At Nexus Community Partners, we take joy in witnessing what can unfold when people reconnect with their own power. Victoria McWane-Creek has been part of the Nexus community in many ways, and their words invite us to think differently about how change happens.
Written by Victoria McWane-Creek
My relationship with Nexus has shaped me in ways that continue to unfold.
As a Boards & Commissions Leadership Institute fellow, I reencountered the idea that “the state holds the power over life and death.” I rejected that then, and I reject it now. By choosing to arrive in this form (the form of a woman with brown skin) I actively proclaim the right to live, and to live well. Ease, dignity, and harmony are not aspirations; they are an unshakeable truth the state is obligated to uphold. The state must allow that truth to breathe, take root, and grow. My life and my work are an ongoing movement toward that reality.
As a North Star fellow, I confronted how far I had drifted from the Earth that feeds and holds me. Remembering my way back to land, to Earth Mother, required awakening across lifetimes. It meant recognizing that connection, belonging, and nourishment are not privileges; they are my moral, natural, and spiritual birthright.
Through my Open Road Fund gift, I came to understand that joy is also inherited. Just as trauma travels through DNA, so does joy. Experiencing joy, and witnessing the joy of others, heals me, heals my ancestors, and pre‑codes future generations to expect joy and extend it. That is the work I do through Onyx Collective: designing conditions where joy is not accidental, but intentional, communal, and abundant.
Nexus has been a companion in my remembering of power, of land, of joy, and I am grateful to stand in that lineage today.
What are we really doing when we remember?
Victoria’s story reminds us that the work of creating more liberated communities does not always begin with something new. It begins by remembering the power and possibility that have been present all along.