#belonging — Public Fediverse posts

WE'RE BACK!!!🤍

MEET OUR GUEST FOR EPISODE 16 — ADRIAAN VAN KLINKEN

What happens when we place gender, sex, sexuality and spirituality under the same microscope?

This is a conversation about faith, identity, difference, sexuality and the spaces where they collide — but also about the possibility of creating something more inclusive, compassionate and liberating.

Episode 16 drops Friday, 11 September 2026🎙️

#Belonging #Belonginghappy #Theology #Queerspirituality #LGBTQ+Podcast

You notice you're part of a harmony when another voice enters and everything rearranges.

Further reading: https://emotusoperandi.medium.com/your-self-care-action-items-f1c98bcedca6

#RMaurice #LifeboatAcademy #StayHuman #Belonging #Practice

When somebody says to you that they like you, will you ghost them if you do not like them?

#dating #socialpressures #livedexperience #poll #reflections #boundaries #neurodiversity #mentalhealth #vulnerability #selfworth #belonging #solitude #relationships

Past relationships taught me that...

#dating #socialpressures #livedexperience #poll #reflections #boundaries #neurodiversity #mentalhealth #vulnerability #selfworth #belonging #solitude #relationships

I am considering ceasing to pursue dating, as I feel that the societal message suggests I should not attempt it.

#dating #socialpressures #livedexperience #poll #reflections #boundaries #neurodiversity #mentalhealth #vulnerability #selfworth #belonging #solitude #relationships

we leave so that now

we leave so that now 
and then, we will be able to 
dream about what it 

would have taken for us to stay 
in the place where we belonged
.
20260819:2218
y

I've been kicking around the idea of a community built around belonging, curiosity, service, and genuine connection. A place where people can gather regularly, hear someone's story or learn something new, have thoughtful conversations over coffee, and build real friendships. Then once a month, instead of just talking about making our community better, we'd go volunteer or work on a local service project together.

Not a church. Not an anti-church. Not a political group.

Just neighbors creating the kind of community many of us wish we had.

Being based in Liberty, MO I've been calling the idea "Liberty Circle" because I love the symbolism of the circle. No one at the head. No one left outside. Just people coming together, making room for one another, and growing together.

Has anyone here been part of something like this? I'd love to hear what worked, what didn't, and what made people keep coming back.

#Community #Belonging #Humanism #CommunityBuilding #Volunteer #LibertyMO #Missouri #SocialConnection

A BetTER Day

Independence has its day,
when o’er the skies fireworks display,
and dependence, too, is good,
as every tender spirit should

learn the grace of being held,
when pride is hushed, and fear is quelled.
But methinks we need another name,
a deeper word, a wider frame.

It happens after we let one IN,
past the surface, past the skin,
past the guarded gates we keep,
past the places where hurt runs deep.

In the space before DEPEND,
we see the other as vital friend,
all as branches from one tree,
as the grains of sand receive the sea.

Then add three letters, soft but true,
TER arrives and makes it new.
Not just me and not just thee,
but something born between the three.

In-TER-dependence names the art
of hand in hand and heart to heart,
while I am I, and you are you,
something sacred binds us too.

Independence stands alone,
dependence leans on flesh and bone,
but interdependence humbly sings:
we rise by sharing roots and wings.

July 4, 2015 (updated June 2026)

A BetTER Day

Independence has its day,
when o’er the skies fireworks display,
and dependence, too, is good,
as every tender spirit should

learn the grace of being held,
when pride is hushed, and fear is quelled.
But methinks we need another name,
a deeper word, a wider frame.

It happens after we let one IN,
past the surface, past the skin,
past the guarded gates we keep,
past the places where hurt runs deep.

In the space before DEPEND,
we see the other as vital friend,
all as branches from one tree,
as the grains of sand receive the sea.

Then add three letters, soft but true,
TER arrives and makes it new.
Not just me and not just thee,
but something born between the three.

In-TER-dependence names the art
of hand in hand and heart to heart,
while I am I, and you are you,
something sacred binds us too.

