Creating a Life Together

by Diana Leafe Christian

Creating a Life Together is a classic, evergreen resource found on nearly every communitarian’s bookshelf. This book provides step-by-step, practical information on how to launch and sustain a successful ecovillage or intentional community.

After visiting and interviewing founders of dozens of successful and failed communities, along with her own forming-community experiences, the author concluded that “the successful 10 percent” had all done the same five or six things right, and “the unsuccessful 90 percent” had made the same handful of mistakes. Recognizing that a wealth of wisdom were contained in these experiences, she set out to distill and capture them in one place.

Through anecdotes, stories, and cautionary tales about real communities, and by profiling seven successful communities in depth, the book examines:

  • “The successful 10 percent” and why 90 percent fail
  • The role of community founders
  • Getting a group off to a good start
  • Vision and vision documents
  • Decision-making and governance; agreements
  • Legal options
  • Finding, financing, and developing land
  • Structuring a community economy
  • Selecting new members
  • Communication, process, and dealing well with conflict

Sample vision documents, community agreements, and visioning exercises are included, along with abundant resources for learning more.


About the author of Creating a Life Together

Diana Leafe Christian is the author of two books and dozens of articles and blog posts on the topic of intentional community. She offers workshops and consultation, and resides at Earthaven Ecovillage in North Carolina.

 


Want to join a community instead of starting one?

Check out Diana’s other book…

Finding Community presents a thorough overview of ecovillages and intentional communities and offers solid advice on how to research thoroughly, visit thoughtfully, evaluate intelligently and join gracefully. Useful considerations include:

Important questions to ask of members and of yourself
Signs of a healthy (and not-so-healthy) community
Costs of joining and staying
Common blunders to avoid

 

 


 

October 8 @ 1:00 PM 2:00 PM CDT

Blueprints for Belonging: Conversations on Creating Intentional Communities October

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

  • Pacific: 11am-12:00pm
  • Mountain: 12-1:00pm
  • Central: 1-2:00pm
  • Eastern: 2- 3:00pm

View your local time here.

Discover the essentials of starting your own intentional community with October’s Blueprints for Belonging: Conversations on Creating Intentional Communities featuring Daniel Greenberg.

This event series is crafted for emerging community founders, offering direct access to practical advice and insights from experts in the field. Led by Cynthia Tina, who brings her experience from visiting over 200 communities worldwide, each session features one-to-one interviews with community consultants, founders, and educators.

This is more than an event series—it’s a launchpad for future community leaders.

“Blueprints for Belonging” zeroes in on the practical aspects of community building. Our guests share real-world experiences and actionable strategies, covering everything from legal setup and financial management to culture building and governance. This series is an invaluable resource for anyone at the beginning stages of creating a community, providing a roadmap to avoid common mistakes and implement best practices.

The format encourages active participation, with opportunities for the audience to ask questions and engage directly with speakers. This interactive approach ensures that you can get specific advice relevant to your project.

About Blueprints for Belonging October

What you get from this conversation:

  • Learn the basics of starting an intentional community
  • Understand legal and financial requirements
  • Discover how to build a positive community culture and effective governance
  • Learn conflict resolution techniques
  • Explore strategies for sustainability and self-sufficiency
  • Connect with other community founders and experts

About this Month’s Guest Speaker

Daniel Greenberg

Daniel Greenberg is the Co-Executive Director of the Foundation for Intentional Community. Back in 1998, following his Ph.D. dissertation on Growing up in Intentional Communities, Daniel founded Living Routes, which ran study abroad programs in ecovillages around the world. In 2012, he started Earth Deeds, which offers online tools to account for our unavoidable CO2 emissions.

