I recently met with a friend, artist Ashley Neese, for tea. She talked about her work as a social artist and mentioned that she believes in love and that all of her projects are centered on the idea of love. When Rozzell Medina and I first started to know each other he gave me a book titled Love, by Leo Buscalgia. The book explores what love is within its 150 pages. It talks about being vulnerable, practicing non-judgment and being wholly human, forgiving and imperfect.
It is true for me, that if we live in love and express ourselves not out of fear or judgment- we can meet with amazing people, we can do amazing things with our time.
As a community organizer, I attend a lot of meetings. I meet with a lot of truly giving; inspiring and insightful people who are creating change in Portland. I am nervous when I call people, and I psych myself out sometimes when I leave the house to meet with folks with whom I admire. I am also nervous and shy when I speak publicly.
It helps me to work through the anxiety by living life compassionately and openly to the future. Money can happen, jobs and opportunities will present themselves; everything will flow and happen if we allow it space, time and energy.
I am organizing an event with Public Social University called, HOUSING part 1: Approaching Space and Place. While organizing, I have been doing a lot of thought about vacant land and buildings. I noticed that while buildings remain dark and unused, there are displaced people sleeping in ally ways nearby. I noticed a similar occurrence with food. I went dumpster diving and found bags and bags of perfectly good food, while there are many who are hungry in the world.
Then, I consider to myself, "I wonder what the world would be like if we consciously lived through love."
What could we accomplish in our life times?
