Harmony of the Heart

Help us bring deeper samanvaya (harmony) to our world! Sara Jolena Wolcott, Director of the ecotheology company Sequoia Samanvaya LLC (www.sequoiasamanvaya.org), and Ramasubramanian, director of the Dharma Institute, Samanvaya Social Ventures and the Sustainable Livelihood Institute in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, are traveling together to the Parliament of World Religions. Along with the Quaker Institute for the Future, we are having a series of satsanghas, dialogues, and sharing our work to help reMember and re-story where we come from, what we are doing here and support the sharing necessary for the work of decolonizing and creating sustainable cultures. At a time when the need for deeper connection across cultures and beneath the prevailing colonial/capitalist discourses is critical for living in our common home, we both are experiencing that this journey is already making a contribution.

The support that has already been generated for our journey is amazing. Friends and colleagues have helped buy tickets, find us places for us to stay, set up meetings, and even make Sequoia Samanvaya's first promotional film around the work of ReMembering and ReEnchanting. Our banner for the Parliament is being made by a friend in Tamil Nadu using local produced cloth and natural dies with a pattern Sara Jolena designed with their support. Every impasse that we hit, our community - including people whom we don't know very well - come and help us. Even at this early stage in the journey, we are experiencing a "right-ness" in what is emerging. It is a blessing - and a responsibility.

This fundraiser will help us attend the Parliament of World Religions where we have a booth and are part of several networks. Money raised goes first and foremost towards the remainder of our costs (travel, food, Parliament material, etc.).

This is Ram's first time in the USA and both of our first time at the Parliament and he has already begun to teach to small groups of people based on his experiments with truth and regenerative economies in south India. It is expected that the Parliament will bring in 20,000 people and we will have the profound opportunity to share our work with them as well as meeting potential collaborators, partners, friends, students, teachers and fellow travelers.

In contributing, you are not only supporting us, you are supporting the lineages and collective work of which we are a part.

The "gifts" are, primarily, Sara Jolena's first zine/booklet, From the Darkness and Ram's most recent booklet, Dharma Unplugged.

From the Darkness: The Prison Industrial Complex, Climate Change, Family Histories, and Divine Encounters is Sara Jolena's first creative non fiction reflection on her year as a chaplain intern at Rikers Island. The piece connects her work with indigenous communities, climate change, family history and spiritual experiences with her close engagement with the prison industrial complex in contemporary America. These are rare connections in our siloized world. This is a short piece, less than 10,000 words, complimented with Sara Jolena's original artwork.

Dharma Unplugged: Ethics of Ordinar Life among People Un-aggregated, arises from Ram's 20 years in the social/environmental sector in South India. A student of Gandhi, the Buddha, Sri Ramakrishna and village communities throughout India, this book points to a Dharma that exists "off the grid of indoctrinated and organized faith systems. It is a continuous living, learning and evolving process among ofdinary people. It flows and adopts to the ever-changing society and aligns, subverts, and alters that reality." This is about the truths learned and lived by ordinary people. It is a succinct book of hope, courage, and faith amidst dangerous times and ongoing threats against the very forces of life itself.

To be clear: neither publication's market value is the amount listed here! These are both short, soft-cover publications. This is a fundraiser! Please also note that hard copies of the books ordered are unlikely to arrive before December as we will not have the chance to post them until, at the earliest, the second week in November.

If you have any questions, or would like to connect with us before the Parliament (we are traveling through NYC, New Haven CT, Boston, and Bar Harbor, Maine) or during, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at: [email protected]