Community - Starhawk

I just returned from a week spent facilitating workshops at Atlantic College - an international sixth-form in South Wales that I attended between the ages of 16 and 18. 

The days *working* there got me thinking a lot about community. Within our facilitation team, I found abundant play, understanding and inspiration. Through our workshops, we were hoping to cultivate deeper connections between the students. In the time since, I have I found myself vividly recollecting the awe-some level of community that I experienced during my years as a student there. 

Community matters. Here is a poem about that. 

Community - Starhawk

We are all longing to go home to some place

we have never been—a place half-remembered and half-envisioned

we can only catch glimpses of from time to time.

Community.

Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion

without having the words catch in our throats.

Somewhere a circle of hands

will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter,

voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power.

Community means strength

that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done.

Arms to hold us when we falter.

A circle of healing.

A circle of friends.

Someplace where we can be free.

(from Dreaming the Dark, Ch. 6. The original is in prose form - the line breaks have been added)