An Invitation to Openness

​In unsettling times, it’s tempting to protect ourselves by seeking certainty. We draw starker boundaries around ourselves and others. We prepare to defend ourselves and what we believe. It sometimes seems impossible to be open to surprises in a world that rarely behaves the way we expect it to, and we resist being changed by what we encounter.

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An Invitation to Openness is an evening of poetry, music, conversation, and contemplative practice with Marc Anderson and Miguel Rivera, two longtime musicians whose lives and work cross contemplative, philosophical, artistic, and cultural traditions.

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We’ll spend the evening exploring and practicing openness together. What does it mean to be open? Open to another person or to an unfamiliar idea? Open to grief, beauty, or love? We’re not trying to find a particular answer. Instead, this gathering is an invitation to spend time practicing something simple (and surprisingly difficult): meeting ourselves, one another, and the world from a place of openness.