A gathering for grassroots movement-building, created by and for people who live in intentional communities. The goal of CIC is to build strong relationships in support of creating a thriving system of mutual aid between intentional communities and the organizations that support them.
Dates & Time
Jun 18, 2026, 5:00 PM – Jun 21, 2026, 12:00 PM
Location
Sahale Learning Center, 2901 NE Tahuya River Rd, Tahuya, WA 98588, USA
Cost
Thanks to generous donations, this is event is “pay-what-you-can”
Draft Schedule (Subject to Change)
Meet Our Facilitators
Yingzhao (Ying) Liu
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Ying is grateful everyday to be growing roots in the Pacific Northwest. Ying facilitates groups on their journey of inner and outer transformation by shifting consciousness to deeper and deeper levels, drawing on her animist roots and Buddhist and Native American practices. She began her fascination with group magic in nature with Where There Be Dragons, and serves on the board of North Cascades Institute. She is a landscape painter and founded Original Mind creative residency, lectured at Stanford University on Designing for Well-being, and was previously a strategist with Converge for Impact.
Ying and her almost-9-year-old daughter Sage live at Future Fun Shack, a small-scale cohousing she co-created, and facilitates for other cohousing projects locally and for the Watershed, a visionary urban regeneration project in Seattle. She is native to mainland China and came to the U.S. at age 18–at home in liminal spaces, eventually finding her tribe of global citizens, artists, and quiet revolutionaries who are transforming the world in countless ways of the fractal.
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Sabrina Simon
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Sabrina is the Programs Director for the Foundation for Intentional Community with a background in nonprofit leadership, community organizing, and facilitation. She strongly believes that community building is no longer an option during these times of extreme polarization, oppression and disconnection.
Sabrina weaves her diverse background in yoga, grief-tending, community singing, and ritual to help build greater collective capacity by identifying, presencing, and releasing isolating emotions like anger, shame, and grief. She believes that the work of healing our collective trauma is integral to building cooperative systems and most effectively done in community. She is loyal to upholding a posture of curiosity for humanity, frequently inquiring with her personal mantras, “How do we work with this?” and “What are we not seeing?”
She is currently on a global tour of intentional communities, filming and documenting their stories of challenge, experimentation, and success in order to increase the spread of ideas and the sense of solidarity in this work.
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Roberto Rodriguez
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Roberto is a relationship educator-coach, group facilitator, and body-centered practitioner whose work is grounded in decades of engagement with embodiment, relationship, and collective care. Shaped by early experiences of violence, disruption, and systemic injustice, his path has been guided by a commitment to repair, responsibility, and what he calls relational integrity: the capacity to show up with awareness and care in the systems we belong to.
Drawing from embodied disciplines such as martial arts, dance, Tai Chi, and Qi Gong, alongside depth-oriented psychological and community-based practices, Roberto supports individuals and groups in listening more deeply to themselves, to one another, and to the subtle signals shaping group life. He is a founding team member of The Affinity-Belonging Initiative and continues to work at the intersection of personal healing, relational skill, and collective transformation.
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Meet Our Event Organizers
Sky Blue
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Sky Blue (they/them) has been deeply embedded in the Intentional Communities movement as an organizer, networker, and consultant for 30 years. They have been a member of nine different intentional communities and visited over 150. They served on the Board of Directors, and as the Executive Director of the Foundation for Intentional Community, and have worked closely with numerous other organizations. They have also worked in other settings with cooperative businesses, community organizing, and solidarity economics.
They are currently a member of the Goodenough Community and live at the Sahale Learning Center on the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington state. You can find more about their work on their website.
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Rueben Szabo
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Reuben is a student of transformation and change. He is currently working towards a Masters degree in Couple and Family Therapy at Antioch University. Reuben believes that our most pressing challenges are relational at their core, and he hopes to facilitate better ways of relating to each other, ourselves, and the natural world. This has been a major career transition which has paralleled his involvement in intentional community. Reuben has lived at Songaia in Bothell, WA ever since he began as a garden intern in June 2021.
