By: Jorge Moreno
This post is the second in a two-part series highlighting Professor Jorge Moreno’s astronomy story inside and outside the classroom. To read more about his personal journey, see the first part here.
Imagine you were dead and the gods granted you one hour to return to life. What food would you eat? What song would you listen to? Who would you see? Who would you embrace? Who would you forgive? And what if they gave you a full day? A week? A month? An entire year? Many years or decades? This mantra is imbued in every aspect of my life. And the hallmark of my answers can always be described as a plethora of activities aimed to uplift me, my loved ones, my communities, and those around us.
This begs the question: who are your communities? Is it your immediate family? Your classmates or coworkers? Your research group? Your academic discipline? Random people riding the subway or driving on the freeway – of whom we are too often oblivious of their existence? To me, this includes everyone. This includes people with whom my heart resonates, and also those with whom I vehemently disagree. The thousands who commit acts of kindness and the few who commit atrocities. It includes those who have already passed, and those yet to be born – even my non-human relationships!
The seven generation philosophy, proposed by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, ubiquitous in multiple Indigenous cultures across Turtle Island, teaches us to think in a multi-generational way. How you maneuver through the world affects others in arresting and often unpredictable ways! World building within such a framework requires a level of responsibility and care absent in other forms of governance. Indeed, every word and deed you make is guaranteed to impact seven generations.
The question is then, how can you adopt this vision in your classroom, your research group, or any space of learning you occupy? Through these lines I share my personal experience. I will not pretend to have a silver bullet or universal solutions. I have a unique origin and upbringing – and I have had a unique set of experiences, readings and conversations. It is therefore the responsibility of the reader to delve deeply into your heart and formulate your own implementation of this framework.
My framework – hereafter the Astro Sequoia blueprint – consists of four fundamental pillars: anti-hierarchical self-governance, accountability, transformative justice education, and art as a form of healing. Sequoias are some of the most beautiful and majestic living beings in the world – these behemoths provide shade and shelter to many species, playing an essential role in their ecosystems. It would be convenient to be able to plant them and reap their fruits right away. However, nature is not in a hurry. Sequoias take hundreds or even thousands of years to grow. Having said that, why on earth should anyone ever plant a sequoia seed? The answer: for future generations. The same is true with everything that you do. How you treat others, take care of others; teach others a new skill or piece of knowledge, open doors and create opportunities, uncover how nature works, etc., are seeds that will not only impact the direct recipient, but also their descendants; biological and otherwise, human and otherwise. Your actions will therefore multiply in endless ways, for better or for worse.
With this spirit, I inaugurate the astro collective every semester. My classroom and my research group are spaces where we plant seeds, nurture shrubs, and grow majestic trees. Doing so requires the architect to abdicate the notion of “my” classroom or “my” group. The astro collective is “our” space. The seeds we plant and the space we nourish will be our collective responsibility, for better or for worse.
In many ways, this approach is inspired by Zapatismo, an Indigenous self-governance movement in the southeast portion of what we now call Mexico. However, transporting these principles to a classroom or research group in the Global North is not trivial. The first step is to formulate arenas where world building can be incited and wherein its inhabitants can be inspired. In our collective, we devote three class meeting times to town halls. For the first town hall, I propose a syllabus for inspection, criticism, and amendments. We will not follow the syllabus unless it is ratified by the entire collective. To the reader trained in a manner that grants the professor ultimate power, this notion might be confusing or even frightening. What if the students choose foolishly? To this I rebut: have you ever made a bad decision in your course design? And what if, instead, you had received help from a colleague, or a few colleagues, or 15 to 40 colleagues? – i.e., the rest of your collective?
The second town hall, which takes place right in the middle of the semester, is an opportunity to reflect on our approach, our decisions, and the overarching climate of the collective. This is often the most contentious gathering, but also the most revolutionary. Major changes to the syllabus or the structure of our class requires the utmost scrutiny. Rigor and imagination are imperative to achieve effective collective solutions. The third town hall, which is held during our final class meeting, is centered on legacy. We harvest the wisdom we have planted and bequeath it as a gift for the next astro collective, in the spirit of the seven generation philosophy.
This form of horizontal self-governing is coupled with two additional pillars: accountability and transformative justice education. Our approach to accountability is through an external evaluator, a paid independent expert who is hired to collect anonymous surveys from the collective to address how the membership is feeling and identify key issues. With this information, the expert then creates a report on a biweekly timescale and shares it with the collective. These reports are key to the town hall discussions and overall climate of our space. The other pillar is transformative justice education. Every week we read an article about justice, discuss it, and formulate ways to incorporate its ideas into our collective. Throughout the years I have constructed a reading list, but in recent terms the students themselves have played a more instrumental role towards its growth.
A common reaction I receive from peers in the professoriate when I describe this blueprint is concern. What if things go sideways because of cynicism or outright disruption from students who espouse ideologies aligned with bigotry (or ideologies that we perceive as such)? The motto of the astro collective is “if one of us is failing, all of us are failing because we are not doing enough to support them.” Namely, if a student is chronically absent, disengaged, falling behind, or struggling in other ways, it is incumbent upon the rest of us to formulate – with their consent – ways to support them. Likewise, if a member expresses problematic or hateful opinions and behaviors (or opinions and behaviors that we perceive as such) – it is our collective job to address this. The easy answer is to ostracize them or extirpate them completely from the collective; but this approach is fraught. The existence of misogynist, whitesupremacist, homophobic, and/or ableist people is not a problem to be simply amputated from our society – they are our problem; they are us and we are them. In the words of Russian erudite and Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
In a similar vein, it is important to acknowledge that we only understand a small fraction of any given situation. My views on the complexities of human affairs and global turmoil might be strikingly different from yours. But that should not prevent us from seeking common ground, new wisdom, solutions and understanding. All it requires is humility, patience and an open mind.
Other colleagues in the professoriate have expressed fear of relinquishing control. This reaction takes me by surprise, given our track record in having others review our proposals and publications. My recommendation is to view your syllabus as a grant proposal. Be clear about your vision and be prepared to defend it or make changes. The same goes for every member of the collective; when they present alternatives, they must be prepared to make a persuasive argument or adjust accordingly. This approach turns the instructor’s individual burden into a collective responsibility, one that can be rectified on the fly and which can grow and mature throughout generations.
My final warning to the reader is to avoid centering yourself in your communities. Yes, as the professor you play a unique role. You probably have more experience navigating academic spaces and maneuvering through the burdens and constraints placed by harmful institutions and society at large. However, centering yourself is a real danger. I have seen too many leaders who exploit communities of care to quench their thirst for validation or to quell the pain caused by unconfronted insecurities and trauma. I have witnessed how spaces that are meant to uplift the vulnerable become cults of personality wherein leaders use their status to castigate dissidents, control followers, or worse. I warn students to beware of charismatic leaders who get defensive when challenged, who demonize those whom they perceive as “ignorant” or “problematic” – or who enact punitive “justice” to maintain their power. Beware of folks who claim to know the answer or who love their ideologies more than they love people. Leading “by obeying” is at the core of Zapatismo. It is challenging; it requires patience and the ability to accept others just as they are, not as you would like them to be. Indeed, renouncing egotism, saviorism, and dogma is hard, it takes practice – but it is essential in order to nurture trust within our communities.
The fourth and last pillar of this blueprint is art. Over the last few years our collective has been constructing the Astro Sequoia project, a collaborative art endeavor. We devote the last two weeks of the semester to this project, which takes place at the HIVE, an art studio next door. This is an opportunity to heal from the pressures of academic life and the maelstroms of the world. It is also an opportunity for the students to bond with one another, and with past and future generations. In practice, the goal is to build a three-dimensional tree that reflects galaxy evolution and the evolution of wisdom in our collective. Each student paints a leaf displaying a galaxy, and writes words of wisdom on the other side. Then they work in small groups to create branches out of mesh wire, which portray the evolution of galaxies and present coherent themes amongst their insightful statements. Lastly, all the groups come together and assemble the tree, which continues to grow semester after semester.
We do not know how this tree, and our collective, will grow. And that’s okay. Often when we plant seeds, a very different outcome might arise. The outcome might even be contrary to our plans, and that is okay. Our job is not to control the process, but to nurture it. And leave it to the universe to take care of the rest. Nothing is permanent. No syllabus, no plan, no philosophy, no ideology – and we are certainly not immortal. But the fruit of our seeds is forever. These seeds are not permanent: they eventually turn into fruit, which provides more seeds, different seeds, in an ever changing world.
As you think about the energy you plan to inject into the spaces you inhabit, think about a chrysalis. Becoming a butterfly is in its nature, but you have little control on how or even if this process culminates. But this should not stop you from doing your part, from being a catalyst of change, and for being your authentic self. I, for one, plan to continue doing so for the time the gods have given me on this earth. And as I honor my ancestors and become one, I will prioritize joy and trust that the seeds I plant will bear fruit and provide shelter for years to come.
To learn more about Profe Moreno’s work or contact him, check out his website! For more about his personal story, see part 1 of this series here.
Edited by Sahil Hegde
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