Update: March 2026

Two of us in Tucson have taken the Beloved Community Circles training and are “inviting” a local circle. Given that we had 17 people at our first informational meeting, it may even be two circles! We will hold one more informational meeting on March 21, 2026. After that we intend to begin asking for the suggested commitment from folks who are interested.

We’re excited and inspired to be part of a Tucson Beloved Community Circle!

For more information, contact Jen Sellers, jensellers@comcast.net and/or Wanda Poindexter at interbeingtucson@yahoo.com.

This is what we share when we talk about why Beloved Community Circles are important to us:

Why Beloved Community Circles are dear to our heart

We are living in such difficult times. BCC unites three interrelated focal points – there is an intermingling (merging, mixing, fusing) of them.

The three Interrelated Buckets

• Personal liberation and personal spiritual/mindfulness practice to tend to our own suffering

• Community building to actively support and care for one another in the Circle

• Social transformation to collectively engage in racial, social, and climate justice

Each of you likely has, and we certainly do, ways/groups/practices in each of these areas that you’re already involved in. Many of them may even contain overlap in the three areas of focus. We hope that our BCC space is one that explicitly combines and intermingles the three. It’s clear that spiritual/mindfulness practices lead to stronger community and social transformation – because healing one’s self impacts others. We hope to create social action from a place of peace and personal groundedness rather than a place of anger and stress – this feels uncommon in today’s world.

How will we decide what we do?

We both have an interest in doing at least something together as a group, and we want to work that out together as a group. It may be that the group decides to support each other in individual actions. Or it may be a combination. In any case, it seems that when we pull one thread in an area of social justice it touches others. So if there’s a project focused on ending racism it might touch on addressing climate chaos. And something we hope to become more skilled at – finding and bringing in joy, especially to the societal transformation focus.

Support within a Beloved Community Circle can be multi-directional

Each of us supports each other

Each of us receives support

Each of us supports the Circle as a whole and the Circle as a whole supports each of us. We like to think of the BCC not as another thing we have to commit to, but as something that sustains us in the other things we’re doing and deepens those things with that 3-way weaving of personal spirituality/mindfulness, community care, and societal justice.

Most of the other things we’re doing, while there may be some overlap, are usually focused in only one of those areas primarily. In other words, we see this as a way to reduce stress rather than increase it!

We are aware that co-creating a community is not a bed of roses; it can be messy. We each bring ourselves with us! Desires, needs, healthy behaviors, unhealthy behaviors, talents, preferences, habits, and quirks. And we bring along with us, in our own being, the societal challenges we want to change. Some of the learning and growing will be the result of this. This is a way to develop patience, tolerance, compassion, cooperative planning, peaceful conflict resolution And We are interconnected whether we like it or not, so what a chance to honor that. And we get to choose how we are, with each other and with ourselves. We know we want to build our capacity for joy and our capacity for playfulness.

Three quotes:

• Thich Nhat Hanh: It is possible that the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community, a community practicing understanding and loving kindness, a community practicing mindful living. And the practice can be carried out as a group, as a city, as a nation.

• Mazu Daoyi: To advance from where you can no longer advance and to do what can no longer be done, you must make yourself into a raft or ferryboat for others.

• John Bell: I am obviously completely incompetent and totally inadequate to handle the challenge that reality places before me. However, fortunately or unfortunately, I am the best person available for the job.

We had an opening event to promote a Tucson Beloved Community Circle in November 2025, when we sponsored an International Peace Walk. These are people from local intentional groups walking with us.