land, in Oakland, CA, just minutes away from Chinatown, home to precious memories of morning brunch with Pao Pao, their grandmother.