What do you want to help build this year?

Hi friend.

Here we are in the last wisps of the year, and I’m thinking about what I want to be a part of building in 2022.

I say “part of” because I’m not interested in making things alone anymore. I actually think that whole idea is a sham. Firefly is here because of an intricate interdependence of many, many hands and hearts. More and more, I think everything is.


So what is it we want to make together? In this strange time of billionaires, extreme poverty and a virus that has pushed us even further apart, what is still worth making? What’s possible? And how do we even begin when it all feels so overwhelming?

Let’s be clear: I have no idea.

But a couple weeks ago one of my class a participants, Mary-Lou, shared this passage by Irish poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama.

Let us pick up the stones over which we stumble, friends, and build altars. Let us listen to the sound of breath in our own bodies. Let us listen to the sound of our own voices, of our own wants, of our own fears.

Let us name the harsh light and soft darkness that surrounds us. Let us claw our way out from the grave we’ve dug. Let us lick in the earth from our fingers. Let us look out and up and around.

The world is big and wide, and wild, and wonderful, and wicked and our lives are murky, magnificent, malleable, and full of meaning.

When she stopped reading we all got very, very quiet. It’s that kind of quiet I’m reaching for today.

The truth is, we never really know what we’re making, or how any of it will work out.

Every creative effort, whether it’s a batch of cookies or short story or a hard conversation is a leap into the unknown. We learn as we go. We are changed by what happens. We can’t see what we’re doing until we’re finished.

But we can still try. We can still start. We can do it together.

What do you want to start making this year?

I made you a video, so that we can sit together in this question. This is the space for your voice, your vision.

At Firefly, we’re stepping into our first uncharted year without a space, so we’re figuring this out. We’re nervous. But we know that like always, voices matter, and gathering around the glow of one another’s stories is a fundamenal need.

This year I want us to trust our voices and visions even more, and to keep making spaces for you to do the same.

We’d love to have you.

Our small group workshops are right here, and our large group programs are here.

One thing we know for sure on this cusp of another year, is that building things matters, no matter what they are.

Let’s keep diving into the unknown together and making, in our own small ways, the world we know is possible.

Wishing you a beautiful start to 2022,

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