Greetings dear Dancing Friends,
Birds are joyously in song. Warm breezes are blowing. Everything is abloom … including the diverse young leaders we just had the privilege of birthing ever more fully into this world.
Ninety strong, we just returned from our 8 day Surfing the Creative International Youth Leadership Rites of Passage process. What bravery! What brilliance!
They also return to our community with both their answers and equally as importantly, their powerful questions.
How can we come together as global citizens without losing the beauty of our differences? –S.W. (Colorado, USA)
How can we break the cycle of victim and perpetrator and the guilt that comes with each? — J.S. (Durban, South Africa)
How can we live joyful lives? — R.J. (Germany)
Every religion teaches peace and yet every religion has wars. Why? — T.V. (Chennai, South India)
Each young person found their own answers about what it means to be human, to be an emerging adult in this world. One young woman rose up and shared.
“It’s selfish to not think about other’s suffering as it relates to myself. It’s important for me to be in my community. Young boys in my community are being initiated to stick people up at age 9. I have to remember where I come from. Forgetting where I come from is selfish. All of my privileges are blessings from G-d and the Ancestors. I’m here because someone else worked hard. How do I make it count?” – Ebony Evans (Baltimore City, Maryland)
Not just the youth are tuning in and turning on … These questions and answers continue to stir in all of our hearts.
So … let’s keep dancing, questing together to live the answers for these times!
In the Spirit ~
Melissa
