Why now:

Ours is a nation divided.

We believe that to be welcome – to feel wholly at ease in our own skin, to be fully seen and heard and witnessed – is a basic right. It is one that we cannot attempt to claim for ourselves, and deny for others. It is a right that, throughout our history, has been granted only to the few. And it is a right that has been denied to a staggering number of people.

We also believe that those decrying hate far outnumber those emboldened by it. We believe racism, sexism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia and transphobia have no place in our democracy. And we believe this is a sentiment shared by many across party lines.

We have allowed grief – one of the few things that all of us share, regardless of age, or gender, or race, or class, or political beliefs – to become a conversation-killer rather than a conversation-starter. We choose to other one another, rather than pause to appreciate the length of roads traveled and the experiences that have shaped who we are. Changing that starts with each of us.    

We’re out to create self-organized structures for community-building, individual and collective healing, and shared solutions, in the form of one of humankind’s most ancient—and deceptively simple—rituals. 

We invite you to pull up a chair.