Independence stands alone,
dependence leans on flesh and bone,
but interdependence humbly sings:
we rise by sharing roots and wings.

July 4, 2015 (updated June 2026)

A BetTER Day

Independence has its day,
when o’er the skies fireworks display,
and dependence, too, is good,
as every tender spirit should

learn the grace of being held,
when pride is hushed, and fear is quelled.
But methinks we need another name,
a deeper word, a wider frame.

It happens after we let one IN,
past the surface, past the skin,
past the guarded gates we keep,
past the places where hurt runs deep.

In the space before DEPEND,
we see the other as vital friend,
all as branches from one tree,
as the grains of sand receive the sea.

Then add three letters, soft but true,
TER arrives and makes it new.
Not just me and not just thee,
but something born between the three.

In-TER-dependence names the art
of hand in hand and heart to heart,
while I am I, and you are you,
something sacred binds us too.

Independence stands alone,
dependence leans on flesh and bone,
but interdependence humbly sings:
we rise by sharing roots and wings.

July 4, 2015 (updated June 2026)

A BetTER Day

Independence has its day,
when o’er the skies fireworks display,
and dependence, too, is good,
as every tender spirit should

learn the grace of being held,
when pride is hushed, and fear is quelled.
But methinks we need another name,
a deeper word, a wider frame.

It happens after we let one IN,
past the surface, past the skin,
past the guarded gates we keep,
past the places where hurt runs deep.

In the space before DEPEND,
we see the other as vital friend,
all as branches from one tree,
as the grains of sand receive the sea.

Then add three letters, soft but true,
TER arrives and makes it new.
Not just me and not just thee,
but something born between the three.

In-TER-dependence names the art
of hand in hand and heart to heart,
while I am I, and you are you,
something sacred binds us too.

Independence stands alone,
dependence leans on flesh and bone,
but interdependence humbly sings:
we rise by sharing roots and wings.

July 4, 2015 (updated June 2026)

A BetTER Day

Independence has its day,
when o’er the skies fireworks display,
and dependence, too, is good,
as every tender spirit should

learn the grace of being held,
when pride is hushed, and fear is quelled.
But methinks we need another name,
a deeper word, a wider frame.

It happens after we let one IN,
past the surface, past the skin,
past the guarded gates we keep,
past the places where hurt runs deep.

In the space before DEPEND,
we see the other as vital friend,
all as branches from one tree,
as the grains of sand receive the sea.

Then add three letters, soft but true,
TER arrives and makes it new.
Not just me and not just thee,
but something born between the three.

In-TER-dependence names the art
of hand in hand and heart to heart,
while I am I, and you are you,
something sacred binds us too.

Independence stands alone,
dependence leans on flesh and bone,
but interdependence humbly sings:
we rise by sharing roots and wings.

July 4, 2015 (updated June 2026)

A reflection on David Adler’s powerful essay about why human gatherings matter deeply to health, trust, learning, belonging, and human flourishing in an increasingly AI-mediated world.

#Gatherings #HumanConnection #Events #Facilitation #ConferenceDesign #Belonging #post

https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/event-design/2026/06/why-human-gatherings-matter

A reflection on David Adler’s powerful essay about why human gatherings matter deeply to health, trust, learning, belonging, and human flourishing in an increasingly AI-mediated world.

#Gatherings #HumanConnection #Events #Facilitation #ConferenceDesign #Belonging

https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/event-design/2026/06/why-human-gatherings-matter

A reflection on David Adler’s powerful essay about why human gatherings matter deeply to health, trust, learning, belonging, and human flourishing in an increasingly AI-mediated world.

https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/event-design/2026/06/why-human-gatherings-matter

#Gatherings #HumanConnection #Events #Facilitation #ConferenceDesign #Belonging #newpost

A reflection on David Adler’s powerful essay about why human gatherings matter deeply to health, trust, learning, belonging, and human flourishing in an increasingly AI-mediated world.