Over the years, Daniel visited over 100 communities and lived in many, including Sirius in Massachusetts, Auroville in south India and, most recently, the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland, where he served as Director of Education. Daniel is co-founder and past Board Member of Gaia Education and served as President of the Global Ecovillage Network from 2015-2019. Daniel’s passion is to support the development of whole people, living well and lightly together. Daniel will be leading the India Ecovillage Tour this January 28 – Feb 11, 2025. Learn more how you can join the trip at ecovillagetours.com/india

About Your Host

Cynthia Tina

Cynthia is a leading consultant in the field of intentional communities. She’s the founder of CommunityFinders, offering programs to help people join and start residential communities. She’s also the founder of Ecovillage Tours, bringing people on inspirational journeys to regenerative communities around the world. She has visited more than 150 intentional communities globally, including the Vermont ecovillage where she lives in her self-built passive solar home. 

Formerly a Co-Director, Cynthia is a partner and educator with the Foundation for Intentional Community. She’s a former trustee of the Global Ecovillage Network and former Director of the youth ecovillage network, NextGEN North America. She holds a degree in Sustainability from Goddard College, as well as certificates in Permaculture and Ecovillage Design, and Yoga Teacher Training.

Get started on your community journey with a short quiz to find out which type of community is a fit for you! https://communityfinders.com/quiz

Location

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The Online Event Experience

 

Live StreamYard Sessions

Nothing pre-recorded here! When you sign-up for an event with FIC, you’ll have the opportunity to view a live session on StreamYard with the panelists.

Affordable and Accessible

All our events are run on a sliding scale basis. Generous donations cover the costs for low-income attendees. FIC is committed to making our programs accessible to people of all walks of life.

Watch the Recording

You’ll receive the recording of your event to view for 60 days. So don’t worry if you can’t attend a live session. Watch or listen whenever it is convenient for you. Transcripts available upon request.

Registration

Blueprints for Belonging: Conversations on Creating Intentional Communities

Free!

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Our principles revolve around mental, social, economic, and environmental sustainability. We’re open-minded, innovative, warm-hearted, and dedicated to fostering a healthy way of life. Read more about our values on our website https://www.goodlifecommunity.fi/en/values-and-key-principles/.

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🤝 Advanced Community Features 🤝

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Are you ready to embark on a journey towards a conscious, sustainable, and fulfilling life? Join the Good Life Community in Finland, where we redefine what it means to live well. Experience the beauty of the Finnish countryside and a warm-hearted, supportive community like no other.

Contact us today to learn more about becoming a member of GLC and embark on a transformative journey towards the Good Life! 🌟🌱

Aging Well Together with Margaret Critchlow

Inside Community Podcast — Ep. 018

Hear from Margaret Critchlow, PhD., about finding connection as an older person, and building communities where elders can thrive emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and physically.

In this episode

  • Who is there for you? (0:01)
  • Rebecca’s introduction (4:51)
  • How did you become interested in cohousing? (9:41)
  • The missing piece of the puzzle (13:54)
  • Providing mutual support for each other (18:50)
  • How does the community interact with each other? (24:39)
  • What’s it like living in a retirement home? (32:59)
  • How can communities support each other to age well? (37:21)
  • The value of planning for aging well. (42:37)
  • What do you want as you get older? (49:55)
  • Risk of social isolation (53:52)
  • How can younger people support the elders in community? (1:01:25)
  • How to talk about aging in community. (1:10:22)
  • The importance of having a power of attorney. (1:14:55)
  • The willingness of people with dementia to live with risk (1:22:07)
  • Other communities that are rocking aging in place (1:29:24)
  • Margaret Critchlow (1:34:32)

About Margaret Critchlow

Margaret Critchlow, PhD, taught anthropology at York University in Toronto, Canada for 25 years before retiring to Vancouver Island. She loved learning from villagers in the south Pacific islands of Vanuatu and from residents of Canadian housing co-ops. She has written or co-authored more than 50 academic article and seven books. She was a founding member of the first senior cohousing community in western Canada, Harbourside Cohousing, where she has lived with her husband since it opened in Jan 2016. Margaret enjoys sharing her enthusiasm for cohousing with people of all ages, independently and as a Community Building Facilitator with Cohousing Development Consulting. Her online courses, “Planning for aging in community” and “Is cohousing for you?” have supported people to better understand what they are getting into when they join a cohousing community.

