May’s Theme is Acceptance

Acceptance is the act of surrendering to our reality, without judgment or fear. There are many things in our lives that cause us discomfort or pain. We attempt to change or resist them, to no effect. So we wave a big stick, keeping them at bay like a wounded animal. 

Acceptance is weaving into your story what once caused you pain — and still might, to this day. You welcome that creature into your home, tend to its wounds, and feed it out of your hand. Acceptance is knowing that this feral animal lives side by side with your tender house cat of a heart, always.

Embracing what cannot change can help you gather the energy to change what must. Accept these truths: you cannot make another person love or see you. You did not finish everything before the sun set on another day — and you didn’t need to. Every moment will pass, the blissful and the excruciating. It’s the hardest lesson, but one we need the most: the grace to let go. 

Our Lexington chapter chose this month’s exploration of Acceptance and Robert Beatty illustrated the theme.  

April’s Theme is Movement.

The body in motion is a thing of beauty. Our cells shake kinetic energy through the finely articulated instruments of muscle, ligament, and bone. We blink, we pulse, we dance. Some even pull off feats of human athleticism and daring, from which we can hardly look away.

Movement is a universal state of being. Even at rest, the matter we’re composed of is in motion — subatomic particles whir about at dizzying speeds, to create the sense of solidity. The things that appear still — the earth beneath us, the trunk of a tree above us, is but a trick of the eye. They move slowly but at a staggering scale.

When we move together, we can build social and collective movements. Like a murmuration of swallows, we can form sweeping visions of a world never seen before. Our collective energy directed like a mighty river flowing downstream, taking unexpected and winding turns to carve mountains.

Our Wellington chapter chose this month’s exploration of Movement, Hannah Webster illustrated the theme, and Mailchimp is presenting the theme.

March’s Theme is Corruption.

Corruption can start innocently, like favoring someone you know over someone you don’t. Or recalling a gift they once sent, and repay them with a project for that sweetness. Corruption is a spectrum, rewarding social connections and financial advantages over the rules of fair play. It exists in every society and every institution.

Some people survive through corruption, the labyrinthine bureaucracies where they live making it literally impossible otherwise. But while they survive, others perish. Rising plumes of toxic chemicals, collapsing buildings not constructed to code, we owe the calamities all around us to those who cared more about profit than people and gain over the greater good.

As social anthropologist Lucy Koechlin notes, “A world without corruption is a powerful idea. But it doesn’t appear out of the blue.” It takes courage to speak out. To demand transparency and accountability. To strengthen whistleblower protections and the rule of law. To break up corporate concentration while organizing coalitions of people to reset the balance. What will you do to hold power to account?

Our Monterrey chapter chose this month’s exploration of Corruption and Violeta Hernández illustrated the theme.

Februar’s Theme is Touch.

Across the years when we had to stay apart to keep one another safe, skin hungered for the sensation of being pressed against another. The longing for touch was deeply felt.

Unlike sight or sound, the senses we primarily rely on for information, touch cannot be conveyed across distance through screens and speakers. Touch invites us to slow down, pay attention, and come closer.

When we open ourselves to the ineffable — what cannot be transmitted through words — touch emerges as a language unto itself. The grit of the soil under our bare feet, the clay slip enrobing a potter’s wheel, the sun-warmed fur of a beloved pet — these sensations can be healing.

How will you stay in contact with the electric matter that keeps us alive? What will pass through your hands today?

Our Lisbon chapter chose this month’s exploration of Touch and Emma Lopes illustrated the theme.

We in Berlin are kicking off 2023 with our first event on January 10. Our speaker is Hilary Allison, a cartoonist and illustrator from New York. Sign ups start here on Monday, February 6, 10:00 am. Just subscribe to our newsletter and we will remind you.

Januar’s Theme is Sanctuary.

You can stop running now, you are safe here. A sanctuary offers protection to those who are vulnerable: those who are fleeing violence, those who have been cast off and told there is no place for them there, even animals whose habitats have disappeared. Here is a place where you can finally lay your head down and rest.

The original meaning of sanctuary was a sacred place, containing a holy relic or person. A sanctuary recognizes that each of us, no matter where we have came from or what we’ve done, and our needs — for a full belly, for a roof, for safety, to be free from worry — are inviolable and whole.

Where is it that you find refuge? What happens to your body when you cross its threshold? And most importantly, how can you hold the door open for others?

Our Sheffield chapter chose this month’s exploration of Sanctuary, Lisa Maltby illustrated the theme, and Mailchimp is presenting the theme.

