Blooming Through Community: How You Can Shape Your Community
By Katherine Coster, Volunteer Copywriter and Copyeditor
 

Community is the soil that nourishes us as we grow. We depend on our community to make us stronger. We all have a community. It starts in your immediate surroundings. Who are the people you see every day? Maybe you live at home with family. Maybe you have a roommate or a partner. Maybe you have coworkers. Maybe it’s a pet or a houseplant. These are the people you spend the most time with. Then you have the people you don’t see as often as you might like: friends or family who live far away. These people are on the outskirts of your community. They might be busy with their own families or jobs, but they are still there for you when you call them.
 

You must remember that you have power over your community. It may take time and effort, but you can shape your community into what you want. First, of course, you have to decide what you want your community to be. You must ask yourself questions like: What do I want from my community? What do I need? And what will make me feel less alone? Once you have answered these questions for yourself, you can begin. I believe the best way to start is with an open and honest conversation with the members of your community. The people around you might know you well, but they can’t read your mind. It is best to tell them what you want and to listen to what they want in return. This level of open communication will go a long way in making your community a safe space for all its members. 
 

When having this conversation, it is best to focus on future possibilities rather than past mistakes. Let everyone have a say in the community’s future because it’s their community as well. You can be ready with suggestions on how to improve, but make sure you leave space for everyone’s ideas. Brainstorming all together may provide surprising results. It will certainly help everyone feel involved in and committed to shaping the community in the future. This conversation should be ongoing. It might take many conversations over many days, but it is always worth having. It is also important to have similar conversations regularly in the future. Community is a lifelong endeavor and it should evolve as you and your members evolve. People’s wants and needs change over time, so it is important to keep checking in with each other. This might mean setting aside time every few months to check in with each other and see what you can do to help each other in a better way.
 

Another great way to help shape your community is to lead by example. Showcase the kindness and empathy you want to see in others. We learn how to act from the people around us and they learn from us too. This also helps you to create more realistic expectations. Once you know what you want and how you want to be treated, you can test out this way of being yourself. Find things you can do every day that will help foster the community you want to see. This way you are putting what you want into action and you can see what methods work best. For example, if you want your community to be more emotionally open, you can start asking those around you how they’re feeling more often. This gives people space to talk about their feelings and will likely result in them asking you about your own.
 

You also have power over the size of your community. If you feel it’s too small, you can always invite more people in. Seek out people you want to be around and invite them to spend quality time with you. More often than not, the people around you feel just as lonely as you do and they will welcome the opportunity to make more friends. If you don’t have anyone currently in mind, you can always get involved in your local community and meet new people that way. One of the best ways to meet people is to explore different opportunities that pique your interest. If you enjoy reading, look for a local book club. If you want to be more active, find a local intramural league for a sport you’re interested in. There are plenty of opportunities like this available at ASCENDtials as well as local libraries or community centers. There you can find people with similar interests who are also looking to meet new people and make new friends.
 

Community is incredibly important and you must remember that you have the power to build your community into whatever you want it to be. With time and effort, you can create a safe and open space for everyone around you.

Blooming like the Flowers

By Jaymes Abeloe, Volunteer Copyeditor

As we transition into the Spring season, the flowers start to bloom. During their yearly cycle, flowers start to bloom specifically during the Spring time, as if they are aware of the season and that they know when they should bloom. Though we don’t understand how they know when to open up, we do know that we too can open up and bloom like flowers do. And together, we can bloom by serving many communities, our planet, and each other in many ways.

Blooming, as Meriam-Webster puts it, is synonymous with flowering, which is the period when a plant produces an opening flower. However, there is another definition that can apply to us, and that is thriving in health, beauty, and vigor. And just like flowers, we can bloom by taking action to help each other and our world as Spring rolls around. At ASCENDtials, some of our most frequent events include beach cleanups and highway cleanups, and participating will do more than just clean these beaches and highways. Such activities can help us bloom thanks to companionship, cooperation, and our care for the environment. Cleanups aren’t the only way that we can bloom, because Kemetic Yoga can also help us achieve that, as the practice can elevate our physical well-being.

Much like how low sunlight and imbalanced nutrients in soil would prevent flowers from blooming, we would also be unable to bloom as well if we have poor well-being and a lack of interconnectedness. Trying to counter this can feel impossible. In an era when workplace productivity is rampant and the internet and social media are a core part of our lives, the high amounts of stress that result from this can make maintaining our well-being an endless challenge, which in turn can prevent us from blooming. But while work and social media are unavoidable parts of society, it is possible for us to set these aside and spend our time improving physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. Spending time improving our well-being can help us achieve interconnectedness, and in turn, help us bloom.

Partaking in Kemetic Yoga is one of the best activities to relieve ourselves of the stresses of the world, and it can do more than just improve our physical well-being. It serves as a reminder that we are all interconnected and reach elevated consciousness, and that’s when we would be able to bloom. When flowers bloom during Spring, they do more than just look aesthetically pleasing to us; as flowers bloom, they release pollen for insects to attract and carry to other flowers, and through pollination, the flowers turn into fruit for us to eat. And just like how flowers blooming would lead to them producing fruit, our blooming can result in the fruits of our labor doing good for both each other and our planet.

With a sense of interconnectedness and healthy well-being, we are able to take care of our planet through cleanups on beaches and highways. Not only does picking up trash on beaches and around highways make them look more pleasing to the eye, but it also prevents trash from polluting plants and the ocean with plastic and other hazardous materials. Our efforts in taking care of our planet are what it means for us to bloom; once we bloom, we can serve the natural world, just as how blooming flowers in the natural world can serve us.

Join us as we care for another section of our Adopted Highway!

Come lend a hand in sprucing up Highway 5N on the last Friday of each month. ASCENDtials has adopted a portion of the highway which we care for monthly. We will meet on Friday, April 5th from 5:15 – 6:00 p.m. where all volunteers will receive a brief orientation before the clean-up begins! We will meet in the Autozone parking lot at 5:00 pm.
 

Join us as we clean our Adopted Highway!

 ASCENDtials has adopted a portion of the highway which we care for monthly. We will meet from 12:15 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. (PDT) on Sunday, April 7th in front of the 2688 E Mission Bay Dr. parking lot, where all volunteers will receive a brief orientation before the clean-up begins! 

Cleanups will be held along the Highway 5 South on-and-off ramps at Clairemont exits. Then, when we’re done, let’s have lunch after the event! Stick around and hang out with us! 

Join us as we care for our beautiful Adopted Highway!

ASCENDtials is responsible for caring for many of the crucial highways throughout the San Diego area! Come join us on Tuesday, April 30th from 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. to clean up a stretch of highway 805 N! We will meet at 2300 Sweetwater Rd National City, CA 91950.