Community Is a Practice

Reflections from the Spring Equinox Bonfire

Photo by Tegan Mierle on Unsplash

There’s something about a threshold that invites honesty.

The Spring Equinox is one of two moments in the year when light and dark are perfectly balanced: equal day, equal night. Last week, a group of us gathered virtually for the third session of the Curious Embers Bonfire series to sit with that threshold together, and ask: What are we ready to welcome in?

The theme was Community.

Not community as a warm concept to admire from a distance, but as a living, breathing practice. Something we build, tend to, and return to. Something that holds us, and that we hold in turn.

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What You Said Before We Even Started

Before the event, I asked everyone who registered a simple question: What does community mean to you?

I want to share some of what was offered, because the answers themselves began to paint a picture:

• “My people. Whom I can confide in and be a shoulder to cry on.”

• “Finding / reminding me of myself outside of my job.”

• “How people make me feel.”

• “Chosen friends and family.”

• “Mutual support and understanding.”

• “Resilience.”

And one response, from Ashley B., that stopped me in my tracks:

“Community is the only real antidote to the digital noise and doom and gloom we see every day. It’s about being intentional, moving past 15-second clips to actually connect with humans, share resources, and learn from each other. Especially with everything happening in the world, these circles are the grounding force that keeps us resilient and reminds us of our shared humanity.”

Grounding force. What a telling and humbling way to sit with what Community can mean to us.

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Rethinking What Community Actually Is

Spring cleaning doesn’t just mean the closets. Sometimes, it means reaching into our own operating system and examining the habits of thought, the stories about ourselves, the quiet ways we’ve stayed small, or separate, or closed.

This year, that inquiry has led me to “community”. This concept is something I’ve tried to put language to for a while, and here’s where I’ve landed:

Community as inclusivity: not just a space where I feel included, but one where I feel called to help others feel included as well. I’ve been so lucky to find that this year, through new cohorts and circles of friends who have made it safe to bring my whole self.

Community as a sense: an inner quality of openness and attention. Something you cultivate in yourself first, before you can find it anywhere else. That sense, I’ve come to believe, is the seed. Everything else grows from it.

Community as an orientation: a way of moving through the world where many different people belong to my tribe. Where the stranger on the plane, the neighbor I’ve never properly met, the colleague I only know through Slack… all of them are potential kin. I often remind myself: be the one to buy the first beer (or these days, the non-alcoholic functional beverage - same energy). Community is both a relational habit and a compass north.

Community as an outcome: not a resource to consume and extract from, but a garden I’ve helped till and toil. One that continues to flourish in beauty and abundance even when I’m not actively tending to it.

And then, language nerd that I am, I went looking at the word itself and was honestly surprised. Com-munis, from Latin. Munis, as in municipality. A group bound by shared location, shared duties, shared interests. Providing services to one another. There’s a grounding force in that, to return to an earlier definition. Community isn’t just warmth and belonging - it’s also responsibility. It’s showing up to give, not only to receive.

And beneath all of that: commune. To connect to something larger than ourselves.

A reminder that I, by myself, am not the unit of success.

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Photo by Valdemaras D. on Unsplash

Sitting Together by the Fire

After setting the stage, I guided the group through a visualization and a compassion-based meditation, and I have to say, this was one of the moments that most delighted me in how it landed.

I asked everyone to imagine themselves seated near an actual bonfire. Not a metaphor for productivity or ambition, but a fire of the oldest kind. The kind that has gathered people against the cold, against the dark, against the fear of being alone in the world. A place of safety. Of warmth that feels alive.

Many have sat here before. And many will find their way here someday. You are not a beginning or an end. You are part of something continuous.

From that place of shared presence, we moved into Loving Kindness (or Metta) meditation, a practice that begins with extending compassion inward, then slowly ripples outward in expanding circles. First to yourself. Then to someone you love easily. Then to a neighbor or acquaintance, someone in the fabric of your daily life. Then to all beings, in their beauty and their brokenness.

