Introducing the Polaris Manifesto

This week I'm sharing a preview into a new series. "To make it plain, I'm trying to see how imagination can get us free."

I have a tendency to dive into conversations like those we’ve been having in this space without a proper greeting or introduction, so please allow me to reintroduce myself. ¹

Image Credit: Jasmyne Hampden (see IG or Substack)

My name is Jasmyne (she/her). I am a third year doctoral student in the Mythological Studies program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. I've spent most of the last ten years of my career facilitating innovative initiatives for social change. I enrolled at Pacifica because I had a hunch that there were fruitful connections between myth and social justice. I've learned a lot, and now I'm ready to share that knowledge with you.

Polaris is our North Star, the light in the sky that never dips below the horizon and has ushered many toward freedom. Polaris is brilliant, steadfast, and miraculous. It is the vision for a world transformed and the inspiration behind one of my big dreams: to form a co-op that helps communities use myth, depth psychology, and speculative imagination (what-if thinking) to drive creative approaches to complex social challenges. To make it plain, I'm trying to see how imagination can get us free.

“Manifesto, N.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, July 2023, doi.org/10.1093/OED/6450578191.

The Polaris Manifesto is a public, written declaration of my commitment to approaching stories as sources of power, and as tools for critique and transformation. This manifesto is a spell and a beacon. I am sharing it with you here because bsac is one of the places I test these ideas as I seek out spaces and people to bring them to life.

Polaris is the brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor, the end of the handle on the Little Dipper | Image credit: Tony Litvyak on Unsplash

Over the next few months I'll be sharing nine declarations of my commitment to calling in the world I want, inviting you into the vision of the Polaris Manifesto one piece at a time.²

Don't trip; there's something in it for you, too. You can expect three things:

1. Deeply personal explorations about what myth has to do with social justice (spoiler: nothing and everything)

2. Prompts to awaken your creative vision of liberation. Creativity is a divine faculty, and we will not get free without it.

3. Links and resources galore because I am a scholar, heaux.

It would mean the world to me if you subscribed to between starshine and clay and shared this this dispatch with a loved one. I'm looking for people who see the vision, and I know you can help them find me.

I also embrace your questions and comments. They are a whetstone that brings clarity and precision to the vision, so please help by sharing your thoughts in the comments.

We'll talk soon ❤️

1. It feels very strange to be sending a dispatch with (at least) four major brush fires burning in the LA area, one near where I live. We are alright for now. This is not the first moment I’ve written to you during “strange” times, and gods-willing it won’t be my last.

Belief as Blueprint: Myth, Imagination, and Social Change

2. FYI, I cooked up the earliest versions of the Polaris Manifesto during the Seed a World Retreat with the incomparable

Ayana Zaire Cotton

. If you haven't heard of her or Seeda School, you really need to do yourself a favor and tap in.