Hello beloved reader,
I’m a fan of
’s 2018 book, The Art of Gathering. It flips the usual instinct about groups: begin with a clear purpose—not the menu or the venue.
She teaches us to let that ‘why’ decide who’s invited, what happens, and where. And then hold that purpose with what she calls generous authority—warm, steady, kindly firm. Set simple boundaries. Curate the guest list. Use pop-up rules. Be brave and don’t be “chill” about the things that matter. Design a meaningful opening that moves people out of everyday mode, create structured moments of connection (even “good controversy” beats polite dullness), and craft a deliberate ending so the meaning sticks.
Good gatherings, Parker says, are temporary, intentional worlds with their own gentle norms. Specificity beats vague “everyone’s welcome,” and courage beats convenience.
From Self-Help to Group-Help
Parker recently re-launched her Substack, Group Life, with this Live conversation hosted by her husband, writer Anand Giridharadas. Their shared diagnosis of what ails our culture and society: an atrophied group intelligence.
They say we don’t need more self-help, we need group-help—learnable, low-cost practices of hosting, ritual, reciprocity, and healthy conflict that create belonging and agency.
They contrast MAGA’s effective (if harmful) group design with pro-democracy’s emotional timidity; they critique therapy’s hyper-individual lens; and they preview Priya’s biweekly “Group Help” sessions to teach concrete tools for workplaces, communities, and civic life.
Reciprocity, Not Obligation
Anand asks this provocative question:
Are therapists giving us licenses to ignore the collective, in the name of healing ourselves?
Priya responded: “…it's become distorted with the pursuit of the self … we can hide behind boundaries and self-care and not hold obligation and reciprocity.”
But that distinction stopped me.
Reciprocity resonates. Obligation does not.
Women especially have been weighed down by obligations in patriarchal societies—expected to do for others by default. Only recently have marriages shifted towards “partnerships” with the ideal (not always realized) of shared domestic arts: cooking, cleaning, raising children.
Reciprocity, by contrast, points to interconnection and choice.
The Middle Way
I love the Buddhist framing of interdependence.
A monk was reported to have asked the Buddha, “Surely friendships are a big part of the spiritual path?” The Buddha’s reply is often paraphrased as, “Admirable friendship is the whole of the holy life.”
When we see ourselves as interdependent—not just with each other but with Mother Earth—neither end of the spectrum of “Self versus Group” fully serves us. Perhaps what’s needed is a middle way that honors both. A balance.
Recently, our “dhamma friends” gathered to celebrate one member’s recovery from surgery. We shared afternoon tea—the part of my heritage that’s English1 delighted in making scones with clotted cream and raspberry jam.
Everyone contributed something. The result was more than food: it was connection.
When discussing these ideas about gathering at our afternoon tea, one friend reminded me: in Buddhism, giving means giving with no strings attached—with no expectations of anything in return. Giving like this lifts the heart of the giver.
Different from reciprocity, which presumes mutuality. Both this kind of giving and reciprocity matter. Perhaps the wisdom lies in awareness—and choosing consciously.
And yet, in my experience, obligation rarely leads to joy. Whereas reciprocity and giving often do.
Shadow Work Before We Gather
Groups also reveal our tendency to project what we don’t want to own in ourselves onto others. When families—our first groups—project disowned shadows or “muck,”2 it can result in a “black sheep” or “identified patient.”
Projection allows us to feel superior. But as Eckhart Tolle reminds us:
“Whenever I feel superior or inferior to another, that’s the ego in me.”
Self-knowledge loosens the ego’s grip. Exploring archetypes (including in astrology) illuminates both light and shadow. As Dr. Jennifer Freed writes in Use Your Planets Wisely, archetypes evolve from primitive to adaptive to fully realized expressions.
When we’ve met our own shadow, we’re less likely to project it onto others. Gatherings then brighten soul connections instead of feeding ego hierarchies.
Rituals of Belonging
A confession: I recently finished binge-watching 8 seasons of the tv series adaptation of Little House on the Prairie.
It shows how shared Christian codes once shaped gathering and community/group behavior. In more homogeneous settings, common religious codes doubled as social norms, which reduced friction for collective life. Today, in multicultural gatherings, those shared codes are thinner; as Parker notes, we often lack common rituals.
Parker points toward how religious songs can bring harmony to groups. However, gatherings these days are often of such mixed ethnicities and religions, one of the few songs everyone knows is “Happy Birthday.”
This is why simple, inclusive rituals matter.
At a recent Bill McKibben event, the moderator (a Harvard Divinity grad) opened by inviting us to sing Here Comes the Sun in honor of Bill’s new book. The room lifted. It truly brightened the connections between us.
Perhaps the Beatles are as close as we get to a shared songbook besides Happy Birthday.
The Possibility of an Enlightened Society We Get to Dream into Being
So perhaps a middle way might look like this:
Self with awareness of ego: inner work to meet our shadow, rather than project it.
Group without coercion or control: we get to choose reciprocity and giving, versus obligation.
Gatherings with intention: rituals where joy and belonging are as deliberate as purpose itself.
Perhaps part of the reason I experience FUNENJOY (I made up this word to mean an intention to notice and create micro-moments of delight) when we gather with our dhamma friends, is also because we all share the intention to practice Buddhist principles: compassion, loving-kindness, equanimity, and mudita (sympathetic joy or joy at the happiness of others), and to embrace the lotus metaphor which allows us explore our “muck” or our “shadow” without shame or guilt.
And I will leave you with this question:
What might it look like if we designed our gatherings as spaces where reciprocity and giving—not obligation—were the norm, and where joy was cultivated as intentionally as purpose?
My father was an upperclass English gentleman, but my mother grew up in an Australian country town, and my three sisters and I were raised mostly in Australia.
Long time readers will know of my obsession with the Lotus flower metaphor, and how we need our roots to be deep down in the “muck, and we blossom because of, not in spite of our “muck.”
Camilla, the ideal of giving with no strings attached and no expectation of reciprocity is one I hold dear. I think when we give in that way to others, we are also giving to ourselves. Most people who have done volunteer or service work, know the peace and inspiration it creates in one's own heart. Thank you for a thoughtful piece. A lot to unpack and to ponder.
Ohh that's nice