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kellypurt.bsky.social
@kellypurt.bsky.social
Baltimore — Artist and Educator — Recovering Instagram User — she/they
Read it with your CHEST
February 18, 2025 at 11:10 PM
Ok last one
February 13, 2025 at 8:13 PM
When the jazz hours start to hit
February 13, 2025 at 8:09 PM
If a cat went on a roller coaster
February 13, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Also those snow prints are from the two raccoons who were fighting in our tulip poplar early this morning
February 12, 2025 at 1:29 PM
I don’t actually cry down there but I think about it often after classes. Teaching is full of so many ups and downs.
February 10, 2025 at 6:44 PM
February 10, 2025 at 12:58 PM
The metaphor isn’t perfect, and here I embellished a little from what the original said. I do think it’s an impactful way for thinking about how 1) individuals problems are connected to structural issues and 2) we all have roles to fill to make small steps towards larger transformation.
February 10, 2025 at 12:58 PM
You & the network of resources that grew out of consciousness raising about the problem now can work to address some of the root of the structural issues in the town that caused the problem of the babies floating down the river.
February 10, 2025 at 12:56 PM
After awareness of the issue grows, more people offer new forms of help. You make it up river to find there is a town where they have been experiencing extreme food insecurity & poverty & they decided that the babies in town would have a better life down river where there was more food.
February 10, 2025 at 12:55 PM
As the babies continue to float down the river, the passerby jumps in the river to help. You decide someone must go UP RIVER to discover the source of the babies.
You get out of the river and start walking, telling every person you come pass about the problem you’re trying to solve.
February 10, 2025 at 12:53 PM
The metaphor comes from social change theory and leadership theory (I forget where I read it many years ago now).

You’re walking along a river & you see a baby floating down the river. You stop to rescue it, but promptly see another baby floating down, & another.
You call to a passerby for help…
February 10, 2025 at 12:51 PM