What struck me most was how tuned in and present the group felt throughout. The conversation that followed was a beautiful blend of the deeply felt and the delightfully practical: from the abstract (what community means to us, what it asks of us) to the tangible (one participant shared the idea of offering plant clippings to neighbors in spring as a simple, alive way to spark connection).

That kind of generative, grounded exchange is exactly what I hope these Bonfires become known for.

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The Ecology of Connection with Kayla

I was joined this month by a dear friend and collaborator, Kayla Calkins, who brought something I’m still thinking about days later.

Kayla works on community, both little-c and big-C, in her personal life and her career, and the framework she carries is what she calls an Ecology of Connection: the idea that when we relate to each other, to our environments, and to our collective wellbeing, we become capable of changing the behaviors and systems that currently limit what we can do together. She often invokes the words of climate justice leader Colette Pichon Battle: “If you’re not okay, I’m not okay.” There is no isolated thriving. Resilience, at its core, is relational.

What I find most compelling in Kayla’s framing is the call to build those bonds before we need them - and we sure will need them, if the contemporary history of disasters and our relative unpreparedness are any indication. There is a beautiful and humbling urgency to proactively deepening connection with the people already woven into the fabric of our daily lives, not just in moments of crisis.

The neighbor you wave to. The colleague you chat with briefly. The block you’ve lived on for years but never really met. These relationships are dormant infrastructure. And tending to them now is an act of profound care, for the community and for yourself.

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The Pancake Social: A Prototype

To bring this philosophy to life, Kayla shared a story that I think belongs to all of us now.

She and her husband Ben decided to meet their neighbors, armed only with a giant bag of pancake mix, an open home, and invitations strategically printed in Comic Sans to keep the vibe unmistakably casual and “come as you are”. They left flyers at all 20+ homes on their block with a phone number and an invitation to show up on a Sunday morning and simply get to know each other.

The response was warm and immediate. People who couldn’t make it still wanted in; A local coffee roaster on the block offered to provide coffee for the event. Despite some unfortunate weather and some quick-thinking to build a few canopies, neighbors who had lived side by side for years actually met each other.

There’s a wonderfully simple lesson in this - It didn’t require a committee or a budget or a grand vision. It required some Krusteaz, a little courage, and a font choice that said: this doesn’t have to be perfect. That’s the prototype.

What’s yours?

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Carrying the Wisdom Forward

Even if you weren’t in the room, you’re still in the circle.

Here are a few quiet questions to sit with, drawn from our conversation - take a moment to chew on each one before you move to the next:

Where in your life have you been waiting to feel included, when you might be the one with the power to make someone feel included?

Who is already in the fabric of your daily life that you haven’t really turned toward yet?

What would it feel like to be the one who buys the first beer or brings the pancakes?

And if you’re moved to act, here’s a simple invitation: design one small, joyful act of community for the weeks ahead.

You don’t need to make it elaborate. To help you scope it down to something real, try walking through these questions:

• Who is this for? (One person? A few neighbors? A group you’re already part of?)

• When will it happen? (Pick an actual date, even a tentative one.)

• How will you let them know? (A text, a flyer, a knock on the door?)

• What do you need in advance? (Pancake mix? A calendar invite? Nothing at all?)

• What’s the vibe, casual or directed? (Comic Sans or formal invitation? Both are valid.)

• Could you scope it down even further? (What’s the smallest version of this that still sparks connection?)

The smallest gestures, done with intention, are often the ones that last.

Thank you for being here. For showing up - to this page, to your community, to yourself.

With warmth,

Miguel ❤️‍🔥

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What’s Ahead

In the months ahead, Curious Embers will continue hosting seasonal Bonfire sessions, offering direct coaching conversations, and creating space for the kind of reflection that helps you live and lead from a quieter, truer place.

If something here has stirred something in you, I’d love to stay in touch:

Follow Curious Embers on Substack for future reflections and event announcements

🔥 Join the next Bonfire — details coming soon. Reach out to [info @ curiousembers.com] to be added to the calendar!

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