2022 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.

What about now ?

by Diana Hor | Host CreativeMornings/Montréal

More than 2 years ago now, I took the lead of our wonderful chapter of CreativeMornings/Montréal. 2 years later, I am elsewhere in my life. We went through a pandemic, I changed my job, I discovered other ambitions that I hadn’t seen coming and I have other projects in mind.

And it is precisely because I am elsewhere that I am no longer the best person to lead CreativeMornings/Montréal.

I have been part of the CreativeMornings family since January 2018. It has been 4 years since I joined MTLCM where I started as chief of breakfast, to discover and highlight the breakfast entrepreneurs of our city. Then I took over as chief of staff and officially started taking care of the team at that point. In the meantime, I took great care of the influence and visibility of our events, and gradually prepared my entry as a host. I am very proud of my CreativeMornings journey, of my evolution within the organization, but also of my own evolution as a person.

Since then, I believe that there is nothing that I have not done within MTLCM.

I became too comfortable in my organization. And it is precisely because I am too comfortable that I am no longer the best person to lead CreativeMornings/Montréal.

I’m not afraid of anything anymore. Trying new things has become easy. Readjusting our events has become predictable (thanks Covid). Improvising has become my monthly appointment.

There is one thing I haven’t done yet: find my replacement.

I grew up. I have learned. I let go.

I love the person CreativeMornings made me become.

I love everything that I have been able to experience through our mission, the people I have met, who trusted me and in whom I also believed.

But it is time to leave my place and leave the opportunity to someone else and I would be delighted to discover and support this new person.

In May 2022, after our #CMnow conference, I announced that I was leaving CreativeMornings/Montréal no later than May 2023, for our 10-year anniversary. I gave myself a year to prepare for the post-pandemic chapter, recruit and transfer to new team organizers and find a new host to take over MTLCM.

And that’s it, here we are 😊:

CALL FOR THE FUTURE HOST CREATIVEMORNINGS/MONTRÉAL

To the new CreativeMornings/Montréal leadership: Welcome to a new phase of your life.

It will be the best and the worst, and it will be awesome :)

If you are:

• passionate about your local creative community in Montréal
• psyched to lead a small volunteer team to put your own spin on MTLCM
• excited to be connected with 222 chapters and growing
• one to use the words brave, driven, creative, generous and curious to describe yourself

Click here to apply!

This is a great opportunity to set up a handover process; I am very grateful to be able to open it and offer it to our community.

Great pleasure to meet you 😊!

Thank you so much,

Diana

montreal@creativemornings.com

Et maintenant ?

Par Diana Hor | Hôte CreativeMornings/Montréal

Il y a plus de 2 ans maintenant, je prenais la tête de notre merveilleux chapitre de CreativeMornings/Montréal. Deux années plus tard, je suis rendue ailleurs dans ma vie. J’ai changé de job, j’ai découvert d’autres ambitions chez moi que je n’avais pas vu venir, j’ai d’autres projets que je veux réaliser, sans oublier la pandémie qu’on a traversé, où comme tout le monde, je n’en suis pas ressortie indemne.

Et c’est précisément parce que je suis rendue ailleurs que je ne suis plus la meilleure personne pour leader CreativeMornings/Montréal.

Je fais partie de la famille CreativeMornings depuis janvier 2018 où j’ai commencé en tant que chief of breakfast, à faire découvrir et mettre en valeur les entrepreneur.e.s déjeuners de notre ville. Puis, j’ai pris le poste de chief of staff et commencer à prendre soin de l’équipe à ce moment-là. Entre-temps, je me suis beaucoup occupée du rayonnement et visibilité de nos événements, et préparer progressivement mon entrée en tant qu’host. Je suis fière de mon parcours CreativeMornings, de mon évolution au sein de l’organisation, de ma propre évolution en tant que personne qui se découvre et qui découvre les autres.

Depuis, je crois qu’il n’y a rien que je n’ose pas faire au sein de MTLCM.

Je suis devenue too confortable dans mon organisation. Et c’est précisément parce que je suis trop confortable que je ne suis plus la meilleure personne pour leader CreativeMornings/Montréal.

Je n’ai plus peur de rien : essayer de nouvelles choses est devenu facile. Réajuster nos événements est devenu prévisible (thanks Covid). Improviser est devenu mon rendez-vous mensuel. Il y a une chose que je n’ai pas encore fait : trouver mon/ma remplaçant.e.

J’ai grandi. J’ai appris. J’ai lâché-prise.

J’aime tellement la personne que CreativeMornings m’a fait devenir.

J’aime tellement tout ce que j’ai pu vivre à travers notre mission, les personnes que j’ai vu rencontrées, qui m’ont fait confiance et en qui j’ai cru aussi.

J’aime regarder les gens arriver le matin même, j’essaye de parler et d’accueillir chaque personne, surtout celle pour qui c’est la première fois. J’essaye d’accompagner mon équipe à grandir, à donner le meilleur d’elle-même tout en s’amusant, mais il est temps de laisser ma place et de laisser l’opportunité à quelqu’un.e d’autre de le faire.

En mai 2022, après notre conférence #CMnow, j’annonçais que je quittais CreativeMornings/Montréal au plus tard en mai 2023, pour notre anniversaire de 10 ans. Je me laissais une année pour préparer le chapitre post-pandémie, recruter et transférer aux nouveaux organisateur.trice.s de l’équipe et trouver un.e nouveau host pour reprendre MTLCM.