#Gatherings #HumanConnection #Events #Facilitation #ConferenceDesign #Belonging #newpost

https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/event-design/2026/06/why-human-gatherings-matter

A reflection on David Adler’s powerful essay about why human gatherings matter deeply to health, trust, learning, belonging, and human flourishing in an increasingly AI-mediated world.

https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/event-design/2026/06/why-human-gatherings-matter

#newpost #Gatherings #HumanConnection #Events #Facilitation #ConferenceDesign #Belonging

A reflection on David Adler’s powerful essay about why human gatherings matter deeply to health, trust, learning, belonging, and human flourishing in an increasingly AI-mediated world.

https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/event-design/2026/06/why-human-gatherings-matter

#Gatherings #HumanConnection #Events #Facilitation #ConferenceDesign #Belonging

A reflection on David Adler’s powerful essay about why human gatherings matter deeply to health, trust, learning, belonging, and human flourishing in an increasingly AI-mediated world.

#newpost #Gatherings #HumanConnection #Events #Facilitation #ConferenceDesign #Belonging

https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/event-design/2026/06/why-human-gatherings-matter

Authoritarianism doesn’t begin only with bad leaders, dangerous ideologies, or manipulated information.

It also grows in emptiness: in closed youth centres, underfunded libraries, commercialised public squares, and feeds that replace conversation with performance.

https://associationredefine.substack.com/p/where-do-we-gather-the-geography?r=6l8ed8

#CivicIntelligence #Democracy #PublicSpace #Belonging #DigitalDemocracy #AIAndSociety #SocialInfrastructure #DemocraticResilience

A quotation from Hannah Arendt

The disturbing factor in the success of totalitarianism is rather the true selflessness of its adherents: it may be understandable that a Nazi or Bolshevik will not be shaken in his conviction by crimes against people who do not belong to the movement or are even hostile to it; but the amazing fact is that neither is he likely to waver when the monster begins to devour its own children, and not even if he becomes a victim of persecution himself, if he is framed and condemned, if he is purged from the party and sent to a forced-labor or concentration camp. On the contrary, to the wonder of the whole civilized world, he may even be willing to help in his own prosecution and frame his own death sentence if only his status as a member of the movement is not touched.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Origins of Totalitarianism, Part 3, ch. 10 “A Classless Society,” sec. 1 (1951)

More about this quote: wist.info/arendt-hannah/42025/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #arendt #hannaharendt #belonging #fanatic #fanaticism #identity #loyalty #movement #partisan #selfdestruction #selfpreservation #selflessness #totalitarianism #tribalism #zealotry

On the ocean, wayfinding meant reading swells and stars. On a field in Springdale, Arkansas, it meant reading space, movement, and one another.

Read Jordan P. Hickey's new Longreads story about the Marshall Islands' first-ever national soccer team.

https://longreads.com/2026/04/21/marshall-islands-soccer-team/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#Longreads #Sports #Soccer #Football #WorldCup #MarshallIslands #Marshallese #Belonging #Diaspora #Migration

The Marshall Islands’ first national soccer team discovered what “home” can mean—on a field in Arkansas.

Read Jordan P. Hickey’s new Longreads story, “The Wayfinders.”

https://longreads.com/2026/04/21/marshall-islands-soccer-team/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#Longreads #MarshallIslands #RMI #Diaspora #Belonging #Home #Migration #Soccer #Identity #WorldCup #Sports

idle brain – the sin of being born

https://ridiculousbharath.wordpress.com/2026/04/18/idle-brain-the-sin-of-being-born/

Some places make belonging feel effortless.

Everything is structured in a way that leaves no friction: paths are clear, rhythms are shared, nothing pushes you to the edges.

It looks natural from the outside.

But it’s not accidental.

It’s the result of systems designed well enough that people don’t have to fight to be part of them.

https://open.substack.com/pub/associationredefine/p/the-civic-architecture-of-a-city-c69?r=6l8ed8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

#Education #Belonging #PublicSystems #SocialInnovation #LearningBeyondSchool #CivicDesign #Democracy #YouthEngagement #SystemsThinking

Excommunicate Me

Excommunicate me, then.
Ring the bell if you have one. Draw the line in ash. Nail the notice to the chapel door. Speak my name in the flat voice reserved for weather, death, and disappointment. Tell the saints to avert their eyes. Tell the children not to ask questions. Tell the old women in the kitchen to lower their voices when I pass. I have grown used to doors closing with the gentleness of those who think themselves righteous.

