We live in a time of unprecedented environmental and social crisis. It is not a crisis that can be fixed with simple, superficial changes. There is a complex web of relationship between the many and vast injustices and destruction occurring in the world today where no one issue can be addressed in a sustainable way without holistically addressing many others as well. It is more important than ever for concerned people to hear one another’s stories, to come together to inspire, support, and ultimately to embrace new approaches to the work of social, economic and environmental justice.

The Common Fire Foundation's mission is to build a diverse and powerful movement of people with a shared commitment to creating a more just and sustainable world, starting with themselves. We do this by bringing people together in spaces that inspire and nurture ways of being in the world that are holistically and deeply rooted in a culture and systems that are just and sustainable.

As sacred beings with profound potential for joy, beauty, creativity, and connection, we are worthy of so much more than the violence, injustice, and destruction of the world we have inherited.

Yet we are of this world, and our daily lives and our very sense of ourselves, our society, and our environment, are enmeshed in this world and shaped by it. Even as we suffer the limitations of this world, we are ourselves recreating our world every day. Even as we are inheritors of the culture we are living and breathing, we are the elders and the ancestors creating the culture our children and grandchildren will live and breathe.

We have the capacity to create a world that is far more just and sustainable. But there is tremendous inertia behind the ways we live and we can only touch a fraction of our potential when we work in isolation.

The path is much easier and effective when we walk it with other people who share our concerns and our hopes for making a better world, creating a new culture and new systems together. We must create spaces in the world and in our lives that reflect back to us our highest hopes for ourselves and our planet, spaces that heal the dividedness in our lives - separation between races, between rich and poor, between young and old, between humans and nature.

We believe that committed people can and will come up with more holistic and effective approaches to change when they have opportunities to re-connect with nature, themselves, and others whose perspectives they may never have had the chance to hear. Based on the simple belief that change is possible when it's inspired rather than when it's demanded, Common Fire brings people together in inspiring spaces where society's norms are shattered, new possibilities are glimpsed, critical knowledge and skills are shared, and peace, health and compassion are nurtured.