Ways to support

  • Instagram & Facebook: follow the show and see inspiring images and videos of community life @InsideCommunityPodcast
  • Podcast platforms: Subscribe, rate and review on your favorite podcast platform, and share with your friends and folks you know who are curious about living Inside Community.
  • Donate: consider donating. Your financial support of Inside Community helps us to continue to create meaningful and exciting content.

If you want to learn more about aging in community or any aspect of community, check out the Inside Community Podcast sponsor, ⁠⁠⁠The Foundation for Intentional Community⁠⁠⁠. FIC is an incredible resource center with weekly events, online courses, classified advertisements, and lots of free educational materials. Podcast listeners get 20% off in ⁠⁠⁠⁠FIC Bookstore ⁠⁠⁠⁠with code INSIDE20 and 30% off ⁠⁠⁠⁠FIC courses⁠⁠⁠⁠ with code INSIDE30. You can learn more about FIC and access transcripts at ⁠⁠⁠⁠ic.org/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Thanks to our sponsors

Caddis Collaborative – ⁠caddispc.com⁠

CohoUS – ⁠www.cohousing.org⁠

Communities Magazine – ⁠gen-us.net/subscribe⁠

Show Notes

LINKS that Margaret Mentioned:

Karin Wells’ CBC radio documentary “It’s Their Life” about how Denmark is changing ways to care for the elderly. ⁠https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2304600412 ⁠

CBC Radio documentaries by Karin Wells about Harbourside Cohousing:

2016 ⁠https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/hisham-matar-judge-lynn-smith-co-housing-spotlight-investigation-1.3732577/b-c-seniors-build-a-new-way-to-age-in-place-1.3737140?x-eu-country=false⁠

2018 ⁠https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/the-sunday-edition-june-10-2018-1.4695635/a-b-c-experiment-in-cohousing-has-become-an-adventure-in-co-caring-1.4695653⁠

Anne P. Glass “Aging better together, intentionally”  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352846544_Aging_Better_Together_Intentionally⁠

Elder Spirit Community, Abingdon, VA ⁠https://elderspirit.org⁠

Harbourside Cohousing, Sooke, BC ⁠https://www.harbourside.ca⁠

Quimper Village, Port Townsend, WA ⁠http://www.quimpervillage.com/⁠

West Wind Harbour Cohousing ⁠https://www.westwindharbour.ca

Margaret will be teaching the 5-week FIC Course ⁠Exploring Community for Aging Well⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ starting June 23rd

Use Code INSIDE30 for 30% off

Super Awesome Inside Community Jingle by FIC board member Dave Booda davebooda.com

ICP theme by Rebecca Mesritz

Thanks from Rebecca, your podcast host

Episode Transcript

Margaret Critchlow 0:01
Who’s there? You know, to give you a shoulder to cry on once in a while, who’s there to laugh themselves silly with you? Who’s there to walk with you and listen to bird songs? Or the sound of the waves? Who’s there to talk out a tricky issue in social relationships, who’s there to clear with you, that confrontations that you get yourself into that kind of social connection? Who’s there just even to look into your eyes, you know, and help you find the speck that got in there.