Excommunicate me for loving too widely, for asking where the missing ones went, for lingering too long at the edge of the map where the heretics, addicts, doubters, dissidents, and queer-eyed prophets make their fires at night. Excommunicate me for saying that Christ still wanders there, coat smelling of smoke, hands warm from other people’s wounds. Excommunicate me for suspecting that the kingdom keeps being born in places your committees have not approved.

Cast me out for refusing to confuse your fences with holiness.
Cast me out for noticing how often your purity is purchased with somebody else’s loneliness.
Cast me out for believing that a table is still a table even when the wrong people find bread there first.

I know how this works. First comes the sorrowful meeting. Then the careful language. Then the phrases dressed in prayer like soldiers dressed in hymnals. We say discernment when we mean fear. We say order when we mean control. We say peace when we mean silence from those already bruised. We say love while measuring who may enter it. We say truth with our arms folded.

Excommunicate me because I cannot keep pretending that the wound in the Body is healed by cutting off another limb.

I have seen too much of the outside to fear it now. I have seen the banished making soup for one another. I have seen the condemned share coats in winter. I have seen those denied the sacraments become sacraments for each other: bread in famine, oil in sickness, a hand on the shoulder in the long vestibule of grief. I have heard better theology whispered on back steps than shouted from polished pulpits. I have watched the Spirit climb out the stained-glass window and go where she is not expected.

Excommunicate me, and I will go down among the unclaimed.
I will kneel beside the ones your footnotes could not save.
I will keep company with the mothers whose prayers embarrassed you, the children whose questions outgrew your answers, the men who wept when they were told to be strong, the women who spoke and were called dangerous, the wanderers who could not make your narrow gate into a home.

And if you shut me out from your sanctuary, I will make a sanctuary of the road.
If you deny me your blessing, I will learn the blessing of crows at morning, of rain on rusted tin, of strangers who still know how to share fire.
If you call me lost, I will answer that some of us were never meant to be found by empires.

Do not threaten me with the outer dark.
I have met God there.

Not the tidy god of minutes and motions, not the well-behaved deity who always sides with the CEO, but the God who haunts the threshold, who leaves the ninety-nine to go where the crying is, who touches the unclean and is not diminished, who slips through locked doors and still carries wounds, who keeps raising what the pious have buried.

Excommunicate me for this: I no longer believe belonging is yours to ration.
I no longer believe grace requires your seal.
I no longer believe heaven trembles when your vote is taken.
The veil was torn without your permission, and it has never been properly mended.

So do it.
Write me out.
Strike my name from the roll.
Erase me from the minutes.
Tell yourselves the garden is safer now that one more wild thing has been removed.

But listen: roots work in secret. Seeds pass through the beaks of birds and are planted in their shit. Wind ignores decrees. What you cast out does not always die. Sometimes it takes hold beyond the wall and flowers in the rubble, and those passing by say, I did not know beauty could grow here.

Excommunicate me, then.
I will go with Christ among the cast out.
I will go where the lepers still ring their bells, where the scapegoats stagger into the wilderness, where the rejected stone waits in the dust.
And when at last you come looking for God, breathless with your censures, your keys jangling at your side, do not be surprised to find us already inside the feast, the doors flung wide, the music loud, the wounded laughing, and every empty place at the table set for one more.

The new uncomfortable normality
No Worries? Australian attitudes to national security, risk and resilience (report): National security starts at the front door – not at the territorial borders.

