{"id":361,"date":"2025-11-18T15:04:52","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T20:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opentextbooks.concordia.ca\/contemplative-pedagogy\/?post_type=chapter&p=361"},"modified":"2026-03-13T16:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T20:16:10","slug":"rooted-hope-an-audacious-practice-of-imagining","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbooks.concordia.ca\/contemplative-pedagogy\/chapter\/rooted-hope-an-audacious-practice-of-imagining\/","title":{"raw":"Rooted hope: an audacious practice of imagining","rendered":"Rooted hope: an audacious practice of imagining"},"content":{"raw":"

David W. Robinson-Morris, PhD<\/h4>\r\nCategory \/ branch (in the tree of contemplative practices<\/a>): <\/strong>Generative & activist\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_756\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"6000\"]\"sign Photo by Marija Zaric from Unsplash[\/caption]\r\n\r\nIn moments of deep dis-ease, confusion, unrest, and inhumanity it is important that we re-member the contemplative audacity of rooted of things, of beings who are at home with themselves in every environment and who by nature of their individual and collective transformation force, transmute, and\/or alchemize the environments that they find themselves planted within. This is the audacity of rooted things and the ultimate act of contemplative resistance\u2014to be so centred, so grounded, so rooted and at home with self and others that we become unshakable; we become so energetically in tune that we can shift the energy and ride the air.\r\n\r\nThis must be the possibility that we embody and project into shaping an unknown future in spite of any barriers.\r\n\r\nWe access this audacity\u2014this embodied hope\u2014through action and the imagination.\r\n\r\nThe imagination is not a cognitive engagement but a super sensory rendezvous, a bodily attunement with the energy of the seen and the unseen. The imagination is the ultimate projection of new possibilities of how we and the world can and might be different, new, and whole. The imagination transgresses the conditions of the present and refuses the lie that we must and the world(s) we inhabit must remain as they are.\r\n\r\nThis practice allows us to come home to self, access the imagination, and embody hope. This practice calls us to rise from our chairs, our desks, our pillows transformed and ready to act to collectively to make real a world where all can thrive.\r\n\r\nMay these words take root.\r\nMay you embody the audacious hope of rooted things.\r\n\r\nAnd we begin.\r\n

The meditation<\/h1>\r\n

Breathe. <\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Take the deepest breath you have taken all day. <\/strong><\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\nBegin by arriving.\r\nWherever you are, feel the weight of your body finding its place in the world.\r\nLet yourself settle.\r\nLet yourself be held.\r\n\r\nTake a slow, steady breath in through the nose\u2014\r\nthe deepest breath you have taken all day.\r\nLet it release from the mouth like a long exhale of permission.\r\n\r\nYou are here.\r\nWe. Are. Here.\r\n\r\nWelcome yourself home.\r\n\r\nBring your attention to the meeting place between your body and whatever supports you.\r\nFeel the rootedness available to you even now\r\nFeel the stability of the earth beneath,\r\nthe quiet truth that you, too, are a rooted thing.\r\n\r\nWith every breath, allow yourself to drop gently into your centre.\r\n

Say quietly inwardly:\r\nI root myself in the truth of who I am,\r\nand the becoming that is already unfolding.<\/em><\/p>\r\n \r\n

Breathe.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Let your breath widen. <\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Let your breath deepen. <\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Let it welcome you home. <\/strong><\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\nBring your attention to the centre of your chest.\r\nFeel the beat, the pulsing of your heart space.\r\n\r\nImagine a seed.\r\nImagine a seed planted at the centre of your chest.\r\nThis small, persistent seed is full of ancient knowing.\r\nIt knows its way toward light.\r\nThis is the seed of audacious hope.\r\nThis is the seed of hope that refuses despair,\r\nHope that grows through, up, and around concrete.\r\nThis is the hope that moves toward seemingly undetectable light in empty darkness.\r\n\r\nImagine this seed.\r\nSee this seed commanding it roots downward and outward\r\nDeep, steady, unflinching, searching for water in places unseen.\r\n\r\nImagine this seed.\r\nSee its shoots rising\u2014rising unbowed upward\r\nSeeking, probing, striving toward light\r\nPossibility: a future not yet made manifest, a becoming.\r\n\r\n \r\n

Whisper:\r\nI carry the audacious hope of rooted things.\r\n<\/em>I am the audacious hope of rooted things.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\u00a0<\/em>\r\n

Breathe.<\/p>\r\n

Let this image fill you.<\/p>\r\n

Let the roots grow.<\/p>\r\n

Let the stalks expand.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\nDo not resist.\r\nNotice.\r\nEmbrace.\r\nBefriend.\r\n\r\nContemplative audacity is not denial.\r\nIt is the immense courage to stay awake, to feel, to witness and choose to remain rooted in possibility and action.\r\n\r\n \r\n

Speak to yourself:\r\nEven here. Even now.\r\n<\/em>Even now, I am becoming; transformation is possible. <\/em><\/p>\r\n\u00a0<\/em>\r\n

Breathe.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\nNow, imagine the roots of your seed extending,\r\nextending outward and intertwining with the teeming, searching, tenacious roots of others.\r\nSee yourself as part of an ecosystem\r\nAn ecosystem of seekers, educators, dreamers, organizers, healers, students, and reimaginelutionaries.\r\nFeel the determination of this interconnected root system, this web of audacious hope.\r\nFeel the possibility it carries, the generative potential it encapsulates.\r\nFeel the liberation that becomes imaginable when we root together.\r\n

In the quiet assurance of our still small voice, we ask:\r\nHow might we become otherwise, together? <\/em><\/p>\r\n \r\n

Breathe.\r\nLet this question rest in and on your body.\r\nLet it live there.\r\nListen.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWhat do you hear?\r\nWhat are you imagining?\r\nWhat does this otherwise, together<\/em> look like?\r\nWhat does this otherwise, together feel like?\r\nWhat does this otherwise, together sound like?\r\nWhat does this otherwise, together taste like?\r\nWho is present?\r\nWhat has been transformed?\r\n\r\nThis is the practice of imagining.\r\n\r\n \r\n

Breathe.<\/p>\r\n

Hold on the vision.<\/p>\r\n

Remember the feeling.<\/p>\r\n

It is your senses that will allow you to know.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\nPlace your hand over your heart or your abdomen.\r\n\r\nFeel the warmth of your own touch.\r\nRemember that you are here,\r\nYou are whole,\r\nYou are becoming\u2014higher, deeper, more connected.\r\n\r\n \r\n

May I allow the seed of hope to root and flourish.\r\nMay I root deeply.\r\nMay I be at home in my body.\r\nMay I embody hope.\r\nMay I resist with love.\r\nMay I imagine higher and think deeper.\r\nMay I meet inhumanity with greater humanity.\r\nMay I become what I have called forth.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Take one final deep breath.<\/p>\r\n

Accept what you are ready to hold and let go of what cannot remain.<\/p>\r\n

When you are ready, return gently to the room.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

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