Who are we?

Our CC community reveaIed and celebrated

You have been on my mind a lot lately. I often wonder how are you doing, what concerns you these days, what challenges are you facing, how can I speak to you? When I am writing, you are on my mind, and good wishes are being sent to you.

We are elders, middle-agers, and youth. We are Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, other religions, and nonreligious. We are of low income, middle class, and a few wealthy. Some of us are neurodivergent. We identify as women, men, or other genders. Some of us are straight and some LGBTQ. Some are BIPOC and some white. We are some of those who care about people and planet.

The roles of subscribers include that of yoga instructors, IT experts, consultants, teachers, realtors, voting mobilizers, authors, public speakers, futurists, environmentalists, volunteers, students, gardeners, retreat leaders, pastors, sangha leaders, online creators, podcasters, artists, philanthropists, retirees, mothers and fathers, and many others.

Some of us have known each other for over fifty years, others for fewer, and some of us don’t know each other at all. The Compassionate Conversations’ network is connected through many organizations, locations, channels, concerns, gratitudes, commitments, and much more.

Some of the organizations and groups that connect us include Oklahoma State University, the Ecumenical Institute, the Institute of Cultural Affairs, the United Nations Development Program, the UN, New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, Mystery School, Social Artistry School, Plum Village, Third Act, friends, family, and many others. (The picture above is of the UN General Assembly in New York City by UN Photo/Kim Haughton.)

The locations that connect us are western North Carolina, the USA, Canada, South Korea, Nepal, Australia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Jordan, Ukraine, France, Ghana, Brazil, Costa Rica, and other countries around the Earth.

The channels that connect us include email, the internet, Facebook, LinkedIn, the Substack app, zoom, videos, podcasts, telephone, radio, television, jet planes, books, and more.

We are concerned about the challenges, tragedies, and suffering of climate change, ecocide, threats to women’s rights, wealth inequality, weakened democratic institutions, warfare, gun violence, racism, poverty, old age, sickness, death, grief, and much more.

We are grateful for the gift of life, friends and family, the natural world of which we are part, the place we live, our skills, roles, and service, and much more.

The commitments that connect us are practicing mindfulness, understanding the way life is, carrying out compassionate actions, creating social justice, deepening democratic governance, advancing ecological regeneration, promoting peace, using facilitation methods of the ICA’s Technology of Participation (ToP), Jean Houston’s social artistry, and Ken Wilber’s integral quadrants, and many others.

We interare, as Thich Nhat Hanh would put it. We are all alive and awake as part of planet Earth in this moment. You and I interare with all 8.2 billion humans, all animals, plants, soil, minerals, water, and air, all institutions and technologies, all cultures and histories, with 4.5 billion years of the evolution of life on Earth, and 13.7 billion years of cosmic evolution. Mystery is all in all!

As William Irwin Thompson reminds us: “At the edge of history, the future is blowing wildly in our faces, sometimes brightening the air and sometimes blinding us.” And as I would remind us, each of us is a perfect expression of a living Earth and a conscious cosmos.

I love writing to you. I love the way a piece emerges from an idea, a feeling, a question, or a concern, and then evolves, expands, and changes. I love for words to arrive and flow, to move around, to be added, deleted, edited, edited some more. I love to select a picture, make final changes, brainstorm titles, and send to you. It feels good to reach out and touch your heart-mind.

On this day, I wish you well. May you experience the happiness of being and becoming, of impermanence and interbeing, of breathing in and breathing out, in the here and in the now, in love and in gratitude.

I’ll leave you with a question from the poet Mary Oliver:

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?