#BlackLivesMatter · #RespectIndigenousSovereignty · #TransLivesMatter • #AntiFascist
Kaitlyn Hatch (any pronoun, used respectfully) is a polymath: a writer, artist, designer, animator, podcast producer, community organizer, and dharma philosopher. She is also queer, disabled, racialized white and of Métis (assimilated) and British ancestry. Kaitlyn acknowledges that these things matter as they influence what she sees in the world, as well as what she does not see.
Writing since before she could spell, Kaitlyn has contributed essays and reflection pieces to Medium.com, Huffpost.uk, elephant journal, and Lion’s Roar, as well as having kept her own blog since 2008. She has self-published two books, one with the support of a crowdfunding campaign. Kaitlyn founded The Miscellaneous Youth Network in 2004, a non-profit organization committed to creating sustainable safe spaces for QILT2BAG+ youth in her home town of Calgary, AB and is the father of Fake Mustache, Canada’s longest running drag king troupe. A Dharma practitioner since 2008, anti-racism and a commitment to liberation is core to her spiritual practice. Her primary teacher is Pema Chödrön, and she currently practices within both Radical Dharma and Bhumisparsha. From 2015 until 2019 she produced the podcast Everything is Workable, which started as a way to share her practice and became a platform for uplifting and amplifying the wisdom of others through collaborative conversations. She has held many professional roles within the not-for-profit/charitable sector from 2003 until early 2016, including Executive Director, Youth Worker, Fundraising Officer, Volunteer Coordinator, Project Manager and Brand Development Manager. Trained in Graphic Design in courses through the Chelsea College of Art and Design and Central St. Martins in London, UK, Kaitlyn has also been a freelance designer and currently offers these skills free of charge to Indigenous and Black artists and business owners on request. Kaitlyn is currently enrolled as a second-year student in the Upaya Zen Center’s Buddhist chaplaincy training program, where she is working on her Thesis exploring the role of contemplative Chaplaincy in social change. |
Contribute & Connect
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Writing
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Disability DharmaI am incredibly excited to announce a project seed I have planted. Inspired by anthologies like “Transcending: Trans Buddhist Voices”, “Black & Buddhist”, and “Disability Visibility”, I’ve begun laying the ground for an anthology of Disabled dharma practitioners!
From now until the end of January, I am seeking connections with folks who want to collaborate as a core group to carry this project to fruition. There is already a small number of us pulling together in preparation for putting together an official call for submissions. If you are interested in participating, or know someone who might be, folks can get in touch through DisabilityDharma.com. |
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Dharma ArtAs an artist, I have worked with many mediums. My portfolio includes sculpture, animation, poetry, painting, drawing, leather-craft and embroidery. My current artistic focus is on creating detailed line drawings of traditional Tibetan Thangkas—specifically representations of various deities in non-male form.
You can see the progress of these pieces on my Instagram feed and other art pieces in The Gallery. 
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The Love in Public Project
"Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.”
- Cornel West
In 2019, with a group of ten participants, I turned this quote from Cornel West into a question to hold, explore, and contemplate: What does love in public look like?
As a dharma practitioner, I've spent a great deal of time contemplating love, compassion and liberation. All these things have become much bigger for me than the dictionary definitions we can find of them. Especially love. Love is too often spoken about in a conditioned way because that is too often how it is given. There is a sense that we must earn love, or that love is only possible through familial or romantic ties. But in the Buddhist context, and many spiritual contexts, love is limitless and all-encompassing.
This is at the core of my response to the question of what love looks like in public, but it remained a little abstract. I wanted to connect in this practice with others on a deep, grounded level of how we move through the world, the things we say and do, the choices we make on where to spend our money, and how we cultivate connections with folks we interact with on a daily basis.
Over the course of a year we did just that, and each participant shared with me their growing understanding of justice, and the ways they saw this particular expression of love in the world and in themselves. At the end of the year, I gathered our collective learning together into a 'zine, of which I printed a limited quantity—45 copies with three different covers.
I am now making it available in PDF format, and invite you to share it far and wide.
As a dharma practitioner, I've spent a great deal of time contemplating love, compassion and liberation. All these things have become much bigger for me than the dictionary definitions we can find of them. Especially love. Love is too often spoken about in a conditioned way because that is too often how it is given. There is a sense that we must earn love, or that love is only possible through familial or romantic ties. But in the Buddhist context, and many spiritual contexts, love is limitless and all-encompassing.
This is at the core of my response to the question of what love looks like in public, but it remained a little abstract. I wanted to connect in this practice with others on a deep, grounded level of how we move through the world, the things we say and do, the choices we make on where to spend our money, and how we cultivate connections with folks we interact with on a daily basis.
Over the course of a year we did just that, and each participant shared with me their growing understanding of justice, and the ways they saw this particular expression of love in the world and in themselves. At the end of the year, I gathered our collective learning together into a 'zine, of which I printed a limited quantity—45 copies with three different covers.
I am now making it available in PDF format, and invite you to share it far and wide.
