Community as Heartwork

In a culture of individualism and isolation, these books offer a different vision: community not as something we join but as something we create through presence, commitment, and shared care. They explore what it means to belong, to serve, and to weave the social fabric our souls require.

The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker

Parker, a facilitator who's designed gatherings from diplomatic negotiations to family dinners, reveals how most gatherings fail because we haven't thought deeply about purpose. She challenges the default settings—why we invite who we invite, what happens when people arrive, how we begin and end. Through vivid examples, she shows how intentionality transforms any gathering from obligatory to meaningful. This isn't just about hosting parties; it's about creating the conditions for authentic connection in any group setting. When we gather with purpose, we build community.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Kimmerer, a botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, weaves indigenous wisdom with scientific knowledge to explore our relationship with the living world. Her writing illuminates what Western culture has forgotten: that we're not separate from nature but part of an intricate web of reciprocity. She explores the grammar of animacy (calling the earth "she" not "it"), the importance of gift economies, and what it means to be a good relative to all beings. This book reframes community to include the more-than-human world and asks what we owe to those we live among.

The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible by Charles Eisenstein

Eisenstein names the story of separation—that we're separate from nature, from each other, from our own divinity—as the root of our crises. He explores what becomes possible when we shift to a story of interbeing, where our well-being is inseparable from others'. The book addresses cynicism, despair, and the question of "what can I do?" without offering naive optimism. Instead, Eisenstein invites readers into a different relationship with action: gifts offered without knowing the outcome, trust in emergence, and the recognition that our small acts ripple in ways we can't predict.

Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown

Brown draws from octopuses, fungi, and fractals to explore how change happens—not through top-down control but through small, iterative, adaptive practices. She offers principles for building movements and communities that can respond to complexity: move at the speed of trust, less prep and more presence, what you pay attention to grows. The book is part manifesto, part reflection, part practical guide, woven with poetry and exercises. It's essential reading for anyone trying to organize, facilitate, or create with others in ways that honor emergence rather than impose blueprints.

The Different Drum by M. Scott Peck

Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled, explores true community as distinct from pseudo-community (where we pretend to get along) and chaos (where real differences emerge). He outlines stages groups move through—pseudo-community, chaos, emptiness, and finally authentic community—and what's required at each stage. Peck emphasizes that real community requires emptying ourselves of expectations, prejudices, and the need to fix or convert others. It requires what he calls "radical vulnerability" and the capacity to sit with discomfort. This book is honest about how hard and rare true community is, while offering a map for getting there.

These books share a recognition that community isn't convenient or comfortable—it asks us to show up, stay through difficulty, and prioritize relationships over efficiency. They invite us to see community not as one more thing we do but as the essential practice of remembering we belong to each other, to place, and to something larger than our individual lives.