A Day at the Museum of Happiness
International Day of Happiness, March 2016 — When strangers became family
With only 10 days to prepare, a small group of generosity gardeners came together to offer Londoners a pop-up Karma Kitchen experience at a gathering organised by our friends at the Museum of Happiness, hosted at the Canvas Cafe to celebrate the International Day of Happiness!
Karma Kitchen is one of those beautiful spaces where the lines between giving and receiving get blurred, until it becomes difficult to decipher who is giving and who is receiving. As Nipun would say, we all just dance! And that really sums up how Karma Kitchen unfolded at the Museum of Happiness.
Opening Circle
Like most ServiceSpace gatherings, our day was off to a beautiful start with a deeply reflective circle of sharing, where we honoured our intentions and ways we hoped to share our presence from within. After we wrapped up the opening circle at a local coffee shop and made our way over to the Canvas Cafe, it was so beautiful to watch the day magically unfold as everyone came together to transform the room in the basement.
From candles, to inspiring table name signs with quotes on the back, to dried roses and even a flower rangoli — the room was looking so warm and inviting, filled with the positive energy of the entire volunteer team who had planted seeds in that room to "grow in generosity" over the next couple of hours!
Just before we opened the doors, there was a palpable sense of love and service in our final team huddle, with everyone's faces radiating joy — the perfect energy to pay forward to our guests.
Theme of the Day
As we welcomed guests with warm hugs and smiles, each person found a seat next to a perfect stranger and had a lovely reflective conversation, courtesy of the theme of the day: "How can we create a happier world together?"
Many guests mentioned that they had never been gifted a meal and then offered the opportunity to pay it forward — it was something that invited them to reflect on this experience of abundance, trust, community and generosity.
First Sitting
Ani gave an inspiring talk about Karma Kitchen's spirit while guests did circles of sharing on the day's theme.
Second Sitting
Roles swapped! The team stepped up their energy, showering guests with warmth and love.
I listened in on a few dinner table conversations where guests were doing circles of sharing based on their written reflections on the day's theme, and the shares were really powerful. From one diner who talked about the importance of sharing our presence in the most authentic way possible, to another who spoke about the role of generosity in making her happier in her own life.
Ani made her way around with the kindness tray offering pay-it-forward gifts with love — and people couldn't believe they were being offered such inspiring and beautiful gifts unconditionally! As dessert trays were circulated and guests were spoiled with sweet treats, servers got busy tagging guests with handwritten cards, flowers, pins, anonymous love letters, wisdom scrolls, flower garlands and more!
"I felt moved to go ahead with the Karma Kitchen pop-up with literally 10 days notice simply because I knew we had an A-team of volunteers in the mix — all regular attendees of Awakin Circles who are so grounded in their own practice of service, stillness and generosity. I just knew magic would unfold with this team behind the experiment."
Closing Circle
As we transitioned out of the Museum of Happiness and into our closing circle at another restaurant next door, we felt like a family sitting down to have a meal together. Many people shared how beautifully orchestrated the chaos of the day was — how someone would step in and do exactly what needed to be done at exactly the right time without being assigned specific tasks.
It all flowed so effortlessly because we were all coming from the same space of abundance and generosity in our own hearts.
Seeds of Connection
Deep bows to Shamash (co-founder of the Museum of Happiness) who planted the seeds for this Karma Kitchen pop-up. While introducing me to Ruth, who owns Canvas Cafe, he mentioned that he was planning to host a Museum of Happiness there and thought it would be awesome if there was a way to include Karma Kitchen in the mix — the rest, as they say, is now history!
The whole team from Museum of Happiness got involved from ordering Karma Kitchen aprons for us to helping set-up on the day — the whole day became a wonderful collaboration of like-hearted friends.
Grateful to Our A-Team
Volunteers from Awakin London who made the magic happen
And of course deep bows to all the invisible hands and hearts in the ServiceSpace ecosystem who have been tilling the soil of the Karma Kitchen project over the years. These countless hours of work enabled us to offer this experiment to Londoners with literally 10 days notice and to create the beautiful ripples that are now in motion.
