Thrive Napa Valley is the first of several initiatives, including Thrive Whidbey, that together constitute an emerging Thriving Communities movement. The word “thriving” has taken root as a new-paradigm signifier for a holistic understanding and experience of well-being that includes environmental sustainability, social and economic justice, and emotional/spiritual fulfillment. The word thriving encourages us to work toward our fullest and highest potential to create a world that works for all, and necessarily includes the concepts of sustainability and resiliency.
The first program developed by Thrive Napa Valley is the Thrive Symposium, a three-hour experience – based on the Pachamama Alliance’s Awakening the Dreamer – that is designed to awaken participants’ imaginations and capacities to create thriving communities. To date the Symposium has been offered four times to around 100 people. Starting in the fall of 2011, the Symposium will be offered in larger venues, including the regional hospital, to many more people.
Thrive Napa Valley is also working with focus to bring the International Campaign for Compassionate Cities and the Happiness Initiative to the valley. One goal is for the City of Napa and other communities to make compassion an explicit priority by affirming the Charter for Compassion and committing to a ten-year plan to become more and more compassionate. A related goal is for local communities to embrace well-being, broadly defined and measured by the Happiness Initiative, as a primary indicator of the health of our communities.
Thriving in community is a key component of multiple new stories. One such story is the evolution of human consciousness that’s needed to co-create a thriving world, which includes new understandings of ourselves as participating in a living universe, and a collective shift of behavior patterns from competition to collaboration. Another new story is that we as a species are on a collective journey of maturation. In this story, we have explored to the utmost our potential to individuate and we are now returning to live in community with greater wisdom and appreciation… at long last capable of thriving.
Project Director: Jeff Vander Clute
Team: Bonny Meyer and Bob Massaro