Couple years ago, Audrey and Birju initiated a virtual, peer-learning circle around ServiceSpace values. With six people. Now, hundreds of alumni later, it's still buzzing. Parag and Meghna led two concurrent 6-week Laddership Circles, that just ended last month. Komnieve and Venu helped anchor an 18-person "Gandhi 3.0" circle. Min completed a 9-month circle with high-school girls. Trishna initiated two concurrent year-long circles with about 50 ServiceSpace anchors. Our summer intern Ellie is being mentored by past summer intern, Sophie!
+ 744 Pages? We have some static curriculum for Laddership Fellows, but a large part of the learning happens from each other. To give you a flavor, we added up the feed posts of our most recent circle, and it turned out to be 744 pages! Shhh, don't tell the July Circle applicants. :)
2
YOU LEFT THE DOOR OPEN
Subject: Extending the Awakin to South Africa
Message: You have left your door open. I have stepped in. I feel the energy, love and light. It resonates deep within in and I think I need to bring this to my beautiful continent Africa, where much healing is needed. We need to learn to open the door. I would REALLY like to connect what I am doing to Awakin and ServiceSpace. I don't know how. I just know I need to ask. Regards and love, Peta
+ College youth Alma and Sophia started Awakin Vienna, third circle in Austria. Turkey is home to two circles, while Vietnam circles are unlisted but alive and well. :) Natalia, Iwona and Awakin Warsaw are holding their second circle this week, while Joaa is continuing on with Awakin Lisbon! Awakin Bucharest (Romania), Awakin Baroda (India) and Awakin Burgos (Spain) hosts are coming together to anchor our first Awakin Hosts call in July.
+ There are now over 100 cities that have an active Awakin circle! A recent photo from Marian and Aslinur's weekly Awakin in Istanbul:
3
ON THE HOUR
Did you know -- our content interacts with 14 thousand people every HOUR?
+ No matter which corner of the world you go to, you'll find someone saying: "I wake up to DailyGood every day!" Pavi has been tirelessly nurturing that part of the ecosystem for many years. Did you know that DailyGood team has 44 volunteers, including 31 writers?!?
+ Latest on KarmaTube? If you ask Yoo-mi, she might leak the news about Nimo's upcoming video: We Shall Overcome! :)
+ Fritjof Capra? Courtesy of Xiao, the legendary author joined for one of our most popular calls of the year. Preeta has got guests lined up for next six months, including President Obama's sister. :)
+ Ricardo Magic! The man that Sam Bower refers to as "Michael Jordon of conversations", has just published an index of 550 features! Richard met us when he had just published issue #13, interestingly titled "Turning Point":
4
IT'S COOL TO BE KIND
For Ramadan, Sehr hosted a Karma Kitchen in Dubai -- with celebrity chef volunteering, CNN filming, and government watching. :) Kind of a big deal, what Sehr called a "a massive heart surgery." Their theme? It's Cool To Be Kind. Volunteers below are wearing KK shirts, whose back side read: "What are you grateful for?"
Elsewhere: 22-year old waitress wondered, "Can New Yorkers open their hearts?" Why, yes they can. In Toronto, Thu had Karma Kitchen in the Park, with a future city council member tweeting: "Unforgettable." On the other side of the planet, Surat hosted its 12th "sold out" Karma Kitchen with a World Cup Soccer theme: "Except here, we're all winners." In Israel, Galia's Karma Kitchen attracted 400 people!
5
SEVENTY-FIVE THOUSAND?
We're partly an online community, partly offline circles, partly tech driven, partly everything. Essentially, we do whatever is necessary to spread love. Including shipping and handling?!?
Did you know that we have fulfilled 75 thousand orders of Smile Cards? Of course, all gift-economy. Kudos to dozens of global shippers, led by one-and-only Sujatha!
In January, 70 people came together for a "Gandhi 3.0" retreat. Its ripples have been unending. Even if you have taken that hour to digest Zilong's epic summary and watch the embedded videos, it's still hard to fathom. Jerry (um sorry, that's Jerry-G :)) is speaking at Greg's TedX Fargo event; Bonnie dreamt about "priceless pricing" that inspired Vasco to shift from "transaction to trust" in Portugal; Nimo performed rap at Masami-san's prayer ceremony with thousands of people; Gary wrote about Jayesh-bhai in his upcoming book; Ana is transforming her whole school in the Philippines; the list truly goes on.
+ Roots: Every year, Moved by Love volunteers host 50 thousand hours of people's time via in-person retreats. Our particular value-add really are ladders. "A ladders walk into a space ..." and magic happens. All those retreats for many years have led to an explosion of such transformation-driven retreats around the globe. Below is the conclusion of a 2-day retreat in Hoi An (Vietnam), hosted by rockstar anchors, after the trademark 3-steps-and-a-bow closing:
7
THIS HOUSE CALLED BANYAN GROVE
Songs are in great abundance at Banyan Grove, ever since Fabrizio has moved in as the anchor. Plus, we've got a spiffy new Zendo, and what can't see here is a lovely backyard with bamboo fencing, a water fountain and a Boddhisattva statue. :)
This month, we hosted a retreat for animal rights champions, a Compassion Quotient retreat for Educators, alongside our monthly Awakin Circles. We also hosted some kindred friends like Gary and Linda, Bonnie Rose and Fran Faraz from LA. Coming soon, Prahlad Tipanya's Kabir retreat!
8
WAIT, WE HAVE A PRESS PAGE?
Our press page hasn't been updated in years. But press continues on, increasingly global -- most recent interviews include the biggest newspaper in Vietnam, a popular magazine in Germany, Sufi Journal in New York. Numerous talks every month lead to transcripts, local press, candid interviews, grateful blogs, social media posts, ample videos (with subtitles even!) -- and almost always unexpected ripples with the journalists themselves.
For us, things don't get juicy enough to highlight until it becomes multi-dimensional. That is, it's wonderful that Pancho gave a commencement address but it's even more touching that he spoke of his mother's passing, and perhaps even more so that he biked to the graduation, with a long series of serendipities in tow.
9
STATUS: IT'S COMPLICATED :)
We missed the boat on mobile, but hey, so did Microsoft. :) Technically, we just "pivoted" to offline community building. Google CEO now says they're an "AI-first company." (FYI, Ashish is managing their hotly detabed project, Duplex.) Naturally, tech is rife with ethical dilemmas like the edge between Algorithms and Love, and the unintended consequences around ratios, relationships and resilience. Friendship Status: it's complicated. :)
Enter Sudipto and Gansu. One was the CTO of Infosys, and another a serial startup guy. Both are kings of machine learning, and both are profoundly moved by ServiceSpace. Can machine learning help create deep ties, encourage generosity, increase trust in society, and cultivate inner transformation? Good question to hold. :) They are working on pretty interesting experiments with KindSpring, and hope to present at our next retreat. #FireWorks :)
10
HUSBAND, MOM, SON ... EVEN PUPPETS!
Trishna's husband had his backpack stolen in London. Her response? Act of kindness, of course!
+ Zilong's parents are visiting from China. They shared how their spiritual journey started with their son's ... dishwashing. At an Awakin last month, his mom ... danced!
+ In Meghalaya, a father-son duo recorded a blind man -- singing a rich man's song.
+ Ari's son turned 11 recently, and he wanted to celebrate ... by helping others! Read his hand-written letter that ended with: "These people give more than people with more."
+ At Trupti's heArt circle in India, Suratvanti drew her father's portrait without erasing a single stroke and wrote him a letter on Father's Day. He had passed away earlier.
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