June 24-28, 2014

Over three days, we gathered in the Threefold Community of Spring Valley, NY: street poets and priests, social activists and economists, farmers, musicians, each a student and each a teacher. InPower was an an invitation to give voice to our good, our true, our beautiful. Our response sounded like bees returning to their hive: 

Everywhere transience is plunging into the depths of Being… It is our task to imprint this temporary, perishable

earth into ourselves so deeply, so painfully and passionately, that its essence can rise again, ‘invisibly,’ inside us. We are the bees of the invisible. We wildly collect the honey of the visible, to store it in the great golden hive of the invisible.

(Rilke)  

It would be difficult to offer a succinct answer to what InPower was about. A better question would be how we were together. What was the experience? The themes varied and the guiding metaphors kept transforming, but the intention had never been to gather for passive reception of a particular content. Rather, we recognized that we were vital participants in a learning community - each teaching the other. And the lessons were not just biographical facts and surface information, but pictures of authenticity and vulnerability, taught through our being - a conference wide invitation to become presence to what lives itself through us. InPower was filled with levity and love: ripe ingredients for taking up our courage and walking it out in front of each other. We seek a brighter future, a New Community, and we forge it in our becoming. The question is whether we are able to behold this individual and collectively becoming. How do we welcome each other home?

There was a form of course, 80 some participants guided by twelve workshop leaders and three main presenters. Richard Dancey, a Christian Community Priest spoke about his journey through the 1960’s civil rights, Shelly ? spoke her own personal journal navigating racial privilege and a deepening empathy for the experience of the other, Rodrigos? brought his biography working with the wounds of the economic sphere. Twelve workshop leaders provided an opportunity for us to explore the inner and outer aspects of finding our own still, small voice. Through dialogue and performance we brought our voice to the whole, creating room for the other, and palpably building capacities to meet our times.

With everything that cries out for our attention in these times - this much we know to be true:

When we create an attentive, free, open space between us, something bigger, truer, more beautiful streams in. If this is the future rushing to meet us, and we are leaning into it. 

For more on InPower, see here: http://www.threefold.org/conferences/inpower.aspx

1

I have never felt so safe within large groups of people--not to mention mostly unfamiliar people--as I did during InPower. Thanks to the workshop leaders, moderators, and all of the participants, each space felt protected from judgement, receptive to everyone's experience and perspective, and remarkably comfortable.

On Thursday held an open mic night where one participant after another shared a joyful gift of music, dance, poetry, or comedy. Just as during our days together, there was a palpable sense of openness and support for all of the performers. I, for one, have never felt so at ease in front of an audience. Near the end of the night, one participant asked the entire group to join her on the stage and led us in a wonderful round of "Shalom, Salam/Peace Be With You" to a simple four-part tune; before long, were milling around the space, filling it with our song of peace.

Among other things, InPower inspired me to live on the edge more (cue Aerosmith) and to really show up. The edge concept was first brought up in a whole-group conversation and then again in different ways throughout the conference. It's often outside of our comfort zone that we make a meaningful connection or learn something new. As in nature, our edges are most fertile, most diverse. In his first workshop session, hip-hop artist Matt Sawaya shared about writing from his "edge of becoming" and leaning into his potential. How can we do that not only in our writing but in every aspect of our lives?

Showing up is about creating truly supportive environments and meaningful encounters. How can we be present enough to let others' perspectives truly affect us somehow? And how can we invite others onto a two-way street of vulnerability and support?

Amber Dahlin

2

Conscience is a pang, A consciousness of other's pain: A healthy boundary crossed; Your best friend's trust lost...

Conscience is empathy Uncovered in remorse: Not antipathy or sympathy, But the "Middle Course."

And Conscience is the courage For the work of self-reflection: The soil that can nourish A new sense of direction.

Conscience is the voiceThat tells us we can grow:But we must make the choiceTo Become more than we have known.

-Nadia Bedard

Poem created from the Keyword “"Conscience" in

Baastian Baan’s workshop "The Royal Art of Meditation".

Reimagine our lives. Co-create our existence.

3

It was so good to gather young people and the young-at-heart from all different walks of life...with all different areas of work and passions and yet still have a deep commonality among us. From Los Angeles poets to anti-rascim activists to economists to Christian Community priests, to Eurythmists, biodynamic gardeners, documenters, musicians, and many, many more. We were all connected through the various artistic exercises or expressions which were created in a large group. Like the morning speech with Jennifer Kleinbach, or the Shalom greeting song in which we all harmonized ~ taught by Melody. Or in the group discussions in which we all shared. It felt like a wholesome and healthy community to have all different walks of life represented and yet have such a commonality among us.

- Mellissa Barton

"My faith is in the unknown,In all that we do not understand by reason.I believe that what is beyond our comprehension is a simple fact in other dimenstions.And that in the realm of the unknown there is an infinite power for good."

-Charlie Chaplin(by way of Rodrigo)

The weeks following an event can feel either like I’m soaring, mourning, or some combination of the two. I experienced neither after InPower. I have felt in myself and those friends around me, a serenity, calm strength, and joy. The conference seems to reverberate in the way the world appears to me now.

The possibility of approaching our lives out of hope and confidence has left the trees shining and the future possible. A group of people can take something on in a week spent with one another, and this particular group of 80 fresh and earnest people took responsibility for something much larger than their own lives. The capacities bursting from each room we inhabited promised that we are as brave as the world needs us to be. Feeling supported by those next to us, led by those in front of us, and nudged by those behind us, we found ways to discover something new within ourselves- maybe something scary And needing of attention. An ability to face ourselves clearly and with love enabled the possibility to Approach the world’s struggles with an equal clarity and abounding love. We desired an introduction to moral development in order to accomplish transformational work in the world. We honestly tried to do that, and we watched it happen, and I believe we created something we could call goodness, within us and around us.

- Abigail Dancey

Aftermath