semillas de esperanza | seeds of hope
Esperanza. Hope. It has been a theme in many sessions I’ve sat in with clients, or rather the fraughtness of hope, esperanza, in the midst of such hopelessness. Hope now can feel painful. These days, we see hope violated with daily breaches of the dignity of individuals, families, history, identity. What to say, what to hold on to in the midst of such suffering? How do we hold hope? ¿Cómo mantenemos la esperanza?
In this season, I have found myself returning to the past, reflecting on my Mestize ancestry, feeling the severed connection between my family today and our Nahua and Mayan roots. I feel grieved, feeling so disconnected from my family’s story of resilience, of life continuing on in the midst of great pain and loss. How I feel both rooted in and unfamiliar with the ways my family endured.
In quiet moments, I have found myself harvesting seeds. I only began harvesting seeds last year. I found comfort in honoring the year’s harvest by accepting its gifts for the future. Seed harvesting is a time when I find myself feeling the parallel past and future lives–what had to happen to arrive here, what may still come. This year, I have found myself connecting to the uncertainty and fear of the future more deeply. How will the future look for families like mine? How many generations and communities of immigrant families, afraid of what was ahead while tending to their families, hopes, y sueños? This experience is not singular to migrant communities in the United States; but a reflection of forces of systemic oppression being experienced by marginalized communities everywhere.
As I’ve reflected on the future of uncertainty, the question that comes up is how: how do we move forward knowing we are striving for a future we may not get to share in? How do we remain stewards of what we have been entrusted with, what do we hope is carried forward?
“intentaron enterrarnos, pero se les olvidó que somos semillas | they tried to bury us, but they forgot that we were seeds”
What I feel certain of is the promise of a seed. That even our efforts to control what happens to a seed cannot change what a seed does or does not become. That even the most sweeping efforts to stamp out seeds cannot eradicate the possibility and hope of new life emerging. Those seeds carry the capacity of abundant life, who are we to say what new life will be?
What has become a mantra is a word I heard like a song as a child: ojalá. Ojalá. Hopefully. I hope. In times like these, holding on to hope feels like an important act of resistance, of knowing life will continue forward. Hope alone is not enough: after all, seeds require care, nutrients, resources, support. But even with all those other actions, steps forward, we may hear the planter whisper ojalá. Ojalá que crezcan, I hope they grow. Ojalá que haya hecho lo suficiente, I hope I’ve done enough.
Ojalá que nuestras semillas prosperen. I hope our seeds thrive.