"For most Australians, the 18-month research project revealed, national security starts at their front door – not at the territorial borders of the island continent. It showed they are worried the country is not prepared for the demands of a volatile 21st century in a polluted information ecosystem, where the rules-based international order is crumbling, economic precarity has become uncomfortably normal and trust is more fragile." >>
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/29/surging-anxiety-australia-national-security-patriotism-ntwnfb

Report: No Worries? Australian attitudes to national security, risk and resilience >>
https://nsc.anu.edu.au/research/no-worries-australian-attitudes-national-security-risk-and-resilience

#PublicAnxiety #anxiety #Australia #worries #trust #precarity #inequality #polycrisis #instability #safety #stability #participation #SocialIntegration #FarRight #SocialCohesion #belonging #HyperIndIvidualisation #UncomfortableNormality #climate #NationalSecurity #war

Social cohesion and gritted-teeth tolerance

"In 2022, for the first time in decades, the government commissioned a review of multiculturalism, Towards Fairness. It found Australia had muddled on, but squandered its world-leading status and recommended the government create a minister, a permanent commission and department for multiculturalism. Labor MP Dr Anne Aly was appointed multicultural affairs minister in 2025."

She delivered a powerful speech last November:

"Aly declared it was time to end “the conditional form of multiculturalism, that kind of gritted-teeth tolerance that,

'You are welcome here as long as your food tastes good,

your celebrations are colourful, and

your music is present to the ears.’"

"But any questioning, any speaking out, any disruptive participation in any practice of citizenship will not be tolerated. Instead, acts of citizenship afforded to the broader community are viewed as acts of defiance when performed by the other and are met with cries of, ‘Go back to where you came from,’ and ‘Love Australia or leave it.’ " >>
https://www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2026/mar/23/social-cohesion-meaning-has-lost-feelgood-vibe

Full speech: Reimagining Multiculturalism in Australia, The Hon Dr Anne Aly MP, Minister for Small Business, Minister for International Development, and Minister for Multicultural Affairs 2025 >>
https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/anne-aly-2025

#SocialCohesion #ethnonationalism #Anglosphere #SettlerSociety #mainstream #belonging #diversity #IndigenousPeoples #CALD #hate #racism #silencing #culture #entertainment #SongAndDance #ScarilyDiverse #representation #participation #Australia #culture

In a world that magnifies division, gardens bring us together.

Have you ever visited a community garden?
- Yes
- Not Yet

www.globalactionplan.ie

#CommunityGardens #GrowTogether #Belonging #SocialConnection #Wellbeing

JUN-KAN PERMACULTURE IS ON A MISSION OF REPAIR

Just off Notre-Dame Rd. in Petersburg, Ontario is the Jun-kan Permaculture Garden. The garden sits on one of 20 acres in the Petersburg Community Garden, and volunteers tend permaculture food forests and annual vegetable terraces.   

The garden was started in 2022 when the land’s owner, Daryl Dore decided he no longer wanted to rent his fields to cash-cropping commercial farmers. Dore contacted Doug Jones of the Waterloo Regional Community Garden Network and proposed that his land be available to individuals, especially new Canadians.  

While the proposal was eagerly accepted, years of cash cropping and heavy pesticide use had left the soil damaged.  

“In a word, this soil was dead. And poisoned,” Barbara Hankins, one of Jun-kan’s volunteers, said.  

Permaculture gardening operates on the basis of symbiosis and diversity. A wide array of individual species are planted in cooperative guilds to work in concert with each other and the environment. Together, they thrive and improve the quality of the land they are growing on.   

This is where the name Jun-kan comes from. The garden’s website explains, it is a Japanese word that translates roughly to “the universe,” or “the cycle of life”. In accordance with the principles of permaculture, Jun-kan’s first step was to plant swaths of five distinct cover crops: clover, alfalfa, buckwheat, field peas, and rye. Quickly, the earth began to heal and the gardeners started producing food, still with permaculture in mind.  

“[We ask ourselves,] ‘what does the ground need? What do the plants need? How can I give to them because they are giving to me?’,” Hankins said.  

In turn, the land gives back to its farmers, not just in food, but in a more existential way as well. This is especially helpful at Jun-kan, where many of the volunteers are new Canadians and do not own their own land. People are given the opportunity to form a relationship with the land they may not otherwise have been able to. This is crucial for a sense of belonging.  