December’s Theme is Abundance.

Abundance is a state of plenty. In an intensely competitive society, we often feel like we have the opposite. Capitalism breeds a mentality of scarcity — it’s hard to feel like we have enough when we’re constantly trying to accumulate more.

Gratitude magnifies our experience of abundance. When we marvel at the taste of ripe summer fruit, juice bursting from its skin. When we set a table, a seat for every person we cherish, and bathe in the radiance.

Generosity multiplies abundance. When we prioritize mutual flourishing over private stockpiling, plant ecologist Robin Wall Kimmerer posits, “the practice for dealing with abundance is to give it away.” Once you stop hoarding what you fear to lose, you find that the more you share, the richer — in community, in wellbeing — you become.

What would it take for us to feel like we have enough? What does it take for us to unclench our fists and share our overflowing bounty?

Our Santa Fe chapter chose this month’s exploration of Abundance, Neebinnaukzhik Southall illustrated the theme, and Mailchimp is presenting the theme.

November’s Theme is Truth.

Truth lies at the bottom of a well, winding from its source in the icepack of distant mountains. Truth tastes pristine, uncompromised by what would be profitable or convenient. Truth causes your body to hum like a tuning fork, resonating at the same frequency as the universe around you. “When you experience an undeniable truth,” writer and social worker Jessica Dore observes, “you will beg, borrow, and steal. You will rearrange your whole life, forsake everything, just to serve what is real.”

And yet the truth is fiercely contested when competing narratives collide. We forge our truth in a crucible, testing its strength through heat and hammering. Instead of smashing our convictions against one another like a particle accelerator, could we sort through the messy, contradicting facts from all around us, together? Can we wade through paradox, the dark tangle of it all, and make sense of the world?

Our Buenos Aires chapter chose this month’s exploration of Truth and Sol Cotti illustrated the theme.

October’s Theme is Ethos.

Ethos is that specific quality that defines a place, time, or group of people. When you step into a room, a busy downtown, or a community gathering, you intuit its spirit. A messy DIY space invites experimentation and mistakes, a lush city park promises tranquility to anyone who seeks it. Maybe you even know of a monthly event where everyone is welcome and everything is free of charge.

At its core is a paradox: despite the specificity of an ethos, it’s impossible to pinpoint or trace to a specific origin. What honed that distinctive sensibility is long gone, vanished into myth.

With our actions and words, we embody these values and beliefs beyond conscious knowing. In turn, we subtly shape the ethos that our descendants — of family, of place — will receive from us. Ethos is alchemic, ineffable, and infinitely ponderable across place and culture. What ways of moving through the world did you inherit?

Our Asheville chapter chose this month’s exploration of Ethos and Colin Sutherland illustrated the theme.

September’s Theme is Depth.

Depth is a measure of distance. Get a feel for it by traveling along a rock fissure that tunnels into the earth, stepping across the expanse between our galaxy and the next, or diving into the mysteries hidden within ourselves.

Depth is a space that denies easy ways of seeing or comprehending — when we shine a light into the deep blue of the ocean, we cannot see much further than the surface. In our age of instant answers, we bristle at this resistance. It’s often easier to reduce people, places, and ideas into flattened renderings, rather than grapple with the nuanced and contradictory truths found in their depths.

In what depths could you submerge yourself if you let curiosity guide you? Ask open-ended questions and listen for responses to arise. With patience, watch those questions transform and transmute as they travel further. Blink your eyes open in the abyss, lose your frame of reference, and discover something altogether new.

Our Columbus chapter chose this month’s exploration of Depth and Bryan Christopher Moss illustrated the theme.

August’s Theme is Critical.

To be critical means to be like a sieve, dividing and separating. Our critical abilities allows us to discern the insubstantial from the made-to-last, the credible from the untrustworthy, the sincere from the ego-driven. We do so by gathering more information, seeking nuance, and locating something in its specific context.

Critical feedback is essential for our growth. Poet Adrienne Rich advises, “Responsibility to yourself means seeking out criticism, recognizing that the most affirming thing anyone can do for your is demand that you push yourself further.”

But being needlessly critical — especially of ourselves — can stifle the creative impulse. Few are as harsh as our own internal critic. How can we hone our perception, spotting what needs to evolve, without becoming ruthless? How can we remain astute while not losing sight of all that is inherently good and whole? It’s critical.

Our Calgary chapter chose this month’s exploration of Critical, Maedeh Mosaverzadeh illustrated the theme, and Mailchimp is presenting the theme.