Almost a week later, and I am still in a Mountainfilm haze. It’s hard to pull all the thoughts together and come up with one coherent conclusion. But somewhere along the way, I wrote this:

Mountainfilm 2011: a whirlwind of old and new friends, inspiration, activism, blue skies, then snow, then blue skies again, and films, films and more films. It’s hard to even try to some it up. But this year the one word that sticks after the four day flurry in Telluride is “community.”

Whether it’s being reminded about the scientific reasons that we really are all connected, or thinking about the things that all of humanity can find solace in, throughout the weekend I kept thinking about the constant connections we have to the people around us and to the greater global community.

We don’t solve bigger problems on our own, we work together to find solutions. When there’s cause for celebration, we don’t rejoice alone, we rally those around us. Happiness, it turns out, is contagious. Every action we take, every emotion that we have, every choice we make, it all effects more than ourselves.

Terry Tempest Williams said something that stuck with me: “Change happens, I believe, through relationships.”

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