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Reflections by Walk Outs
Updates, Observations and Questions
Leaving Utopia: A Glimpse of How the World Could Be
A little over a year ago, I made my first visit to Järna, Sweden, home of the Youth Initiative Program (YIP), a one-year social entrepreneur learning program for 18-25 year olds. As I was preparing to depart, one of the YIPpies stopped by my room to ask me how I felt about my visit. It was then that I spoke the lyrics to what would become the first song I ever wrote when I said, “I feel like I’m packing to leave utopia.” […]
Breaking through limiting beliefs about failure
“Failure sometimes offers more creative, cooperative, and surprising ways of being in the world, even as it forces us to face the dark side of life…” – Judith Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure Last summer, I thought myself quite witty when I came up with the phrase “experimentation with a longing to fail.” I was at an international gathering exploring “oneness.” I noticed how quick we were to use words like ‘experimentation’ and ‘laboratory’, but when we were truly on the edge of pioneering something new, organizers would often default to the predetermined plan. Since then, I’ve wondered if this longing for failure could be a way of working more intentionally with emergence—rather than an unfortunate side effect of being courageous enough to try new things. […]
Gifts of the Magi in Moscow
Author: Ekaterina Khaletskaya “I think there is something in you. Or maybe there isn’t something in you. Although that’s probably the same thing.” – Haruki Murakami The idea to host a gifting evening came to us a few weeks ago when Masha and I were sitting in the kitchen at the office where we work. We were inspired by the invitation from the Walk Out Walk On community to host a Shop of the Open Heart. We exchanged our experiences with gifting at this time of the year and how we often miss the meaning of it all. We also said we wanted to experiment with another kind of gifting and began to prepare the Shop of the Open Heart Moscow. We called it a Red Nose Evening (don’t ask me why). […]
Restoring the flow of abundance at Kufunda
Last week, I spent a few days at Kufunda Learning Village in Zimbabwe. Here are just a few of the many activities that were going on: In the herb lab, Patricia and Enock are blending tincture of Artemisia with lemon juice and raw honey to help a neighbor who is suffering from chronic asthma. They will provide a month’s supply of this remedy for free. Patricia dreams of opening an herbal clinic in town where she would work four days a week so she could spend the fifth at the Kufunda clinic and keep it free. […]
Meditation on the merits of doing nothing
It is my tenth day in Mozambique, and the wind is howling through our thatched home. Rain poured in sideways through the night, dampening our beds and pooling on the concrete floor. Fifty feet away, three teenage boys are bailing out their fishing dhow, hoping to spare it from the sunken fate of its neighbor—though both boats will be dry enough in a few hours when the tide goes out. I’ve been visiting Mozambique with Jackie Cahi, a friend from Kufunda Learning Village, and her family. I flew out to Harare, Zimbabwe, on Christmas Day, and we departed the morning after I arrived, driving 12 hours overland to Vilankulo, a small town on Mozambique’s south coast. […]
Important Little Experiments
Shop of the Open Heart Oaxaca opened last Sunday afternoon on a bright pink bookshelf. Fifteen gifts were made: Kyrgyzstani coins and handmade dashboard alters, upcycled beer bottle glasses and tales from Carlos Fuentes,a graphic novel signed by the artist and a horse from Germany. Each gift came with a story, a giver and a receiver. The Shop of the Open Heart lasted just 90 minutes. In that short time I noticed something shift for many of us. […]
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