Monday Meditation
Learning to Share Power, Learning to Build Wit
Dear Substack Community: We are living in interesting times when we need to harness wisdom and we know that wisdom emerges when we get curious about ourselves and each other. Let us buoy ourselves with practices of curiosity with ourselves and with each other. When we return to 1:1 engagements; when we slow down enough to notice one another; when we are able to be vulnerable with one another, we will be able to remake ourselves and our society. Enjoy this Monday meditation and enjoy the history that we are learning from rereading some of the Black Prophetic Authors. I’ll be introducing some books and a book series, soon. So, be on the watch for that, too!
Paz, —Roberto Che Espinoza+
Monday Meditation: Learning to Share Power, Learning to Build With
We are moving into the age of imagination, and imagination demands wisdom. It calls us not only to dream but to make real the world we long for. In this age of learning, we must move beyond the old structures of domination and step into shared power—the kind of power that does not lord over but grows with one another.
James Baldwin reminds us:
“The paradox of education is precisely this—that as one begins to become conscious, one begins to examine the society in which they are being educated.”
To learn is to unlearn the world as it has been given. To be awake is to question who holds power, how it is wielded, and whether it makes room for the fullness of our differences. We must refuse a power that demands sameness, and instead practice a power that honors difference—not as a problem to be solved, but as the very condition of our liberation.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. teaches us:
“Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.”
Power with is power rooted in beloved community, a radical and difficult practice of being accountable to one another. It is not power over that silences or assimilates; it is power that listens, that yields when necessary, that makes room. It is power that moves through us like breath, like song—lifting, not crushing.
So today, as we meditate, let us ask:
• How do we unlearn power as control and domination?
• How do we practice power that holds space for radical difference?
• How do we lead with rather than rule over?
To share power is to trust the wisdom in the room. It is to believe that no single voice carries the full truth, but together, we can listen our way into something whole.
May we have the courage to learn, the humility to share, and the love to build together.