"The Fierce Urgency of Now" - A conversation and exploration

"The Fierce Urgency of Now"

A conversation and exploration

Live - Online or by Phone
(will not be recorded)

Saturday June 13,  9 pm - 10:30 pm  Eastern Daylight Time (US)

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The murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has sparked an uprising all over the United States.  Systemic racism and state violence to uphold systems of injustice are being resisted by people in the US and all over the world.  Black lives matter, and it is heartening to see the widespread affirmation of this.  Yes of course all lives matter, but one who seeks a just society must specifically name the particular peoples whose lives are being treated as though they did not.

As an international organization based in the United States, we are keenly aware that this particular uprising reflects a universal cry of the human spirit for freedom and self determination.

Focusing is a liberating process.  Most of us first come to Focusing to heal our inner conflicts.  But we quickly recognize the power of this compassionate inner attention to make our interactions with others more human, and to shift the ways in which society itself interacts.  Focusing and its underlying philosophy was developed by a man whose life was shaped by his family's escape from a country in which his life and the lives of his people did not matter.  In his essay on "The Town and Human Attention," Gene Gendlin wrote that "this split between inside and outside—we have to get across it. The split between individual and society, between finding yourself and dialogue, these things can't be split."

In a speech in 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King warned his listeners: "We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now....  We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation."

Please join us this Saturday for a conversation about "The Fierce Urgency of Now."  These conversations are intended to explore how we as a Focusing community can do more to bring Focusing, Thinking at the Edge and the Philosophy of the Implicit to the work of anti-racism and anti-oppression.  Come with your experience, your ideas and your questions.  This is intended as a conversation and an exploration.

There is no fee for this event. If you aren't a member, please consider becoming one here or making a donation of any size.  (This is not required for attendance.)