Finding Harmony

Navigating social dissonance and remembering our shine

A tiny song from my spirit to yours:

Last night I took a bath.

I dropped a spoonful of coconut oil into the water—something I do in the colder seasons. I love how it soaks into my skin, leaving behind a silky barrier against dryness. I added lavender-infused Epsom salts and queued up the juicy playlist a sweet friend made for me. It felt good. A soft ritual. My mind, still whirring from the day, started to slow. I reached for a short reading about how the mind navigates the passage between death and rebirth.

Lately, these themes—birth, death, rebirth—keep finding me. Maybe it’s this middle-life moment, but the veil between endings and beginnings feels thinner. My parents, once seemingly immortal, are undeniably aging into final chapters. My kids are growing into new iterations of themselves, weaving social worlds of their own. Friend conversations flow between caretaking, menopause, creative projects and retirement (or becoming) dreams.

These intimate transitions mirror broader ones. Institutions and systems we assumed would always be there—or spent our adult lives trying to transform—are being undone. Many of us are quietly rebirthing ourselves. Shedding outdated identities. Returning to what feels more essential. Reaching for harmony and balance—not only in our personal lives, but in community, and work.

But how do we find it?

Yesterday, when I sat down to write, it was to explore the idea of resilience bonding—forging relationships rooted in shared dreams—as an antidote to trauma bonding, where connection arises from shared harm. It wasn’t a clinical analysis. It was more like memory: scenes of working with groups caught in loops of anger, resentment and analysis…and others transforming through a commitment to dreaming and collaboration, with vulnerability and humility.

I’ve worked with many social justice groups shaped by both external challenges and internal friction. One group in particular had much to celebrate—partnerships, impact, visibility. But the leadership was exhausted. Dysregulated. Often frustrated with others. The culture was one of hypervigilance, stretched thin by the energy required to hold it all together.

In that space, I had a vision. Or, a wish. It was a beautiful day, and nature was close. No boardroom in sight. The sun was warm, an empty patch of earth said ‘come on over!’. To me anyway. I saw the group lying in the grass, hearts warmed, breathing deeply before speaking. Letting the natural world hold them and letting what was not needed melt away before proceeding with discussions on ‘strategy’.

But the group wasn’t ready. They were resistant. The tension had its grip. And I had to loosen mine.

So when the meeting was done, I went to the park alone. I sat down. I sang.

And I composted the day - not as a failure, but as a reminder. As facilitator, my role is not to convince a group to be well, to transform its ways. It’s to witness, to reflect, to honor where they have been, to support where they want to go and to keep attuning to potential harmony.

I return to Toni Cade Bambara’s words in The Salt Eaters:

“Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?”

Yes, yes I am.

After decades as a gender justice advisor and activist—naming structural harm, advocating for movement-led alternatives—I’m still learning about transformation and changing. I’m learning how to center joy, trust, pleasure, and humor. I’m discovering a different trust and freedom. One where challenges are acknowledged, but not given the whole stage. One where magic still has room to sneak in and surprise me. In my first blog I asked:

In what spaces can you experience harmony, even for a few hours a week?

And I offered this:
‘Harmony is not the absence of pain, discord, or dissonance. These are natural parts of life. In music, they create tension, drama, truth—evoking the complexity of being alive.’

The playlist my friend made for me - she called it Finding Harmony - reminds me: harmony isn’t something you force or chase. It’s something you tune into and allow. And often, we don’t know how. For ourselves or our collectives.

We say we want care, happiness, ease—but we cling to old patterns like a child to a security blanket. (Mine was pink fleece with a satin trim—shrunken now to a 3-inch square. My mother mended and kept it all these years.)

We see the future we want and get scared it may never be ours, angry it’s so far away or rush too fast towards it.

This morning’s meditation reminded me—for the millionth time—of my habits of impatience, separation, worry and the disharmony that can show up when I feel change isn’t coming fast enough. Like passing clouds, they obscure a sun that never stops shining. And when I hide my shine, it becomes harder for others to shine, too.

But here’s the gift: the reverse is also true.

When I am patient, listen for the harmony and for my part—knowing I may have to move through the dissonance again and again—it makes space for something else to emerge. A possibility. A resonance.

And that, I think, is worth tuning into.