Gathering Ground provides community for people of many beliefs – on many journeys – to share and forge meaning.

 

We are a queer- and neurodivergent-friendly and justice-seeking group of many ages and beliefs. Our shared identity is earth-centered and DIY making of meaning and fun. Our motto is: Do stuff. Reflect. Connect.

We observe the earth’s cycles, share creative practices, practice embodiment, and listen deeply to each other. We listen to the wisdom of many lineages, the natural world around us, and our own bodies and lived experience. We explore our place in the world around us and practice connecting with love and curiosity.

We find that gathering to creatively share practices, stories, and snacks is deeply connecting. Often playful, sometimes raw, there is something about doing and reflecting together that makes space for authentic questions and deep listening. Practicing connection to a deeper wisdom, together we are more present for our world’s deep needs.

 
 

Accountabilities & Partners:


These accountabilities guide choices of programs, leadership and process.

We acknowledge we gather on territories of the Duwamish and Coastal Salish Tribes. We honor their longtime stewardship of these lands, waters, and creatures.

We commit to work toward justice in the linked oppressions of race, income, disability, gender, and orientation within ourselves and within cultural systems. 

We revere the earth and its seasons, a cyclical story that all people who live here participate in.

We partner with the University Heights Community Center to cultivate community. We are a member of the Wild Church Network, an emerging community of eco-spiritual groups from many beliefs. We have also partnered with Love Wins Love project, a community of unhoused & housed folks who bring art projects into neighborhoods to build relationships & respect. We share members, events, and hopes for our region.

Financials: Gathering Ground is a community collaboration. Together we all help to meet the cost of gatherings: online spaces & tools, leader honorariums, and our very part-time Convener. In total, $17,000 for 2024. Folks contribute as they can. All are welcome to attend. Together we’ll make it happen.

We gratefully acknowledge in-kind support from University Congregational United Church of Christ, our non-profit fiscal sponsor. Contributions to Gathering Ground are tax deductible under their tax umbrella. We are an independent program partnered with this progressive Christian Church, which provided start-up support to launch this experiment in meaning-making.

 
 

People

 

Gathering Ground is a collaboration. Its activities are guided by a Convener and a circle of community members. We follow a model of Sociocracy, which allows for horizontal sharing of power and consensus-based decision making. Our gatherings are facilitated by our Convener, members, and guest presenters.

 
 
 
 
Featured
Kiran Frank (they/them), Convener Kiran stepped into the role of Gathering Ground’s Convener in 2024. They are a student of meaning-making interested in understanding our selves and our world as ecologies, and practicing love and interdependen

Kiran Frank (they/them), Convener
Kiran stepped into the role of Gathering Ground’s Convener in 2024. They are a student of meaning-making interested in understanding our selves and our world as ecologies, and practicing love and interdependence through the teachings of many lineages. They have been shaped by their time in environmental politics, and their community organizing home is in the disability justice and neurodiversity movements. Kiran is a student in the Drikung Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, and has also found spiritual nurturing in Lutheran, United Church of Christ, and Jewish communities. While holding concerns about Western academia, they graduated from the University of Washington and Vanderbilt Divinity School.