Erica Grevemeyer is the interim Director for Bay Area Nonviolent Communication (BayNVC) She joined the organization in 2003, after acting upon her desire to find meaning beyond financial sustainability in her work and left her software engineering career of 6 years. Prior to that she served 2 years in the Peace Corps in Morocco. She has a BA in Linguistics from University of Chicago and has been a student of Buddhism since 1992. Erica, also affectionately known as 'Svani', has been a regular fixture in the New Dharma Community since 2006. 'Svani' is short for Sundaresvani, which in Sanskrit means, "beautiful voice."

It is widely accepted that communication is one of the most important factors in a relationship. How we communicate with others and the quality of the way we interact is a mirror of how we commune with and regard ourselves. Relationship, a sense of belonging, and connection are universal human yearnings. The new year is a perfect time to look at the ways in which we communicate, especially if we resolve ourselves towards deep change.

Twenty-seven people from around the nation participated in CXC's 27 Days of Change this winter. One-third of the participants were local, while the remaining two-thirds live outside the greater Bay Area. For the first time ever, CXC offerred the 27 Days of Change: Winter Practice Period as an entirely virtual experience.

It's that time of year again when so many of us resolve to address habits and behaviors we wish to change. At the top of the list is usually something about weight loss or eating. Before taking away, perhaps it will be more useful to add first an exploration of mindfulness and eating. Incorporating the principles of mindful eating can be an effective approach to understanding the way we eat and relate to food.

It’s a new year, a new beginning, a new start. Many of us make resolutions and rearrange our goals and our approach to goals. Tadasana is the best place to start as it promotes confidence, happiness, and helps us create space in our bodies. The new year is a good to time to make new goals and set new standards for our selves. Let’s focus on the start or beginning of the new year and new resolutions or goals, with emphasis on foundation and confidence.

Dr. Taylor, a brain scientist who had a stroke that shut down her left brain, believes we can choose which side of our brain we operate from. She calls our right brain the "inner peace circuitry."(1) During her stroke, with her left brain "silent" of all chatter, she experienced the "euphoria" of losing the boundaries of her body and "sinking into the universe." She also lost the voice in her head, and in all of ours, that constantly says "I am" and that therefore also separates her, and all of us, from each other. She now knows that everyone can have the same experience of freedom and deep joy she had, if they choose to do so.

Faces of Climate Change*

Climate change is here and now and it is destroying the peoples, land, and way of life that has sustained humanity for thousands of years. It is affecting those who are least responsible for global warming; those in developing countries, who live in rural areas & whose lives and cultures embody very old traditions and wisdom. When the unsustainable way of life that keeps us separate from each other completely fails, we will need the wisdom and methods of those we are destroying today more than ever. We must act now before we lose the ineffable wisdom and ways of living that can save us all.

Co-authors and well-known experts on death and dying, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler, define grief as our internal response to loss. Last month in our INcite feature article, Founder, Rev. angel Kyodo williams, an expert on deep change, outlined the 6 Ways to Know Transformation.

Whether they were at MLK Park or sitting virtually, lots of folks showed their support for our second annual SIT for Change event. With help from organizations like Generative Somatics and Code Pink, as well as lots of virtual support, we raised successfully raised funds to support activists’ inner lives. AND we’re still accepting pledges.