“This garden supports a huge diversity of growers from around the world, and it’s nourishing to see how the diversity of culturally relevant foods, approaches, skills, stories…the diversity enhances our resilience as a community of gardeners,” Nikola Barsoum, one of Jun-kan’s founding volunteers, said.  

The ethos of repair and repurposing extends beyond physical gardening and the dignity of the volunteers as well. In 2023, ongoing war in Lebanon put Hankins’ family in danger, and here in KW, her house burned down. The garden provided the family with relief, repairing them in the wake of the tragedies. The bricks from their home were salvaged and used to cobble Jun-kan’s community fire pit.  

“We went through so much that year. This was my therapy. Coming out here, and just being with the land, with the earth, with the butterflies, and feeding the insects and the birds… Watching things grow is very therapeutic,” Hankins said.  

Restoring the land, offering a dignified community for newcomers and a sanctuary for its volunteers, Jun-Kan is on a mission of repair. For more information, the garden can be found on Instagram @junkanpermaculture, or on their website. 

#agriculture #BarbaraHankins #belonging #dougJones #Gardening #junKan #nikolaBarsoum #Ontario #permaculture #Petersburg #RandyMoore #waterlooRegionalCommunityGarden #ZackMason

I breathed in all the green around me today as if it was air. I paddled in the mountain stream and felt the cool, clear water. My ears were filled with birdsong and the rustling of leaves. I feel the deepest of connections to this place where I've lived all my life. I know it and I feel it knows me. To walk amongst these trees is to be amongst family. #hiraeth #belonging #love #nature #trees #home

I feel I matched several of the rainbows in the image...

#PrideMonth #LGBTQSupport #LoveIsLove #MentalHealthAwareness #Belonging #SelfDiscovery #FirstTimeCelebration #SafetyFirst #LateBloomers #RelationshipLoss #OutAndProud #SupportSystem #Inclusivity #Pride2024

This is the best explanation of #grooming. Learning it is important to understand why stop the victms of glooming through violence will work as confirmation bias to them; of their feelings about their Groomers offering the emotional safety they haven't found in their family or community.

https://youtu.be/e61YHcYqWyo

When you talk with the victmes, not like an authority but listening to them, you are giving space for #emotional #safety, trust and #belonging, but this time as #community.

If you only study political #philosophy to understand power relashions without understand basic #psychology and behavioural biology it is going to be a problem to actually stop #abusers. Trust me. We all should have started from here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL848F2368C90DDC3D

This is why #anarchists who have prejudices against psychology and behavioural biology, as far as calling Winnicott, Bowlby, Hrdy and Hustvedt as abusers apologists, as many of you did on Twitter, and claiming to know more about abuse than them, are not ready and prepared to protect the victms of Grooming.

If you are not ready to listen to your own member of anarchist community and scientists then you are not ready to listen to victms of abuse. You will mistake listening the victme for "respecting their consent" because you can only think about solve things through authoritative violence. As so many of you expressed on Twitter.

Cooperative breeding and #awareness of our psychology, #emotions and #behaviour from biological point of view must be our priority if is we want to actually understand people, and so #society, to consciously work for a society that heals and truly protects the most vulnerable against Grooming and other kinds of abuses. It requires a true interest on people to understand them and ourselves before anything else.

I know that being good at discourse, to dominate the language you are speaking as a native speaker and to have a reach and precise vocabulary according to each group you talk to is important to gain people's #trust. But more important than that is knowing how to listen, because if we don't we end up misinterpreting people for our #prejudices, confirmation #bias and repressing #victmes of #abuse that makes them feel more attached to their abusers. And lastly, it makes us fall for the egocentric, myopitic and prejudices of the ones who are skilled communicator, who become the personality of our idolatry.

#Anarchist Twitter (now Mastodon) has a lot to learn and grow yet, but it will not be possible when it remains a community of egocentric and authoritative academics unwilling to listen and learn from each other, taking for granted the prejudices and false accusations of their closed and isolated circles centered on idolatry of online content creators and Witch hunters.