From Simran, who spoke as part of our “Sit Down, Rise Up” Lecture Series last week (podcast coming in a few weeks time):

Dear IDP Sangha,

It was such a delight to share in silence and conversation with all of you.  I am up the firm belief that we all deserve more. . .more information, more compassion, more mindfulness, more care.  I butchered the quote when I met with you and wanted to get it right, so here it is. . .I decided to stay in my community of Lawrence, KS after reading the following passage from poet Gwendolyn Brooks.  It is featured on a local mural painted in a downtown parking lot that, each week, morphs into our Saturday farmers’ market:

“We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”

The environmental movement is dynamic and expansive – if we let it be.  We have to, I think, embrace small changes and then move on from tips to total systemic transformation.  I am most heartened by the environmental justice efforts of grassroots organizations like Communities for a Better Environment, Green Workers Cooperative, the Green Belt Movement, Peoples Grocery, and Greensburg Greentown.  They remind us how interconnected and interdependent we all are.  You can see their efforts up close by checking out the EJ series I created for Sundance Channel: http://www.sundancechannel.com/thegoodfight/home

My new eco-mantra is Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Relate. I hope you’ll join in the Life Cycle conversations my colleague Sarah Smarsh and I have started about the stories of everyday stuff on The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/simran-sethi
And look for me to kick up a little dust a few doors down from IDP at Vox Pop (I did my first-ever book reading at their Bklyn locale) in the next handful of months.  The info will be on my website: http://simransethi.com/upcoming.html

With oodles of metta,
Simran