This week, I had the joy of giving a collaborative keynote with Lee Higgins at the Landesmusikakademie Berlin. Together, we used the image of braids to tell the story of our journeys in community music over the past 25 years—the moments where our individual paths intertwined—and, through this lens reflected on the history, contexts, principles, challenges, and impact of community music. Sharing this with Lee was especially meaningful. Twenty-five years ago, he was my teacher at The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, and since then he has been a mentor, collaborator, witnessing and encouraging the growth of community music in Germany. It was really interesting that the topic "politics and community music" had the strongest resonance in the audience, who posed questions like: how can cm help connect difference political spaces, how can cm respond to growing anti democratic developments, how can cm work for peace making, how is cm political?