M.M. Volume 01, Issue 09
MAY 2025
We have enough for this season, and the next.
In an ever-changing world, it is helpful to understand the patterns that repeat time and time again. Stressful environments have the potential to distract us from our core beliefs and vision for our future, unless we build the ability to stay focused AND adaptive. Foundational principles are the tools and practices we learn and return to build out a shared understanding of a problem, and its antidote. The ultimate foundational teachings show up in nature’s cycles. This is what connects social justice movements to the physical world around us.
At GSA Network, we let the seasons of natural life be our foundation. As an organization that values intergenerational stewardship, we know that the collective will always benefit from the sharing of knowledge about ways of being that sustain our lifeforce. This is especially important for trans, queer, and two-spirit people who are often forced to focus on surviving each new season so much that we haven’t the opportunity to see past the near future. That’s why we’re so excited that you’re reading this Mothership Manuscript and reminder: We have enough for this season, and the next, according to historical patterns. One key part of this pattern is us!
The process of changemaking begins in Spring, when communities gather to sprout new possibilities, build relationships, and sow the first seeds toward collective action.
In the hot Summer phase of worldbuilding, masses are energized and build momentum, organizing actions, amplifying their message, and attracting people to public spaces.
Autumn marks the time when we return to study, reflect on our efforts, gather our gains, and begin building sustainable, sturdy structures for long-term impact.
Through Winter, the focus of worldbuilding shifts to letting go, rest, healing, and strategic regeneration, allowing us to restore strength and vision for the cycles ahead.
As we navigate (un)natural conditions of life, the rhythm at which we move depends on our environmental context. Just because it’s winter in the Northern hemisphere doesn’t mean it’s not Summer in the global South. Depending on where we are, we may have to move at the pace of spring when we’re still yearning for the depths of winter. What we must lean on in these moments is the deep knowing (faith) that each season will come–even in the uncertainty of queer life in this world. GSA Network has faith in change and young peoples’ ability to shape change; trans, queer, two-spirit youth do this naturally.
Historical movement lineages follow this same rhythm.
Spring sprouted us March for Our Lives, May Day, and the Global Climate Strike.
Summer came with the Stonewall Riots, uprisings in response to the slaying of George Floyd, and shared abolitionist study through Black August.
The NAACP Youth Council initiated sit-ins, and migrant youth coordinated strong DACA organizing in the Fall months.
Standing Rock winter encampments of 2016 held rituals of grief and defiance, and in 2021, the #FreeThemAll campaign reimagined how to move a campaign under the COVID pandemic through organized car rallies and digital actions calling for the release of detained immigrants from ICE facilities.
We are committed to moving in rhythm with the world we are trying to transform. That means honoring the season we are in while preparing for what’s next, with strategy, care, and conviction. We know change is a cycle, a return, a becoming. We trust that the seeds planted by trans, queer, and two-spirit youth will continue to root, rise, and bloom in their own time. We have enough for this season, and the next.
We love you,
Maya LaFlamme & J. Gia Loving
GSA Network Co-Executive Directors
