Resilience as New Life: Leaven Updates, Fall 2025

It’s been a hard week, in a rough season, amidst uncertain times. As ever, we need resilience. We need it collectively, and we need it deep within each of ourselves.

In the midst of it all, Leaven Community is building community resilience and personal capacity for growth and change all across our community. Even in the midst of loss and decay, new life is always emerging in the soil beneath our feet.

Want some evidence of that new life? Last Saturday at the Leaven Quarterly Gathering, members from across Leaven Community shared updates about many different happenings taking place within and beyond the walls of this place:

  • The Leaven Land & Housing program is engaging a year of Sacred Pause to deepen and strengthen our capacity and infrastructure, while supporting six housing sites to move through the development phase with a 1.5-year goal for completion.

  • We’re also making progress on our local Community Resilience Hub organizing: Salazar Architect will soon share community-inspired renderings, rooted in the values and priorities that Leaven members and neighbors said was important to them. Stay tuned for more detailed information about what we learned over the Summer, and opportunities to give feedback on the draft designs in the Fall.

  • Meanwhile, the Leaven Common House partners are building deeper connections through shared space, values, and vibrant events—from the Portland Fruit Tree Project’s cider press event (Oct 25) to the Vegan Scouts’ Harmless Halloween (Nov 1), plus new Common House member Equitable Giving Circle’s weekly free markets for BIPOC Portlanders, and more. The building is hopping!

  • Read the Quarterly Gathering notes here and review Director-Organizer Alison Killeen’s slide deck here

In the midst of all this activity, what shines through most clearly is that we are growing into a community where many hands, hearts, and imaginations are carrying the work together. From meals to meetings, from planting seeds to shaping buildings, every step is a reminder that resilience is something we practice side by side.

I’m so grateful for each of you—for showing up, for sharing your gifts, and for tending to one another along the way. As the seasons turn, may we keep finding strength in our shared life, and joy in the new growth that keeps springing up among us.

Want to be part of the action? There are many ways to connect, contribute, and celebrate with the community this Fall — come be a part of it!

  • Wednesday, Sept 24 – Community Meal (5:30pm) and Resilience Workshop (7pm): What does Community Resilience Mean to You?"

  • Wednesdays in October, 5:30 pm - Intercambio Language Exchange

  • Oct 5, 12-5pm – Community Work Party (garden clearing & planting, volunteers needed!)

  • Oct 25 – Portland Fruit Tree Project Cider Press Event

  • Oct 29 - Community Meal (5:30pm) and Resilience Workshop (7pm)

  • Nov 1 – Vegan Scouts’ Harmless Halloween

  • Every Thursday, 11am-2pm – Equitable Giving Circle’s Free Market for BIPOC residents

Community Resilience Organizing Update!

The Resilience Hub Design Workshop on May 21 was a success, with over 30 people in the room and lots of energy and enthusiasm! If you weren't able to make it, mark your calendar: July 27, 1-3pm will be the next design workshop.

  • The Leaven Organizing Core Team met yesterday to organize one to ones and outreach opportunities!

Are you interested in joining the Core Team and helping with the listening season? If YES, please email coreteam@leaven.org to be added to the group and get involved!

Welcome back, Jules!

The Leaven Land & Housing Director and one of Salt & Light’s pastors, Rev Jules Nielsen, recently returned from a six week renewal leave. In this update, Jules reflects and shares on her time away.

‘How are you feeling?’ everyone’s asking me. I didn’t think I had expectations for being away from work for five weeks of renewal leave. It’s been a pretty hard winter, between leaving the United Methodist Church for the ELCA, making the shift to pastor after 15 years in diaconal service, some family concerns throughout the autumn, and of course that rain. I just wanted a bit of reflection. The thing about hard years (and 2024 was epically hard), is they move both too fast and glacially slow. Coming out of February, I barely knew which way was up. 

I didn’t have any plans for the time, other than to kick off with a 10 day silent meditation course at my sangha in Onalaska, Washington. That retreat was a harbinger of how leave would go, ultimately. It was emotionally intense to the nth degree. Arriving home, it became clear I’d be spending March continuing the dreaded practice of feeling. Not feeling better, necessarily. That’s the thing about the gift of extended time. Without the distraction of work, all the feelings of the last season came to visit, and I had so much time to sit with them, to let them sit in me. Oh, what is this emotion gripping me on this random Tuesday morning? Grief, hello. What about? Well… could be nearly anything. So I’d pull out the sewing machine, meditatively mend some clothing and let the feeling ride through while the fabric passed between my fingers. Next day, more feelings would come knocking. Anger? There you are, let’s go be in the garden together a while and plant some spring seedlings while we figure out the source of this. And so it went, for five weeks.

I also had a wonderful time, of course. I wandered joyfully through the opportunity for abundant creativity and what Portland’s springtime offers. I cooked incredible blueberry pie and Haitian food. I finished the land story of my incredible 100 year old home, practiced my hobby of herbal medicine-making and foraging, soaked at Breitenbush hot springs twice, plowed through books on my mile high to-be-read pile in front of my fireplace, and sat zazen at my Zen Center on Wednesday evenings. I took three whole days to design an enormous collage depicting a dream I had while on retreat. I rediscovered my old love of archery and the underground Portland bow and arrow culture that gathers daily at Washington Park. 

So how am I feeling? People seem to think my answer will be ‘better.’ I’m not sure that’s the best word. I do feel different, though. Richer. Clearer. More settled in my heart and my body. Time away doesn’t change the world within (or without, turns out), it just gives more opportunity for knowing. Knowing myself. Knowing how I want my time to flow. Knowing what it means to sit and be still and quiet when the world spins too fast. So yes, perhaps better. Definitely grateful for the time, and for the community that made it possible.