The sun is shining in through my window, and the cat is outside curled on the garden seat, soaking up the warmth. Daffodils bow their heads; the grass is so long I will have to get the lawnmower out before the day is over. January’s cold dark days seems a long way off.
Yet, images of January flit through my mind. The day of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the night of this image on Twitter.
![By lepipou (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARassemblement_place_de_la_republique_charlie_hebdo_1.JPG)
By lepipou (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
That night, for me was the birth of 1000 Voices Speak For Compassion, even though the idea didn’t come into my mind until three days later when I read Lizzi’s post We All Need the Village.
1000 Voices Speak For Compassion is three months old. I didn’t plan for it to be something that would keep going. In all honesty, in the moments that I made the decision to invite people to join me in writing about compassion, I had no idea how we’d do it, just that it would be a way to bring people together to talk about compassion. It would let people know they weren’t alone.
Three months on, three link-ups and where are we now?
We’ve got several things happening with 1000 Voices Speak. We have a very active Facebook group with over 1600 members. That’s huge! In the group, every day people share compassion posts. Some of these are posts group members have written about compassion. Some are posts and videos that people find on the internet. Some are simply photos of compassion quotes, like the one I’ve shared at the top of this post. All are equally important. The latter two have the effect of helping people feel encouraged to see that others around the world do care. It also gives us a chance to see the many ways compassion shows up in life. The posts are diverse, from random acts of kindness to something a child has said.
We also have people supporting each other, to get through challenging situations. Compassion in action. Sometimes this happens in the Facebook group itself; it also happens on each others’ blogs and on social media.
Then we have our monthly link-ups. Along with the posts we write on a daily basis, these take our message outwards into the world. So what we are doing is creating a flow of compassion – inwards to the group and outwards to the world. At the moment our flow is perhaps a small stream, and in time it will become a river, perhaps even an ocean. That flow is important however small or large it is – life depends on flow in all its forms.
The Magic Happens Radio show
As part of that outward flow I have some exciting news! I’m going to be on the Blog Talk Radio, doing an interview about 1000 Voices Speak For Compassion. Annette Rochelle Aben will be interviewing me for her radio show The Magic Happens on Friday 24th April at 1.30 – 2pm EST (that’s 6.30pm in the UK and 10.30am PST.) Please come and join us! You can access the radio show here If you can’t make it for that time, don’t worry, the interview will be archived so you can listen another time.
My thanks goes to Ronovan of Ronovan Writes for putting Annette and I in touch! It’s really exciting to be spreading our message of compassion in this new way! That link again – The Magic Happens.
Thank you to every one of you for taking part in spreading compassion throughout the internet and the world, whether you have joined in the Link-up, written posts throughout April, shared compassionate posts from others, read someone else’s post, or watched a video. Or if you have paused in a moment of anger or judgement and chosen compassion instead. My favourite thing of all about 1000 Voices Speak for Compassion is hearing that it’s led someone to make changes in their own life, either in how they respond to others or in how they treat themselves.
Keep spreading the love and I love you all!
12 Comments on “Magic Happens When Compassion Flows”
I just LOVE how your heart and desire for something bigger than an ‘ache’- to take flight into THIS. Such a massive following and community that just keeps growing! What a powerful way to bring purpose and action to ignite a flame for GOOD amidst all the tragic BAD.
Can’t wait to hear the radio show Yvonne!! YAY!
Chris, an “ache” is a very good description of that longing! And yes, it is wonderful how it keeps growing. We’re still finding our way really, still very early days, but already it seems to be creating ripples.
Thanks for your comment and for being part of it!
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. — Margaret Mead
Thanks for starting this. I’m into my third year working on a trilogy of novels to illustrate this principle of epigenetics–how our nurturing of this or the next generation sifts its way down through coming generations. Thank goodness for people like you who work in more immediate forms.
Thanks for that lovely quote Faith. I do know it, but it’s great to get the reminder.
Your novels sound great! Have you published any of them yet, or are you launching them all together? Now I think about it, my own novel is on a similar theme – about how generations pass on patterns of relating and behaving and how to break damaging cycles.
Thanks for your comments and so glad to see the 1000 Voices helps keep you going on your project! (I love hearing things like that.)
None of the novels published yet. I just pitched the first of them to an agent last weekend, but haven’t heard back. Meanwhile, I discovered an autobiography that provides a lot of detail I’d been looking for–so I’m revising the novel I already pitched. I’d been looking for something like this for a couple of years and now I find it!! (My novels are set in the late thirties and forties. One of my two main protagonists is a big band singer.) I’ve already published a couple of memoirs, so I may self-publish these if this traditional publishers turn out to be too hard to find.
I meant to add that this 1000Voices project helps keep me going on my project.
I’m so happy to be a little part of it. 🙂
Thanks for being part of it, Leslie!
Thank you for mentioning my connection in this but it was more of an obvious step to me. To compassionate and wonderful ladies who needed to connect and share a great message and movement. You can remove my name and link. I really did not do this for mention.
Much Respect
Ronovan
Phenomenal. I just discovered y’all and am so pleased to be here and be writing about compassion (and in April, nurturing) alongside everyone else. Kudos and brava!! so many times over!
Good luck with your broadcast career; I bet you’ll be a star. And it is marvellous the way you have started to build a real committed following
Thank you for all the work you do for the group. I’m loving it.