We swim in the water of the systems we’re in. And because we’re used to this water—these systems—they come to be invisible and sometimes appear inevitable to us. The water …
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Author Archives: Palma Joy Strand
“Healthy Green Shoots”: Our Common Purpose at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Malka and I recently had the honor of participating in a meeting at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The occasion was the wrapping up of Our Common Purpose …
A Tale of Two Stories
When I hear the same thing from multiple sources and in multiple ways, I pay attention. This kind of synchronicity means that something big is happening and that lots of …
The Civity Storytelling Intervention Goes to Minnesota
As many of you know, the Civity team submitted an intervention in the Stanford-based Strengthening Democracy Challenge back in 2021. The Challenge was to test whether online interventions of eight minutes or …
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We Are Prairie Grass
As 2025 draws to a close, I find myself thinking of prairie grass. Those of you who have attended one of our workshops know that we offer the image of …
Seven Ways to Slice & Dice the Us-vs-Them Bogeyman
This is a fun title for a serious blog. I hear a lot – all of us hear a lot – about the prevalence of Us-vs-Them dynamics. We as a …
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Vision and Tenacity in Challenging Times
I recently spent a week with family in the Town of Ashland, Oregon. Ashland lies at the very southern end of the state, nestled between the Siskiyou and Cascade Mountain …
The “We the People” Mosaic
For a long time, I’ve been drawn to mosaics. I remember making a mosaic as an art project when I was a Camp Fire Girl – pushing tiny smooth stones …
As we hurtle toward the election, remember this…
At the end of September, I drove up to Lake Superior for a long weekend. The Ojibway/Anishinaabe, who lived in the region long before Europeans arrived, call it Gichigami. It is monumental, the …
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Our Differences Are Magic
This column originally appeared in The Fulcrum. The definition of “civity” is “a culture of deliberately engaging in relationships of respect and empathy with others who are different.” The goal …