“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth’s treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal… To hope is to give yourself to the future – and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.” –Rebecca Solnit
Hope is what we do, not something we have. In reclaiming hope as a stance and an embodied intention, we free ourselves to choose how we will live with integrity, no matter the circumstances. The ongoing work for justice calls us to grow our capacities to resist the messaging of consumer culture, oppression, powerlessness, and polarization. We are also called to strengthen our personal and collective capacity for connection, creativity, and commitment to ourselves and the larger world community.
This gathering offers an opportunity to examine our relationship to hope, to our natural emotional reactions to world events, and to new ways of seeing and being in community. Combining creative arts, contemplative practices, movement, and interactive practices, we start to grow a deeper understanding of ourselves of part of a resilient living community striving for a just and sustainable world.
About Barbara Ford
Barbara is an activist, facilitator, singer, songwriter, and artist with over thirty years of experience working with individuals and groups, including faith groups, activists, intentional communities, non-profits, and schools. She is a leader at 350PDX on the Arts team, and coordinates the 350PDX Climate Odyssey Program. She offers workshops for activists and others struggling to stay present to the destruction and injustice of our world.
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