OntheWilderSide

“Solitude does not necessarily mean living apart from others; rather it means never living apart from oneself.  It is not about the absence of other people, it is about being fully present to ourselves, whether or not we are with others. Community does not necessarily mean living face to face with others; rather it means never losing the awareness that we are connected to each other.  It’s not about the presence of other people; it’s about being open to the reality of relationship whether or not we are alone.”       ——–Parker Palmer

Dear Friends and Fellow Travelers:

My heart is full thinking how in just 6 weeks the Facilitate Change program is starting (on April 1st). I have a sense of getting ready for a great feast—gathering ingredients, choosing dishes, inviting chefs and all those who will be “dining” together–and now the date is here! Soon we will actually be “tasting” (and being nourished by) this delicious meal of being together in community. I am relishing the power of that moment—for each of us individually at this time in our lives and for all the communities we connect with and contribute to each day—and to the whole world in this moment of great cultural “turning” and transformation.  I do believe  “we are the people we have been waiting for” and I see us, as a group, generating energy, direction and hope and a powerful way forward, with practical skills and do-able objectives from our meeting together—around the fire and in conversations along the beach and in the woods at DeWolfe.

Warm with this vision, I am writing to you and our larger community with some sweet requests-and also with a moving vision (from Gina) at the end of this email.

First, here are the requests:

This Sunday, Feb. 15th is the date we have set for receiving applications to support us in enjoying clarity, spaciousness, and ease in preparing details for the “feast,” with each of you and the retreat center. If you are drawn to joining us on April 1st for the Faciliate Change program, and/or know others you would love to be with us, we ask that you complete your application (at www.FaciliateChange.org) by this Sunday and ask others you know that you’re inviting, to do so. (If you’re planning to apply and getting your application to us by this Sunday is not doable for you, we’d love to know the date you can send it to us by to support our planning.)

Energized by our last group call and the creative ideas for generating resources and mutual support that came from it, we are planning another group call on Monday, March 2nd. Please RSVP w/ your name and email at info@BrooklynNVC.org. We are inviting all those who are part of the FC program and/or wanting to support it to join us on the line!

We also want to encourage everyone to use the FC website to share ideas & generate strategies and resources for mutual support. I am moved by the ideas already being generated, very much in integrity with the creativity, community, interdependence and support that the FC is focused on creating. During the call, we want to support everyone in getting clear about the financial support you’d like to participate in the FC, steps to meet those goals and ways to support each other in doing so.

One FC participant who’s building NVC community in Long Island, is approaching different organizations asking each to “sponsor” her participating in the FC; in turn, she’ll be leading NVC trainings for the organization during the year. Another person is sharing with family, co-workers and friends her vision for herself and the world and how participating in the FC will support this; she’s inviting each person she knows to partner with her in co-creating this vision, making contributions during the year to support her participating in the FC.

Before closing, I want to share with you all some thoughts from Gina, based on what came up for us this morning during a group planning meeting for the FC. For me, I continue to be moved and in awe by what I see as our process as a team and am inspired thinking how this beauty, joy, power and authenticity will inform our nine months together as a larger group—and as agents of personal/cultural transformation and change.

Here are Gina’s thoughts, regarding the times we are living in:

We are strong in our inner knowing that these times right now, with whatever the media is presenting to us in the form of fear, scarcity, contraction, is the perfect time to build solidarity, networks and communities.  We are seeing these times as good launch pads for us growing into our potential as human beings, and we value NVC as a valuable tool for this.  We see the FC program as a wonderful aid in building  strong communities of support to inspire each other to switch our thinking and acting, moment by moment,  from  fragmented, contracted, traditional, fear- based and depressed thinking to thinking and acting that comes from a place of wholeness, creativity, expansion into trust and of full empowerment that NVC nudges us towards. On a practical level, getting the inspiration and support to transform our very thinking structures into more life serving ones, leading our lives in every aspect, out of the fullness of what we value, choosing from that place, instead of slipping back into our conditioned mind which operates out of survival. What it means to live this state of mind and of life is huge in a human’s life, and transforms all we see, do and touch.

The paradigm we’re currently living in makes assumptions, that most of us consciously and unconsciously live from.  Some of these are beliefs in scarcity and lack, that someone needs to lose for us to win, that we have to use coercion, convincing, reason  manipulation  or people pleasing to meet our  needs and feel happy and fulfilled, for example. These largely unconscious programs inform every aspect of our lives, and how we are interacting with ourselves, our families & friends, and the larger systems that we are embedded in.

To really transform our selves and society,  personal inner work and work towards societal change go hand in hand. If I am learning to embrace and transform my inner wounds, and transforming my thinking into a more life serving one,  I naturally have more energy and motivation to contribute that energy to the structures that I live within. Being able to take effective action entails having the belief that we can transform our lives and have access to that transformation that is what Facilitate Change is all about.

We look forward to hearing from those planning to join us, to your being with us on the call March 2nd, and to seeing many of you in April. If you find the vision we describe here moving, I invite you to share this email with others you care about. Regardless if you participate directly in the FC program this year, I invite you to be part of the change—generating an abundance of ways to support the vision and goal of the FC program: to transform ourselves and, by doing so, to transform the world, and to do so via inter-dependence, community, awareness, and action.

With deep warmth, hope, and energy,

Dian, and all the FC team (Gina, Martha, Henry, & Marc)

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Filed under: Education, To Study Up On Nonviolence