When you hold a lot of space and give a lot of energy, sometimes you end up finding that you're surrounded by people who require a lot of space and energy but who aren't capable (for one reason or another) or willing to hold that same space or give that same energy to you.
There is so much to community building that becomes so complicated, and everyone is unhealed in their own ways. Sometimes those ways are compatible with the ways in which you are unhealed: and you find that you are able to hold space for one another, mutually, and that the space you hold doesn't open up into wounds (or it does, but the very act of holding space becomes healing, less self-sacrifice than a pouring into one another). Sometimes, though, those spaces are incompatible, and the opening of space feels like the opening of wounds, and if not at first then after a time, as though something has rubbed you raw right down to the bone after the accumulation of each time you've let it touch you. Sometimes this is just a critical incompatibility, perhaps you aren't the right people to be in community with one another at this time. Sometimes it's the result of someone not being able to recognize the ways in which they demand. Boundary holding is so vital, but often leads to the triggering of maladaptive defenses and sometimes the ending of the relationship you were trying to preserve by setting the boundary in the first place. Some people advocate for boundary setting loudly, but are also the loudest to criticize you and claim you are abandoning or harming them when you do so.
The bringing together of people and the fostering of intersecting relationships requires time and effort and very careful communication and consideration, and is sometimes the rolling of a snowball gently towards the cusp of a hill: from there it flows so holistically and genuinely and easily, and these people find each other and fold each other into their nets and the shared net of the community. Sometimes it is Sisyphus rolling the ball up the hill over and over again until eventually you realize that perhaps one or more of these nodes must exist in satellite to the whole, and will not or does not desire to integrate within it.
Right now I am tired, and feeling as though critical boundaries must be held. A few of the relationships I've spent the past months fostering are crumbling for their own reasons: one because the other person is determined to remain in a power position that I refuse to engage with any further (giving the benefit of the doubt has to stop at some point, but the loss of this relationship impacts more than just me, which is hard) and the other because boundary holding is causing the other person to feel abandoned. After weeks of holding space for this person through a crisis, at the very moment I need that space held this person is pushing away and yet dragging me towards them -- unwilling to hold space but still demanding mine. And I am just tired, and wondering what patterns exist that push me to continue to forge unequal relationships in my own life, or if this is just really how most people are.
Calling all #RCommunity members! Let's build a stronger, more connected R world. 🌍 The ISC Grant Program funds projects that promote local engagement and improve activity tracking within the R Consortium. Have an idea? We want to hear it! #RStats#CommunityBuilding
It's been a long period of necessary isolation due to some really intense psychic experiences after the Solstice event, and yet it feels as though the intentions I worked towards at that & the previous ritual I held are slowly beginning to manifest.
A long time friend of mine was kind enough to furnish me with exercises to improve psychic hygiene, and I recently just met with someone who has been working with a spiritual healer on the same and who is willing to engage in ritual space together to share some of her techniques with me. It's incredibly profound to have begun to build or find this community, and I am so grateful to everyone who shares their time and space with me.
I have some really interesting tattoo work planned that I can hopefully pick back up in April or May, after this month's push to improve the land and the two weeks in April I'm dedicating to a survival medicine class.
Spring feels fruitful and hopeful, and there is grass growing everywhere, triggered out of dormancy by the rain we received in January and early February.
👋🏻 fediverse hive-mind - a friend of mine just joined Mastodon, and is looking for follow recommendations - who are your go-to experts around #community and #communitybuilding (in a broad sense, beyond and outside my more techie niche)
🎉 Recap of our R Validation Community Meeting! With 50+ attendees, we dived into what "validation" means across the board - for users, devs, and admins. It's about creating a common understanding and pushing forward together.
Missed it? Check out the slides and join us for the next session on May 21. Let's keep building a robust R community together! 💻🔍
🌐 Announcing featured speaker at #DrupalMountainCamp, AmyJune Hineline @volkswagenchick a Drupal core mentor & Certification Community Architect at the Linux Foundation.
Session: Issue queue triage – a pragmatic guide to finding an issue to work on.
🌐 Announcing featured speaker at #DrupalMountainCamp, AmyJune Hineline @volkswagenchick a Drupal core mentor & Certification Community Architect at the Linux Foundation.
Session: Issue queue triage - a pragmatic guide to finding an issue to work on.
I am excited to join this vibrant space of diverse voices and ideas. I'm Devjit Patra founder and CEO Venture Foster Group, and I'm here to share my passion for business and startups. Whether it's digital marketing or other business-related problems or hardships, let's explore and learn together.
I'm here not just to share but to connect! Feel free to drop a message or share your thoughts.
