I’ve just come back from singing at our community choir this evening. Four of us drove out together and sang as we went.
I’ve been thinking, writing and talking a lot about the topic of community recently for several reasons. The main one is that I’m going to be speaking on the subject at the April Yoga Australia Conference – http://www.yogaaustraliaconference.org.au/index.php
As a result of all this cogitating, I’ve come to appreciate more and more this thing called community. It’s an easy thing to take it for granted, and it takes some cultivating to get the most out of it. You gets what you puts in.
It’s not hard to want to be involved, though, because so much love and support boomerangs back from participation with community. I belong to two women’s groups, the aforementioned choir, a book club, our household community of three couples, the Human Awareness organisation, and local, state, national and global yoga communities. (Goodness, no wonder it’s hard keeping up with email!)
Community is nurturing for sure, and it can be viewed as a spiritual practice too. Here’s some beautiful words from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone who thinks and feels with us, and who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.