Creative Change

September 7, 2010 Leave a comment

Santa Fe

I’m just returning from Santa Fe, where I had the privilege of facilitating the 2nd Creative Change Retreat. The Opportunity Agenda brought together an amazing intersection of artists and activists who are committed to social justice. It was one of the most inspiring and diverse groups of people I have had a chance to work with. Experiencing such a combination of passion, creativity and commitment is enough to make one hopeful again.

We spent our days sharing our work with one another, discussing, reflecting and debating where appropriate – these were the structured spaces that I was asked to facilitate. However, we were often reminded that Creative Change is a retreat, not a conference, and so sometime around three in the afternoon we would shift our energy towards higher and less structured connectivity. The idea is to trust that when you put amazing people together and these people share a common commitment, then you are better off trusting them to organize the conversations that will move the world forward.

I return with deep gratitude for the experience, thankful for having spent time with the indigenous cultures of Santa Fe and among such an amazing intersection of people. I return with a heightened conviction that art leads and that we can not succeed as long as we see it as separate from the rest of our work. And I return hopeful that by nurturing such intersections we will better able to sync up with the evolutionary thrust – that essentially creative force that keeps us at the edge of the new and holds the promise of our highest potential.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *