Dear Kindred Readers and Supporters,
Happy 2013! Yes, we made it through the end of the world and now we’re on to the beginning of a new one. As many of Kindred’s writers and readers believe and share in their posts, this ending of the old worldVIEW is an amazing time to be participating in the human family adventure.
Charles Eisenstein writes in 2013: The Space Between Stories, while we are caught between the stories of an old and new worldview at this historical time, it is important to realize that we are the authors/authority of our own stories and lives. In answering how we are supposed to prepare for the emerging, collective worldVIEW, Charles says, “We cannot prepare. But we are being prepared.”
What a relief! By showing up for my life, as awake as I can be to the possiblities of the present, I am participating fully in the re-examining, re-telling and re-storing of my relationship with Life. It is this courageous showing up part that so many of our writers are sharing in their often humorous, sometimes wise and always unique posts.
In taking up our nonprofit vision of providing an internet campfire to gather around and share our stories and possibilities of this new worldVIEW, Kindred launched a new website this month, complete with forums and a community calendar for conscious living events. Our categories are still there and guiding how we explore our new story:
• Wellbeing: Our relationship to our selves: body, mind and spirit.
• Conscious Parenting: Our relationship to our inner child, our families of origin, our children, families and the all important need for community to parent, consciously or unconsciously.
• Sustainability: Our relationship to our earth.
• Culture: Our relationship to the world around us, especially through story-telling in the arts and mediums of self-expression.
We have also added a Book and Film section on the front page, as there are so many impactful documentaries and books charting the powerful changes of our present time. Nominate ones you don’t want us to miss at info@kindredcommunity.org. We have our bloggers listed separately on the front page so you can follow your favorites easily, or just sign up for the RSS feed. You can see all of our writers here.
Kindred, and our parent nonprofit, Families for Conscious Living, also welcomed one of our favorite researchers to our international advisory board this month (see press release). Dr. Suzanne Zeedyk will be sharing the insights from her fascinating work into infant and caregiver connection. You can listen to my interview with Dr. Zeedyk here, as well as watch the trailer for The Connected Baby. Kindred is very proud to be a first stop to feature Dr. Zeedyk’s work, including her upcoming film series!
We also welcomed to our team for this spring a new intern from the College of William and Mary, Cyrene Schweitzer. Cyrene moved to the United States when she was ten from Mexico and, because of her personal experience, became fascinated by how our worldviews create our world. At lunch with me last week, she shared her deep curiosity around how we form our worldviews, as well as our worldviews impacts on our children, families and communities. Cyrene will be working with Dr. Zeedyk’s team to bring their updates to Kindred as well as surveying Kindred’s international readership on worldviews on parenting and family connections. Please sign up for our e-newsletter (right top of this page) and participate in our forthcoming survey!
I look forward to hearing your feedback about the new site, forums, community calendar and layout: it is white because it is a content heavy site and our designers assure us that this is the best format. I also invite you to share your ideas for the site, share this e-newsletter with a friend, and submit your own stories at info@kindredcommunity.org.
Please be sure to take advantage of the two second $2 micro-donation buttons on every page!
Thank you again for your support of Kindred. It is our vision to provide ourselves and each other with this special and safe place to gather and share. And even though during the writing of this post I have had to pause twice and delete spam comments, install two new anti-spam devices with our webguys and wash out my eyes from the unbelievable tripe I was forced to read before deleting them, it is my commitment to you, our nonprofit mission and the high road to go forward in the spirit of the new worldview that knows, it’s all connected, it’s all conscious, and it’s all – all of it – evolving. And we will not be deterred from our adventure, spam or no spam!
Onward,
Lisa Reagan
Photo: Shutterstock/Mopic