What next after elections?

How do we move forward with our one movement towards justice, equality and compassion?

Date: Saturday, November 12, 2016 (2 to 5 pm followed by potluck)
Location: Kritee and Imtiaz’s home, South Boulder (Please RSVP and email us for directions)

We will start the afternoon at 2:25 pm. After a 20 minute meditation session and introductions, Grant Couch will lead our “Bearing Witness” council or sharing circle. We will together be asking everyone to honor everyone’s time and be crisp in their sharing.

After the initial sharing session, we have invited a few people to briefly (3-5 min each) share their view of the implications of these election results on our activism and advocacy work (including but not limited to climate). After initial opening statements, Kritee (Kanko) will pose questions to the panel on behalf of the group at first and then open up for moderated discussion. Panel will include:
— Grant Couch, Sensei & Citizen Climate Lobby Conservative Caucus (Bio)
— Belinda Griswold, Work That Reconnects facilitator, Senior Program Director, Resource Media (Professional bio)
— Jeff Hohensee, Ecodharma steering committee member, Vice-President Natural Capitalism (Bio).
— David Loy, Zen teacher, philosopher & long time ecodharma elder (bio).

The questions will include consideration of the effect of economic policies & inequalities, racism, women rights on election results as well as what will it take to create a more resilient movement that is rooted in our contemplative practice.

We usually end the formal meeting by 5 pm when potluck starts but we are not proposing an ending time for this coming Saturday because we wish to be as available as possible. These election results can have seismic implications. We do not yet know where the country will really go from here. We need our personal practices as well as community to deal with what comes next.

We invite all of you to bring your love, open-hearted curiosity and creativity to this moment. Some of us are in shock and fear for undoing of what seemed like progress to us on many fronts. And some of us are finding ourselves saying to those who are shocked, “Welcome to these feelings! The indigenous and people of color have been pointing to these feelings of loss and dis-empowerment all along!”

To be sure, we collectively have much more homework to do. We might personally blame different things for loss of many democratic candidates in top races. Regardless, it is clear that values that we hold dear (diversity, equity, compassion and care) need much more work from our side. More work to understand what leads of community connection and education. More study to understand the roots of where this failure comes from. More discipline and courage to act on what we hold dear in our hearts.

We also invite all of you to please tell yourself that we are in this together. We all have big and small ways to contribute towards sanity and justice. We are convinced that our work of creating and supporting communities was never more crucial.

— Please RSVP if you are planning to attend and consider bringing food to share.
— If you want to join via conference line, let me know. I can arrange a video conference line that will require internet connection.
— Please arrive before 2:25 pm. If you can come earlier by 1:45 or 2 pm and/or stay after potluck to help up clean up, that will be VERY deeply appreciated.

Resources (without endorsement of any particular view):
— What Does the Trump Victory Mean for Climate Change Policy?
— What the Trump Victory Means for Standing Rock
— Was is racism, misogyny, middle-east meddling, DNC establishment-politics or neoliberalism or all of the above?
—— Stop shaming Trump supporters
—— It was the Democrats’ embrace of neoliberalism that won it for Trump 
—— White and wealthy voters gave victory to Donald Trump, exit polls show
—— I’m Arab and Many of Us Are Glad That Trump Won
—— Dear Democrats, Read This If You Do Not Understand Why Trump Won
—— How Donald Trump Filled the Dignity Deficit  (Originally published in WSJ)

Next steps?
— There will never be a better time to save the planet
— The ACLU’s Constitutional Analysis of the Public Statements and Policy Proposals of Donald Trump