Tomorrow's Karma Kitchen (+ Pishkesh, Portugal, 500 Miles)

Dear Ones,

Karma Kitchen is on tomorrow!  Among others, it'll feature volunteers ranging from a Church minister to an IBM exec who retired to go back to med school to serve underprivileged communities as a doctor, led by Sima and Claudia. Join for lunch and generosity, in Berkeley, 11AM-2:30PM.

We'll also have a jamming community table, featuring a Peace studies professor Fran Faraz who taught us about the remarkable Iranian tradition of "pishkesh", founding member of United Religions Initiative Sally Mahe, a couple in their 70s who have known each other since high school, and locals like Liz, Audrey, myself, Birju, and Richard. To join that table, RSVP here.

Laddership Circle applications for July circle are now open. These are very popular peer learning circles, where the most recent alumni even included a Nobel Peace laureate!

Here's what some laddership alumni have launched in the last couple weeks alone. In Portugal, Vasco wondered how to "give away what I've been cultivating for a decade"? #PricelessPricing In Dubai, Sehr gloriously launched Karma Kitchen during Ramadan, with the theme: "It's cool be kind." She later called the experience a "massive heart surgery". In Philippines, Ana's just started weekly Awakin circles, just as Giang and Hang launched Vietnamese Smile Cards. In Canada, Thu launched a park experiment, while Marian and Aslinur are piloting Anar Journeys in Turkey. As the head of "global recognition" at Accenture, with 430 thousand staff, Maria is brainstorming how to honor people's contributions with "gifts of service." 

Thank you for unending ripples of love. Last Wednesday, Bonnie spoke about sacred imperfection, after which we even took an imperfect-but-happy :) group photo. We send our best to John, Pancho and many inspired souls who are currently on their annual 500-mile spirit run. At a memorable interfaith circle in Berkeley yesterday -- with inspirations like Janessa who was a former CIA officer now working on 'turning other into a brother' -- Richard shared a beautiful idea from a Tibetan monk: "When an aesthetic thought enters you, the numinous starts to ripple in the manifest world."

Bows for your innumerable aesthetic thoughts, :)

Nipun

P.S. A recent experience of kindness I had at a local Church: Four Years and Counting!