Et ça y est, on y est 😊 :

APPEL À FUTURE HOST CREATIVEMORNINGS/MONTRÉAL

Au nouveau leadership de CreativeMornings/Montréal : bienvenue dans ta nouvelle étape de vie. Je te la souhaite être la meilleure et la pire, et ce sera super !

Si tu es :

• Passionné.e par la communauté créative locale de Montréal ;
• Excité.e de bâtir ton équipe de bénévoles qui apportera une touche unique et magiques aux événements MTLCM ;
• Impatient.e d’être en connexion avec 222 autres chapitres CreativeMornings dans le monde ;
• Quelqu'un.e qui utilise les mots courageux.se, motivé.e, créatif.ve, généreux.se, curieux.se. pour se décrire soi-même ;

Clique ici pour postuler !

C’est une belle opportunité de que mettre en place un processus de transition ; j’en suis bien reconnaissante de pouvoir l’ouvrir et l’offrir à notre communauté.

Avec grand plaisir pour vous rencontrer😊!

Merci beaucoup,

Diana

montreal@creativemornings.com

2022 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.

2022 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.

2022 July's theme is SPIRITUALITY

Spirituality is the search for our deepest values and meanings, something that touches us all. It is our yearning to peel back the curtain on the world we can see. The word comes from the Latin spiritualis, meaning “of breath, wind, and air.” It comes so naturally it might as well be breathing. Spirituality can be found in meditation, in science, in holy spaces, in music, in community. We locate the sacred in the stars that guide us home, our capacity to love both kin and stranger, the divine that gathers in the kitchen dustpans and the forest groves lit by fireflies.Through spiritual practice — be it by prayer mat or paint brush, microscope or movement — we seek answers to the eternal questions: How should a person be? How might we find meaning in the mundane, and purpose through great pain? How can we repair the world? Our Jeddah chapter chose this month’s exploration of Spirituality and Bayan Yasien illustrated the theme.

2022 June's theme is WILDERNESS

We travel to the edges of our known world — to wander, to lose ourselves, to commune with the wilderness. Dappled light dripping in through the forest canopy, insects buzzing as feet squelch through wetlands, inhaling the hot dry air and endless skies of desert, we long for this. Some of us seek enchantment and estrangement here. Some of us call it home.

We do not exist apart or separate from the wild. In her meditation on trees, poet Grace Paley writes, “we are like any greengrowing machinery / riding the daylight route / into darkness.” The wilderness lives within all of us, the rhythms of our bodies tethering us to the natural world.

What is the wilderness that calls you home? Where do you go to wander? How do you honor what is wild and unruly inside of you?

Our Chattanooga chapter chose this month’s exploration of Wilderness and Hollie Chastain illustrated the theme.  

2022 May's theme is NOW

These days, the “nows” hurry past us, shoved aside by the “next” — the urgent to-do’s, the latest breaking news. Constantly anticipating and staging for our future decimates our experience of the present. Our “now” vanishes, like water flowing through our fingertips.

We cannot keep time from spilling out of our hands and into the soft earth below. It is not our task to master the present, but to savor it. To pause. Go still. Feel the air on the back of our necks, sit in both discomfort and pleasure, and marvel in the radiance of the present moment. So that we may, in the poet William Blake’s words, “Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand / And Eternity in an hour.” For all we ever have is now.

Our Buffalo chapter chose this month’s exploration of Now, Mizin Shin illustrated the theme, and our global partner Mailchimp is presenting the theme.

2022 April's theme is KISMET

When the stars align and good fortune visits, it must be kismet. An unexpected windfall, a chance encounter with another that blossoms, a doorway opening to impossible dreams. Kismet is a little pocket of time just for you. We marvel at the sheer, unlikely wonder of these moments. 

Kısmet is a Turkish word that evolved from the Arabic qisma, meaning one’s portion or lot in life. When kismet was borrowed into English in the early 1800s, its meaning shifted into fate and fortune. But be wary of awaiting your destiny with passivity, philosopher Barrett Holmes Pitner warns, lest you resign yourself to a fate where nothing grows. Attend to the synchronicities in your life. When kismet alights upon you, the cosmos is letting you in on something, and you can choose to meet it. 

What do you take as signs of good fortune? What moments of kismet have appeared before you? How did you answer?

Our Istanbul chapter chose this month’s exploration of Kismet, Selin Çınar illustrated the theme, and Mailchimp is presenting the theme.

2022 March's theme is FOLKLORE

The universe is vast and full of mysteries. Humankind spin stories to answer these mysteries without answers. As these stories are passed down and among a people, they become folklore. Who placed the stars up there? When a pot breaks, who might have been the unseen culprit? How do we celebrate the successes we can’t take credit for? Folklore exercises our mythic imagination, our way of seeing beyond the tangible to make sense of the enigmatic and the unfathomable.

A song about the origin of the world, a pot of simmering stew that draws the community to the table, a knot of ribbon in your hand. All of these moments and rituals bind us to our ancestors, our past to our future. Our collective and ancient wisdom is contained in folklore, we must simply look there.

Our Guatemala City chapter chose this month’s exploration of Folklore and Sara Ortega illustrated the theme.