Building Partnership Community in Portland, OR

October, 2018
by Travis Petchell, CPS Partnership Community

I have been engaged as a dedicated activist/change agent for almost 10 years. About five years ago, I first read The Chalice and The Blade and it immediately became one of my favorite books. Over time, I have grown to appreciate it even more. Now, I feel, is the right time for me to do more to educate and organize for helping bring about a partnership-oriented society. When people put their creativity and energy behind truly intersectional and unifying change work, the possibilities are inspiring and sustaining.

I have just launched a group on meetup.com called ?Partnership Living Portland?. The goal of this group is to organize community around the concept of working for a partnership-oriented future, with a focus on integrating partnership into the way we live every day. I feel that engaging in deep change work on the personal level is the foundation for sustainable community and global change. I hope to create a group that can serve as a hub for educational, social, support, and action-oriented events (like work parties, business development, etc.) that are helping people live the partnership-oriented lifestyles needed to bring about a partnership-oriented society. I plan to organize many different events through the Partnership Living Portland group and I am seeking others who live in the Portland area (or who are visiting), to co-organize the group and set up more partnership-oriented events. I would love to be part of a collaborative partnership network in the Portland area, so I?ve started this group to help facilitate that potential.

The first event I am organizing for Partnership Living Portland (PLP) is a The Chalice and The Blade Reading and Discussion group, starting in early October (Wed. Oct. 10^th, see PLP group online for details). I successfully organized one of these groups earlier this year and I?m excited to try and organize another. Later in the month I will host another event, a potluck and social, where I will present a summary of The Chalice and The Blade including the key insights I?ve gained from this book.

The Chalice and The Blade is where Riane first described the concept of the Partnership-Domination Continuum and is a foundational text that all partnership related work can base itself on. This book provides important and vital insights into our history and especially into our prehistory about our human origins and the origins of systems of oppression. I have felt like this book helped me more clearly understand what challenges we face today and what potential solutions can look like. For all of these reasons and more, I am very excited to organize and facilitate these two reading and discussion groups.

There are more events and groups that I am planning and I look forward to continuing to connect and build community around partnership in the Portland area! If you would like to connect, check out the Partnership Living Portland meetup.com (see link below) or contact me directly at partnershiplivingportland@protonmail.com or through the meetup site: www.meetup.com/Partnership-Living-Portland-Meetup/. Thank you to everyone who is organizing and working toward a partnership-oriented future!

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Travis Petchell is a truth-seeker, community organizer, change worker, and futurist from Milwaukie, OR. He graduated from the University of Portland with a B.S. in Environmental Science. Since then he has explored work in sustainability and social justice, has engaged in activism and deep personal work, and has explored various intentional communities. He has recently received certifications as both a Partnership Practitioner and a Permaculture Designer. He is deeply curious about the workings of our culture, our world, and our universe and is perpetually in search of how to best help bring about a partnership-oriented future.

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