Reuben serves on the board of the Northwest Intentional Community Association (NICA), as a trans elder for queer and trans youth through Rite of Passage Journeys, and on various committees at Songaia. So far he has co-facilitated one course on Resilience and Acceptance in the Face of Collapse, and considers himself collapse-aware some of the time. He is particularly passionate about composting and creating working groups that are energizing rather than depleting. He lives with his two cats and three housemates and works as a caregiver.
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Julian Smith
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Julian (he/they) is a facilitator, organizer, and community builder focused on cultivating relational depth, consent practices, and collective capacity within communities. They are part of the organizing group for Radical Communal Groups and are committed to building networks of mutual aid in the region.
With a PhD in physics and research spanning neuroscience and complex systems, along with experience in data science and machine learning, Julian brings systems-oriented thinking to the social and interpersonal dynamics of group life.
Their facilitation draws from training in altered states, touch, and meditation, supporting individuals and groups in cultivating self-awareness, connection, and resilience through challenging experiences. They have completed psilocybin facilitator training in Oregon and are an ordained facilitator with Sacred Garden Community.
Julian also creates interactive, relational art spaces that invite presence, play, and authentic connection.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly am I committing to if I attend?
The goal of the event is to strengthen relationships and energize regional movement-building for sustained and long-term impact. Ideally, attendees will have some capacity for these efforts on a regular basis beyond the event itself. The groups that are formed and the initiatives that are started are solely dependent on the direction and engagement of the participants.
What does a “closed container” mean and how many participants are expected?
We have invited around 50 individuals from many different communities or organizations in the area. The event is capped at 60 people. Since the event is in service of creating local initiatives with desired outcomes, “dropping in” to the event for a day could disrupt the process and limit our ability to organize. Therefore, we have decided to make the event a closed container. We expect a commitment of your time from Thursday evening to Sunday afternoon. If there are ways we can make this more accessible for you, please let us know.
I don’t live in an intentional community, why was I invited and what can I offer?
In addition to people who live in an intentional community, we are also inviting people who are active in organizing efforts for different kinds of intentional communities. Since our goal with this event is to develop the network of ICs for mutual aid, networking and organizing skills are most welcome.
What do you mean by “working groups” listed in the schedule?
“Working groups” refers to the self-directed projects or mutual-aid initiatives that the attendees create during the event. They will be dependent on the shared needs, desires, and capacity of the organizers. The participant survey analysis will help guide the conversation and direction of working groups.
How is this gathering by-donation? What should I consider in deciding my donation amount?
Several people involved in the IC movement in this region donated enough money to cover all of the basic expenses for this event. When considering an amount to donate, think about what you would like to contribute to help make follow-up from this event more possible. Organizing a network like this is very difficult to pull off on volunteer labor alone. This will also be the first of many events geared towards fostering the network of communities in the region. Your donation will help create a seed fund to support the work needed as well as future events. Part of our work at the gathering will be to put a basic framework in place for deciding how those funds will be used.
Will there be child care?
TBD. We are working our best to provide child care for the event. If you know someone who can help, please send them our way or make an introduction. Thank you!
What accommodations are available at Sahale?
Sahale has a range of indoor accommodations. Because this event is by-donation, you do not need to pay extra. But indoor options are limited and will be prioritized based on need, so please let us know what your needs are when you register. There is also space available for RVs and car camping, but no hook ups, with the exception of electricity for health needs.
Is the Sahale property accessible?
Yes and no. It is not ADA compliant. Much of the campus includes dirt paths and gravel driveways. But it is possible to access the main facilities and some accommodations without going up or down stairs. And it is possible to park close to key areas like certain rooms, the kitchen, and the main event space.
Are meals provided and can you accommodate my dietary allergies/restrictions/preferences?
Omnivor, vegetarian, and vegan options will always be available. Please let us know what other dietary restrictions you have when you register. We should be able to accommodate everyone, but bear in mind that for people with more intensive restrictions, like celiac disease, or people allergic to night shades or alliums, your food options may be very simple. There is some refrigerated space available for people with dietary restrictions to store their own food, but priority will be given to people with restrictions, not just preferences.
Will a rideshare be organized?
Please use this spreadsheet to self-organize with participants who need rides and can offer rides.
The Convergence of Intentional Communities (Northwestern, WA) is sponsored by:
