March ’s Theme is Corruption

Corruption can start innocently, like favoring someone you know over someone you don’t. Or recalling a gift they once sent, and repay them with a project for that sweetness. Corruption is a spectrum, rewarding social connections and financial advantages over the rules of fair play. It exists in every society and every institution. 

Some people survive through corruption, the labyrinthine bureaucracies where they live making it literally impossible otherwise. But while they survive, others perish. Rising plumes of toxic chemicals, collapsing buildings not constructed to code, we owe the calamities all around us to those who cared more about profit than people and gain over the greater good. 

As social anthropologist Lucy Koechlin notes, “A world without corruption is a powerful idea. But it doesn’t appear out of the blue.” It takes courage to speak out. To demand transparency and accountability. To strengthen whistleblower protections and the rule of law. To break up corporate concentration while organizing coalitions of people to reset the balance. What will you do to hold power to account? Our Monterrey chapter chose this month’s exploration of Corruption and Violeta Hernández illustrated the theme.

February ’s Theme is Touch

Across the years when we had to stay apart to keep one another safe, skin hungered for the sensation of being pressed against another. The longing for touch was deeply felt. 

Unlike sight or sound, the senses we primarily rely on for information, touch cannot be conveyed across distance through screens and speakers. Touch invites us to slow down, pay attention, and come closer. 

When we open ourselves to the ineffable — what cannot be transmitted through words — touch emerges as a language unto itself. The grit of the soil under our bare feet, the clay slip enrobing a potter’s wheel, the sun-warmed fur of a beloved pet — these sensations can be healing.

How will you stay in contact with the electric matter that keeps us alive? What will pass through your hands today?Our Lisbon chapter chose this month’s exploration of Touch and Emma Lopes illustrated the theme.

Watch CreativeMornings/NewYork with Maria Popova.Stream starts at 9am ET.

January ’s Theme is Sanctuary.

You can stop running now, you are safe here. A sanctuary offers protection to those who are vulnerable: those who are fleeing violence, those who have been cast off and told there is no place for them there, even animals whose habitats have disappeared. Here is a place where you can finally lay your head down and rest. 

The original meaning of sanctuary was a sacred place, containing a holy relic or person. A sanctuary recognizes that each of us, no matter where we have came from or what we’ve done, and our needs — for a full belly, for a roof, for safety, to be free from worry — are inviolable and whole. 

Where is it that you find refuge? What happens to your body when you cross its threshold? And most importantly, how can you hold the door open for others?Our Sheffield chapter chose this month’s exploration of Sanctuary, Lisa Maltby illustrated the theme, and Mailchimp is presenting the theme.

Watch the livestream of our CreativeMornings/NewYork event, streaming Friday Dec 16 starting at 9am ET.

December ’s Theme is Abundance.

Abundance is a state of plenty. In an intensely competitive society, we often feel like we have the opposite. Capitalism breeds a mentality of scarcity — it’s hard to feel like we have enough when we’re constantly trying to accumulate more. 

Gratitude magnifies our experience of abundance. When we marvel at the taste of ripe summer fruit, juice bursting from its skin. When we set a table, a seat for every person we cherish, and bathe in the radiance. 

Generosity multiplies abundance. When we prioritize mutual flourishing over private stockpiling, plant ecologist Robin Wall Kimmerer posits, “the practice for dealing with abundance is to give it away.” Once you stop hoarding what you fear to lose, you find that the more you share, the richer — in community, in wellbeing — you become. 

What would it take for us to feel like we have enough? What does it take for us to unclench our fists and share our overflowing bounty?
Our Santa Fe chapter chose this month’s exploration of Abundance, Neebinnaukzhik Southall illustrated the theme, and Mailchimp is presenting the theme.

Join us for CreativeMornings/NewYork on Nov 18th at 9am to see Peter Canby on the theme of Truth.

November ’s Theme is Truth.

Truth lies at the bottom of a well, winding from its source in the icepack of distant mountains. Truth tastes pristine, uncompromised by what would be profitable or convenient. Truth causes your body to hum like a tuning fork, resonating at the same frequency as the universe around you. “When you experience an undeniable truth,” writer and social worker Jessica Dore observes, “you will beg, borrow, and steal. You will rearrange your whole life, forsake everything, just to serve what is real.”

And yet the truth is fiercely contested when competing narratives collide. We forge our truth in a crucible, testing its strength through heat and hammering. Instead of smashing our convictions against one another like a particle accelerator, could we sort through the messy, contradicting facts from all around us, together? Can we wade through paradox, the dark tangle of it all, and make sense of the world?Our Buenos Aires chapter chose this month’s exploration of Truth and Sol Cotti illustrated the theme.

October ’s Theme is Ethos.

Ethos is that specific quality that defines a place, time, or group of people. When you step into a room, a busy downtown, or a community gathering, you intuit its spirit. A messy DIY space invites experimentation and mistakes, a lush city park promises tranquility to anyone who seeks it. Maybe you even know of a monthly event where everyone is welcome and everything is free of charge. 

At its core is a paradox: despite the specificity of an ethos, it’s impossible to pinpoint or trace to a specific origin. What honed that distinctive sensibility is long gone, vanished into myth. 

With our actions and words, we embody these values and beliefs beyond conscious knowing. In turn, we subtly shape the ethos that our descendants — of family, of place — will receive from us. Ethos is alchemic, ineffable, and infinitely ponderable across place and culture. What ways of moving through the world did you inherit?
Our Asheville chapter chose this month’s exploration of Ethos and Colin Sutherland illustrated the theme.