As the year comes to a close this month, Bhumisparsha’s organizing team has been taking stock of the remarkable changes we’ve seen in our community since this time last year, when we were preparing to host our first “Touching the Earth” weekend retreat in Atlanta, USA. Since then, we have grown into a vibrant translocal sangha gathering regularly online and doing all kinds of things together—from the Moon Cycle in April to the Kumbha Mela 24-hour practice extravaganza in August and our Community Day gatherings this fall, alongside vibrant self-organized spaces for facilitators, tech hosting, ancestor work, antiracist affinity groups, and regular ongoing practice offerings.
Bhumisparsha’s organizing team has also undergone some significant shifts in recent months, especially since our official incorporation in September as a Religious Nonprofit Organization registered in the US Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Last month, the six individuals who had been meeting as the Core Organizers—Brenda Collins, Rod Owens, Leigh Rosenberg, Alex Rodriguez, Repa Trinlay, and Justin von Bujdoss—adopted bylaws for the organization and set into motion a shift towards a Sociocratic model of organizing our internal work, dividing into a “Mission Circle” (which serves as the organization’s Board of Directors and is responsible for the biggest-picture decisions that affect the organization) and a “General Circle” (which sets policy that impacts the community’s day-to-day activities). Alex and Brenda serve in both circles, with Justin, Leigh and Rod rounding out the Mission Circle and Repa Trinlay in the General Circle. After this “cell division”, the General Circle also invited Karen Nelson and Jessie Rothkuo to join and support its work for the remainder of this year.
If you’d like to learn more about Sociocracy, the governance and facilitation framework behind this shift, the good people at Sociocracy for All have created this useful short introductory video:
In the year ahead, one of the General Circle’s priorities will be to establish “Department Circles,” small groups to whom responsibility for different areas of organization are delegated, each linked to the General Circle through two shared members. Our initial aspiration, shown in the diagram below, will create three additional circles to tend to Practice and Action, Community Care, and Resources:
An aspiration for Bhumisparsha’s next organizational structure, inspired by the Five Wisdom Dakinis. Diagram by Alex Rodriguez and Ari El Yehudit.
And in the meantime, of course, Bhumisparsha will continue as an ongoing experiment, with sangha members encouraged to self-organize around meeting our needs and tending to our inspiration as we deepen in the practices. Our hope is that this new emerging structure will continue to build itself up to meet the inspired organizing that is already taking place, allowing for a better flow of communication, trust, and resources as we continue to grow. We welcome any questions or suggestions you may have about where to go from here. And if you’d like to be a part of one of these circles as we expand next year—or know someone who would be a great fit—we’d love to hear from you. To reach out, simply send us an email at info@bhumisparsha.org