Photo by Daniel Frese on Pexels.com I love to walk. Walking was how I mostly got around when I was a kid, and I guess it stuck with me. It’s not just good exercise, and it’s more than a way to get from one place to another. For me it’s also a way to let …
Author Archives: Palma Joy Strand
A Quilt Meditation on Democracy, Social Connection, & Civity
Fall has arrived here in Milwaukee, and the quilts have come out of the closet. My mother took up quilting later in life, and I have several of her quilts. One that is made of scraps from many different other projects is especially dear to me. I can identify dresses she wore and shirts she …
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A DIYCivity Wave
One of the primary projects at Civity over the past year has been developing Do-It-Yourself pages on our website. And we are thrilled to announce that DIYcivity is now up and available! We invite you to peruse, browse, take a gander at one of the resources linked to – and take Civity out for a spin. …
A Path Out of Polarization: The Strengthening Democracy Challenge and the Civity Storytelling Intervention
This article originally appeared on the listserv Beyond Intractability on June 12, 2023. Political polarization seems to be everywhere – in Washington DC, at statehouses around the nation, and in school board and other local government meetings. It has come to appear so entrenched as to be a permanent part of the national landscape, inevitable …
Democracy’s Civity Foundation
I live in an old house – more than 100 years old. The other day I was down in my basement with a plumber looking at replacing some cast iron pipes that have reached the end of their time. It’s never fun to be faced with significant home repairs, but at the same time I …
Head to Heart
Some years ago, a common bumper sticker offered this advice: “Think Globally. Act Locally.” Never has this advice been more salient. Climate change is global, yet its effects are experienced locally. Some communities are hit by harder and more frequent storms, or drought, or wildfire. Some communities are seeing their fossil-fuel-based economies falter as energy …
The ‘Conversation Before the Conversation’
We live in a world of urgent and potentially existential challenges. There is a crisis-level lack of housing. Democracy is under siege. The effects of climate change are upon us. At Civity, we often describe the work we do as helping people have “the conversation before the conversation.” The conversation before the conversation about how …
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The Power of ‘Power-With’
Civity is all about relationships – creating and strengthening bridging relationships that connect people who are different. These relationships form the relational infrastructure that underlies the civic infrastructure. Together, relational and civic infrastructure make it possible for communities to function. Civity relationships are relationships of respect and empathy. People “see” each other and share stories …
Belonging Is
Who knew that President Lyndon Johnson was a champion of civity!?!? During much of the pandemic I’ve been living in Arlington, Virginia. Early of a summer morning, before the heat of the day begins to rise, I often bike along the Potomac River. I pass by geese and goslings along with a few ducks, and …
The Push of Antiracism & the Pull of Civity
Beverly Daniel Tatum, psychologist and author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, provides a metaphor for racism that captures the feeling of being part of a larger system: the moving walkways that are found in many airports. Once you step onto the moving walkway, its motion carries you along. Even standing …
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