The Ecology & Design of Home Scale Food Forests

Announcement from the ICSA! INTERNATIONAL COMMUNAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION The 12th International ICSA Conference will be held in Tamera, Portugal in July 2016 The official Tamera website for ICSA2016 is now operating: http://icsa.tamera.org/ Mail: ic**@****ra.org ICSA Office: rsoboly-t@be…

In the face of structural challenges, some urban farmers are finding innovative ways to serve their neighborhoods.

Gleaning Wisdom from the Nonprofit Democracy Network In late March, Cassandra Ferrera, FIC Board member, and I participated in a training by the Nonprofit Democracy Network titled Tools for Collective Self-Governance. It was a 3 day exploration in how nonprofit organizations working can better embo…

Today the Foundation for Intentional Community is launching a Kickstarter campaign to raise $6000—the funds needed to assemble a new print version of our flagship publication, Communities Directory. This will be our seventh edition, and first since 2010. If this FIC resource—which is celebrating it…

When we hear the words “intentional community,” we may think of residential communities like back-to-the-land communes and urban housing co-ops. But you don’t have to live in the same house to have a shared vision and make an impact. A non-profit called Cool Block brings entire neighborhoods toge…

If you haven’t heard of hollow earth theory, zig-zag-and-swirl, B-FICs, or bathing bans, you’ve missed out on some of the more distinctive contributions of communal spirituality.

Referring to himself as “the biggest asshole” in the county, a group’s spiritual teacher “told us if we could work with him and learn from him, we could deal with anyone in any situation.”

 

Movements and networks of liberation show us that community can be a tool either of oppression or of powerful organizing for liberation. It’s time for our movement to get solidly on the right side of history.

The philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti once said, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” It’s a quote often repeated by alternative healers and counter-cultural thinkers. In the 1980s, four families from Boston – who suffered from depression, schizophrenia, and…