The letter I sent to the IDP community yesterday, in case you haven’t read it:

Dear Interdependence Project Community and Friends,

So what are we going to do now?

I’ve talked to literally hundreds of friends since the historic events of Tuesday night. It is clear that people hope and believe we are headed toward a new era of community involvement and grassroots participation in our society.

I agree wholeheartedly, but I think there’s a major caveat to that statement: this could be the beginning of a new era, if and only if we work to apply the tremendous human energy building up to the election toward participating in community on a more local level, every single day.

Obviously, I believe the Interdependence Project – with its multifaceted vision of community – is a great place to focus our energy.

We are having our One City Walk on this Saturday, beginning at the fountain at the entrance of Central Park on the Northeastern edge of Columbus Circle @ noon, and proceeding down to Prospect Park. The walk is serving to raise much needed funds for our Integral Activism program. What we currently lack in funding we make up for with volunteer and community enthusiasm. Just think what we could do with both funding and energy!

Will you sponsor me (or another walker)? I’m about $2000 short of my personal fundraising goal, so any pledges between $20 and, well…$2000…would be gratefully accepted. It only takes a minute:

http://theidproject.com/donate_howto.htm

Also, even if you haven’t been collecting pledges, please join us for the walk.

http://theidproject.com/onecity_walk.htm

Our short term goal for Integral Activism is to eliminate the harmful use of plastic bags in New York State and Portland, OR. Stay tuned for the release of our first public service video on the issue (produced by our very own Patrick Groneman) coming next Monday!

Our long term goal is to create a reproducible template for a new kind of activism, one that combines the inner wisdom of mindfulness practice with the outer transformative capabilities of community organizing techniques and political work. We plan to begin publishing writing about the methodology of Integral Activism in 2009.

Please get involved in whatever way you can. I hope to see you very soon, in person or in cyberspace.

With all best wishes for a new era,

Ethan Nichtern
Executive Director

The Interdependence Project

http://theidproject.org
http://onecityblog.com
Also find us on Facebook:
http://www.new.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=2753035992