Turn off your computer. Put down your phone.
Pick up a feather, a leaf, a bone.
Marvel at a flower. Plant a seed. Take a walk.
Remember who you are.
Be generous with your love.
Protect someone. Take a stand.
Make art. Dance with strangers.
Find your courage.
Resist distraction. Be present.
Articulate your dreams.
Act on behalf of the next seven generations.
Sing to the stars.
Invest in what makes you come alive.
Open to what is possible. Decolonize your heart.
Thank your ancestors. Bless the land.
Remember who we are.
Imagine.
The eradication of poverty. Vibrant intact ecosystems. Sovereignty for Indigenous peoples, everywhere. Salmon spawning in restored creeks. Schools safe from shootings. Streets free from police brutality. Clean energy. Shelter for the homeless. Dissolution of the toxic trio of patriarchy, white supremacy and rampant capitalism. Borders marked by thresholds not walls.
Whole Communities.
Working for this future calls me to be as much mystic as warrior. I trust that the long arc of the moral universe indeed bends towards justice. I rise each day to trouble oppressive systems, to be reverent with nature, to show up with love and power.
I do this work with my colleagues at CWC and in solidarity with communities everywhere actively healing our relationships to each other and the land. We have been shaping the Whole Communities Fellowship with our interdependence at the center – a sacred offering, anchored in a vision of reality that we must collectively imagine into being.
“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
What is ours to do? What is yours to do?
These times ask us to weave our movements more closely together in fierce and tender solidarity. The Whole Communities Fellowship will convene and support a cohort of 24 community leaders whose work lives at the intersections of Justice and Environment, Land and People.
The fellowship is designed to help strengthen inner and interpersonal leadership capacity, laying a foundation for engaging at cultural and systemic levels. We will work within a cycle of transformation between the self, community, nature and systems. We will follow the arc of the seasons, tuning into the inherent wisdom and energy of the natural world. We will be strategic and emergent, with clear goals and guidance balanced with the experience, insights and questions of the cohort. The Fellowship begins in March and ends in February 2020 including two in-person retreats, individual coaching, independent study and monthly virtual practice spaces.
As we launch the 2019 Whole Communities Fellowship, I hold this as a collectively activated prayer.
May the brilliance of hearts in dialogue with each other embolden us.
May we counter the chaos facing our planet with irresistible creativity.
May we be of service with greater clarity and purpose.
May the ways we build together help heal the fractures in our world.
What is your offering? What is yours to do?
Discover what a whole community means to you and commit to doing something each month that helps bring it more fully into being. Apply yourself or nominate the most inspiring person you know. Spread the word. Whether or not you are a participant in this year’s fellowship program, you are an essential part of our whole community. Stay tuned as we learn and grow together.
CWC Senior Fellow Kristin Rothballer is a social change leader with a focus on the intersection of personal, social and ecological healing and transformation. Kristin is currently pursuing a Masters in Social Transformation at Pacific School of Religion, part of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA.
Photo by Natasha Rigg
