First day at Somali Community Services of Seattle tomorrow.

Eager to see what Sahra will need help with and what kind of services I can assist with.

Also eager to meet the Somali folk and help them in whatever capacity I can.

Thank you Creator!

Just came back from the retreat.

Thoroughly exhausted. It was quite an experience spending three days with my 9 other cohorts and the mentors. I am impressed by the synergy of the group.

a poem:


i am blessed through meeting such lovely spirits, divine

i feel a spirit of transformation through compassion

i hear the triumph of collective leadership

i see the rays of a hopeful future

Tomorrow I start my journey at Rainier Valley Corps as Fellow.

Nervous. Excited. Ready.

I had the great pleasure of spending my Saturday at Art Walk Rainier Beach. Heading down with my friend Jesse to the community center around noon, I took in all the sights and sounds that I love about a community event such as this. I just love open, free, community-oriented, family-friendly art events. The last community event I attended was Beacon Hill Block Party, which was tremendously fun. I was happy to see it was a beautiful day and there were all sorts of folks engaging with each other around the community center. I got to see my future boss, Sahra, at the Somali Community Services booth. She told me about the Somali Dance that would happen later at one of the stages, and I was looking forward to that.

Meanwhile, lovecitylove, one of my favorite seattle improv/open-mic bands was playing. They put on a wonderful, high-vibration show like they always do. A message of being yourself and engaging with your community is always welcomed, especially in musical performance. Nothing but inspiring.

Later I had the pleasure of witnessing the Somali Community Services dance group perform some great choreography to Somalian beats. Afterwards I got to see the young buddhist association perform a lotus dance. All of it was very beautiful. Seeing children and youth engage in art and performance like this moves me in a deep way.

I also got to witness EriAm, a young group of three sisters, originally hailing from Renton, perform. They were incredible! I was blown away by their talent. It was a real treat.

I also got to hear a Native American speak about his canoe and how he builds canoes with youth in his community. He had a great message about widening and opening your family circle by caring about all kinds of people. It was an important and beautiful message.

Overall it was a great day of great talent and interactions. I will end with a quote from lovecitylove's website:

"We nourish the revival of community in order to raise the frequency of humanity at large."
-lovecitylove

In four days I start my year-long program at the Rainier Valley Corps Fellowship with nine other fellow members and the dedicated staff. We start off our journey with a retreat in Marysville for three days. I'm thrilled to meet the other fellows and folks involved in nonprofit organizations in Seattle. I'm also excited to begin working with the Somali Community Services at which I was placed. I'm gaining as much knowledge as I can about nonprofit business through blogs like nonprofitwithballs.com (of which the author is the founder of RVC) and readings about social justice and collective leadership.

Something I'd like to share in a paper written by Dale Nienow about Collective Leadership:

"Collective Leadership is a practice that develops the conditions that allow a group of committed individuals to co-construct solutions to challenging issues from a place of learning rather than from having predetermined answers."

I'd also like to add this quote regarding leadership in the Tao Te Ching, written by Lao Tzu:

"A leader is best
When people barely know he exists
Of a good leader, who talks little,
When his work is done, his aim fulfilled
They will say, "We did this ourselves."

With that, I sign off.
World and Inner Peace,
Andy