🌍 Calling all R enthusiasts! Join the global network of R User Groups. 📈 Apply for the 2024 RUGS Program starting TODAY. Grants are available for user groups, conferences & special projects.
And so, we have reached the end of 2023. For me, it was a positive year (except for the last 15 days, but in the end, it could have been worse), without any particular upheavals and therefore, quite straightforward.
This year, I dedicated myself more to the Fediverse and launched the BSD Cafe project. Without a doubt, this has been among the best things to happen in 2023. I've received a warm welcome, and many wonderful people have joined the project, contributing to its growth. In just a few months (I officially announced and opened registrations on July 20, 2023, so less than six months ago), our Mastodon instance now has 151 active users, with 93 participating in the last month. Then there's the Matrix instance, actively used by many, Miniflux (only used by 4 of us), our Wiki, BlendIT, the ongoing snac2 experiment, and many ideas for the coming months.
I've connected with people who have taught me so much, and the Fediverse has undoubtedly been the "place" where I've learned the most this year, through both interactions and reading what all of you have posted. I've met wonderful people beyond the technical realm and seen beautiful photography (#Photography), the sea (#MeerMittwoch), personal memories (#ThrowbackThursday), captivating windows (#FensterFreitag), amazing cats (#Caturday), and quiet, evocative Sundays (#SilentSunday).
So, from Stefano (a human being, a member of the Fediverse) and Stefano (the Barista of BSD Cafe), I wish everyone a Happy 2024!
I know, to some, celebrating another trip around the sun may seem silly, but I believe it's always better in life to rejoice and celebrate something, anything, rather than argue, harm others, or wage wars. The world would be a better place if we all celebrated a little more.
The best part of #TheLostCause, @pluralistic 's hopeful look at our inevitably difficult future, is that it portrays a hope that is not based on magical thinking or fantastical technologies, but on choices.
The book is also full of humour, pathos, insight, and thoughtfulness that run along an engaging plot that might have you reading into the wee hours.
PS: They don't discount open access, open data, and open code (or open protocols, preregistration, and so on). They take a step back and ask what strategies will advance them.
From last Autumn when Anjali came over from Vancouver to pick me up for some collaborative political work. She loved my #LittleFreeLibrary in South #Saanich 😊📚
Just waved goodbye to the AWS Community Team Offsite and my spirit is soaring with inspiration for 2024! 🚀 Immensely grateful for the shared wisdom and innovative sparks. I'm channeling this energy and am fully committed to crafting the BEST user group program in North America. Let’s elevate together, community! 🌐💼 #AWS#UserGroup#Innovation#CommunityBuilding#2024Vision
I've restocked my #LittleFreeLibrary 😁📚
It's the only #LFL on Kamloops Ave in #Saanich 👍 If you're in my area, swing by & grab some #free#books or #DVDs or #CDs from my free community sharing library.
Every one of the contributing writers to The Uncaged Voice — Stories by Writers in Exile has escaped arrest and torture in countries where #FreedomOfThePress and expression is more aspirational than realized.
@myeyesaredim It's my gift to myself & community. I'm getting it. Reading it. Then, putting into my free little community library in front of our home ❤
It occurred to me today that the social value of the open-source work I do in my free time has probably been an order of magnitude more useful to the world than everything I've ever done as a paid employee. Needing to seek a wage almost certainly makes me a less productive member of society than I would otherwise be.
As a retired technical writer, I think of how short-lived the usefulness of my work was. It no longer has any value at all.
The community building work I am doing now without a paycheck, though, can potentially stay useful well beyond my lifetime because of the ripple effect of building supportive relationships.
"#Mastodon is failing" so hard that #Fediverse just crossed 4mln monthly active accounts (based on the-federation.info). :blobcatgiggle:
This is already slightly more than Nov and Dec #TwitterMigration waves' peaks. And it is still going up.
What I find particularly important is that it seems like a lot of this is not new accounts, but people returning to accounts created before and then left unused.
I expect this to be a more resilient kind of growth. Less of a drop after it peaks.
I’m seeing a couple side conversations about the wibblur announcement implying we’re pretending to be on the FediVerse or we’re doing what other instances are. There’s two things:
We are intentionally disconnected from the FediVerse. Everyone knows you can’t safely protect your users when federated and admins spend time banning instances but you have to rely on a hashtag to help. We’re taking the step to not deal with this and focus on building a community first.
others are definitely taking the same values seriously but we are being loud about it and making it the priority. Most importantly we’re building a platform for people and architecting the organization around these values. I want to find these individuals doing it to speak and learn what works and didn’t work. We’re not doing this in a bubble.