Parable of the Now

Parable of the Now: Nov 6, 2024 intentionally held space as we grappled with change, while processing and reflecting in the wake of the 2024 general election, through the lens of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. This happening centered the November 6th 2024 entry in Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower that coincides with the day after a general election in the book and the day after our own 2024 general election. 

 

The afternoon was filled with performances from artists from across the country, Billy Mark, Shey Rios Rivera, Rahaleh Fidoosh & Reza, Tsedaye Makonnen & Alisha B. Wormsley, Marcela Torres & Izauo Mazehaull and Student creators. These performances focused on reflection, ritual, moving through grief, resilience, rebirth, community, change and radical joy. These activations or performances happened periodically throughout the day (allowing people to come and go as their schedules permit) and were punctuated by performative reading of chapters from the book as we lead up to the final reading of the Nov 6th chapter at 7pm by Hugo award winning writer Nnedi Okorafor. 

 

I began thinking about this project after I read Parable of the Sower in 2020, another election year when stakes felt impossibly high. Those days after the 2020 election and the collective breath we held as the days passed without the official results. Held in between two potential futures, I felt more in the present than I ever had. Since then, I’ve been considering what it means to exist in the past, present and future intentionally, to hold and release collective breath. To feel time passing and to understand change.

 

Change is a central idea in Parable of the Sower. Change is inevitable. It is how we show up for each other in times of change that matters most. During this event, Afro future became Afro Present became Afro Past. Parable of the Sower, written in the form of journal entries, begins summer 2024. It moves its reader through the inevitability of change through an Afro futurist lens written 30 years ago. Through this book coming to fruition and a pivotal election, this is a chance to reflect on the now and the power of now as we live in the Parable of the Now.