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The Social Forest

Building Community (The Election and Beyond)

Published about 1 year ago • 2 min read

Building Community

It is a difficult time for a lot of people.

The election has us all stressed out, worried. I have voted and done what I can do to support the cause. I have also been on a news fast (and limited social media) for the past two week to avoid worrying about something that has not happened yet and I cannot control.

But what I am realizing is I can control how I respond to this situation. In Traditional Chinese Medicine and philosophy, both fear and mystery are represented by the Water element. Whether that Water feels like fear or like mystery is determined by whether it has enough Earth element to support it. It's the Earth that contains and makes the beautiful lake possible. It's the Earth that prevents you from being lost at sea. That is because Earth represents community and service to others.

So I encourage you to not overwhelm yourselves with too much information about things you cannot control, but I also encourage you to not completely check out and crawl in a hole. Instead check in with others and listen to them. Put aside your own concerns for a moment and build an earthen container to really listen to someone else and hold and support their fears. After all it takes at least two people to build community and you will both feel better after creating community together. After all, Trump's only tool is to stoke more fear and so what we all need is more community to mutually support each other to dispel that fear and be ready for whatever happens.

So please check in on people and really listen to them. It will be mutually beneficial and the first steps to something bigger.

Community of Communities

All this context is what brings me to the second Community of Communities mutual learning workshop I'm organization at Red Emma's on November 10th from 12:30 to 3:30 pm. I hope it will be a celebration. I hope it will be an election victory and we can focus on the topic decided by the group during the August session: how to build collective power to address structural injustices. After all, even if Kamala Harris wins the election, there is still a great deal of work to do to build a more justice and freedom on interpersonal, local, and societal levels.

But if it isn't a celebration, we'll do what community does best: build a space to listen to each other and support each other through our concerns and fears. Then we'll figure together out what to do next.

Regardless the outcome of the election, building community and mutual care is going to need to be part of the foundation of what we do so we might as well focus on that today.

Voting

This goes with out saying, regardless what reservations you have, please vote. If any of you are still reading this and voting for Trump, please reach out to me. That doesn't make much sense to me so I'm curious to understand your perspective.

And finally, remember, we can only be free if we care about the people around us.

Matt

600 1st Ave, Ste 330 PMB 92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2246
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The Social Forest

By Matt Schultz (and friends)

My collaborators and I work with co-ops, nonprofits, benefit corporations, social enterprises, scholars, schools, community groups to create impactful collective experiences that build practical skills, enhance communication, create efficient participatory work processes, integrate the knowledge in the room, and shift perspectives of what is possible.

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