“Love and Justice are not two. Without inner change, there is no outer change; without collective change, no change matters.” - Rev. angel Kyodo williams, sensei
On October 27-29, 35 adults and 14 children and youth within Leaven Community participated in the community-wide Leaven retreat, following the Listening Season in September 2023. The primary purpose of the retreat was to unveil the next steps for the community emerging out of the Listening Season.
Retreat design centered around aligning Leaven’s existing values (Diversity, Justice, Story and Action) with its existing activities, as well as holding them alongside the hopes and dreams that had been discussed at House Meetings in the listening season.
All our activities at Leaven are connected at a fractal level through relationships and shared values - so we were able to physically map on the floor Leaven’s existing programs and the hoped-for ideas that had been expressed in the listening season.
Building momentum from the sacred spiral mapping, the group engaged in an ideas-creation activity led by Rev Julia Nielsen, director of the Leaven Community Land and Housing Coalition. Each individual wrote one bold idea on a notecard. Notecards were then passed anonymously from person to person, stopping five times for individuals to review and score each idea on a scale of 1 (no thank you) to 5 (love this idea!!) for a total of 25 points. Ideas with scores 20 and higher were then added to the spiral map.
These conversations wove a deepening story of our shared dreams for this community! Curious to learn more? Read the 2023 Leaven Retreat Report here.
