On Community

In the pre- and postelection rhetoric of “us” and “them,” I’m finding solace in iRest’s nondual practices and our caring, inclusive community. It is of the human essence to live and thrive in various communities related to where we reside, work, learn, and play.

I’m part of university, word-geeks (poets and editors), meditation, Barrio Hoyo (Tucson) and Gastown (Vancouver) communities, among others. You add voice, presence, labor, hopes, and gifts to your myriad communities. We meet each other here, in the iRest community, where as Rumi puts it, “There is a community of the spirit.”  I feel called to strengthen my belief in and devotion to community for it has always been and must continue to be our salvation on individual and collective levels. Everyone has something to contribute; everyone deserves respect; everyone needs help; everyone can offer something. Where diversity is cherished, all values are cultivated, and everyone’s potential can be realized. A safe, supportive community is a circumferential responsibility. I believe in the possibility of the iRest community leading the way and know it starts with me and within my and our communities where there is more intersection than border, if we are to only look and listen.

I hear ​Rumi's call to “move outside the tangle of fear-thinking,” to “flow…in always widening rings of being​.​”