This first field note is part of a series ‘Fieldnotes from a Community Catalyst’. These notes are all personal reflections made ‘in the midst of living’ within the Community - to help us and others keep on discussing, exploring and reimagining.

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The Maloca

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“The Community Catalyst helps create the conditions for a culture centered on relationships.”

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As one of two co-hosts of the Community, we were responsible for creating a space conducive for emergence and imagination. Our aspiration was to create a Maloca—an inviting space made vibrant by the people within it. We held the space with care and listened deeply. As a Community Catalyst, one key part of my role was to create the conditions for a culture centered on relationships.  Ultimately, relationships have been key to unlocking a very different type of potential in our community - to connect to the hope, care and courage we all need in these times. 

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What makes people come to a Maloca?
What role do relationships play in Reimagining?

HOPE

“Without a minimum of hope, we cannot so much as start the struggle.” – Paulo Freire

Hope has powered our relationships—and relationships have powered hope.
From the very beginning, through our six-month imaginaries journey, Reimagine Peacebuilding became a space of hope: a space where the Community could connect through shared struggles (sometimes for the first time) and dream together. For me, hope came from witnessing and supporting that dreaming. It came from recognizing the quiet, persistent reimagining already happening in the day-to-day. The images of the future we created together continue to remind us of what is possible. And perhaps, hope is also found in the every day— having a space to be together when local or global events shake our faith.

How did we practice hope?

• Telling the stories of our shared struggles
• Witnessing each other’s work and commitment—connecting to possibility
• Imagining preferred futures together through sketching and visualization
• Giving each other permission to step outside the system’s expectations
• Connecting to our creativity through play—like using LEGO to imagine what the land of this community could look like
• Encouraging each other to bring new parts of ourselves into the work

CARE

“To return to love is to return to each other.” – bell hooks

Hope laid the foundation for weaving a strong web of care. We intentionally designed for care: keeping the group small (max. 25 people), refusing to mistake scale for impact, and choosing to work in fractals. Care, for us, was not about psychological safety or ‘bringing our full selves’ in the way it’s sometimes framed. It was about building relational fabric—the kind that creates the conditions for us to be brave. It’s a culture that might begin with empathy but strives to go beyond it. It’s care that seeks to understand another’s reality, while accepting that such understanding will always be imperfect. It’s care that translates into action, in solidarity, grounded in our differences.

How did we practice care?

• Spending time face-to-face, even virtually
• Dedicating parts of every gathering to simply being together and connecting
• Embracing the power of ritual—gratitude circles, memory altars, candle-lighting ceremonies
• Moving at the speed of relationship
• Using multiple ways of sensing and making meaning, so all voices and ways of knowing could be included
• Making special provisions so every member could be present and participate

COURAGE

“Because I love you, I tell you what you cannot see.” – James Baldwin

We’ve also been learning to use that hope and care to make space for courage.

It wasn’t until deeper into the journey that I saw clearly: to truly imagine alternative futures, we must first be able to sit with the full diversity of our present realities, histories, and worldviews. We must hold space for vulnerable conversations—about the role of violence, about security forces, about activism. Only with a fuller understanding of our plurality can we unlock the full power of collective imagination.

How did we practice courage?

• Turning toward conflict and seeking the wisdom within it
• Unpacking our plural identities and how they show up
• Holding space for conversations about privilege, marginalisation, and equity
• Translating those discussions into tangible policy experiments—e.g. role selection, compensation, accountability
• Establishing an internal group for empathetic listening and support
• Bringing in a decolonial coach to hold 1:1 processing spaces

A new type of space

Centering relationship began as a radical challenge to business-as-usual. We dared to place love and people at the heart of social change.
And yet, at the time of design, I don’t think we fully grasped just how intertwined our capacity to relate and our capacity to reimagine really were.

The forces of hope, care, and courage have powered our collective imagination.
We spiral toward our destination, deepening as we go.
We fumble forward, discovering what “right relationship” truly means.

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A space for reimagination is a different kind of space. Movements with deep care. Community with courage. It asks for new skills. It demands the expansion of our worldviews, and the embrace of what’s possible.

Transformation needs space:

• for personal reflection,
• for relationship,
• for questions,
• and for the multiple hands that can help guide us as we make the path by walking.

What if, as we continued our journey, we spiral around these pillars—holding them as gentle invitations to go deeper?
What if we gave ourselves permission to embrace our imagination—regularly, wholeheartedly?
What if there were more spaces that held us—both in relationship and in the fullness of possibility?

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Mycelium

Mycelium: What inspired and inspires me (and might inspire you):

• adrienne maree brown – Emergent Strategy, of course: centering relationship and allowing what needs to unfold.
• Courage of Care – a framework, practice space, and community.‍
• Rebecca Solnit – Hope in the Dark

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