Rebecca Mesritz 0:42
Who is there indeed, I just had to start this episode off with that gorgeous quote from Margaret Critchlow my guest today, because I think it really hits on that longing inside each of us to really be seen and to live in connection with others. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk with Margaret about finding that connection as an older person, and building communities where elders can thrive emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically. I often hear people entering their 60s Maybe even into their late 50s. Thinking about the future and wondering what the next chapter of their life will look like. Like people of many ages, there is a deep desire to find connection, mutual support, and continue living a vibrant, balanced and stimulating life. In this conversation, we will examine how to create community that both celebrates, and addresses the unique needs and challenges of elders and community. This was going to be our interview for July, but we’re releasing it just a little bit early because Margaret has a course upcoming with the fic at the end of June and I wanted you guys to get dropped into some of these topics before that started in case you were interested in signing up and joining along for that course. So I hope you enjoy it. Here’s a few words from our sponsors and then we will get started. For more than 50 years communitarians communities seekers and cooperative culture activists have been sharing their stories and helpful community resources and communities magazine communities has visited the topic of aging and community many times over the decades. And today’s guest Margaret Critchlow has herself written four articles for the magazine, including two about senior cohousing you can gain access to all back issues in digital form. Plus receive current print or digital issues by subscribing at Jen hyphen us.net/subscribe. A complete Article Index community index and issue theme list are all available online to help you find what you’re looking for. koho us is the hub of the cohousing movement, convening individuals and organizations with a shared vision for intentional community living. expert led courses and forums on the cohousing Institute, provide the skills and expertise to build and sustain your community available both live and on demand. Join koho us for the commons a monthly gathering space for the cohousing curious the 10th of every month at 10am Mountain learn more@www.cohousing.org.

Rebecca Mesritz 3:37
Margaret Crichlow PhD, taught anthropology at York University in Toronto, Canada for 25 years before retiring to Vancouver Island. She loved learning from villagers in the South Pacific islands of Vanuatu and from residents of Canadian housing coops. She has written or co authored more than 50 academic articles and seven books. She was a founding member of the first senior cohousing community in Western Canada harbourside cohousing, where she has lived with her husband since it opened in January 2016. Margaret enjoys sharing her enthusiasm for cohousing with people of all ages independently and as a community building facilitator with cohousing development, consulting her online courses planning for aging and community and is cohousing for you have supported people to better understand what they’re getting into when they join a cohousing community. You’re listening to the inside community podcast. I’m your host Rebecca Mezrich. Thank you so much for joining me today for this interview with Margaret Critchlow Margaret Critchlow welcome to the Inside community podcast. So nice to have you.

Margaret Critchlow 4:52
It’s great to be here, Rebecca. Thanks for inviting me.

Rebecca Mesritz 4:55
Absolutely. Well, I usually start my Interviews by asking my guests to tell me a little bit about their community. So can you tell me a little bit about where you live and what it’s like?

Margaret Critchlow 5:07
I’d be happy to I live in Harborside cohousing, which is a community of 31 households oriented for people of retirement age, but with no age restriction. And we’re located on the territories of the South nation here in beautiful souk, British Columbia on Vancouver Island, which is just north of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. It’s a great place to live living in a fully accessible, compact and not that I particularly need mobility. I don’t have mobility challenges at the moment, but I so that I won’t have to move again nor my husband who lives here with me. We live in a 960 square foot, spacious yet compact home and condo type home, all on one level, looking out over the sukkah harbor and the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the Olympic Mountains beyond that. So a very beautiful place to live a really lovely community to be living with. And yeah, I’m delighted to say that we found a way to make this work. And not only that, there’s a second cohousing community in our little town. Our town is only about 10,000 people. Maybe it’s grown to 13,000 by now, but we have a second cohousing community, and it’s a really short walk away from us just a few 100 yards along the shoreline of the harbor. So there’s a lot of interaction between the two communities and that one, which is called Westland harbor cohousing. So that’s the context in which I’m joining you from a small town with two cohousing communities, and a beautiful island in the Pacific Northwest. What do you Americans would call the Pacific Northwest and what we call the banana belt of Canada.

Rebecca Mesritz 7:05
Can you tell me a little bit more just about what life is like there? And and I’m also just curious about, you know how it was? How you started it?

Margaret Critchlow 7:16
Oh, yeah, I’d love to talk about that. We started it was me and a friend named Gail Abernathy, who’s a British osteopath. So someone who treats the whole person, but through and through the body for health and wellness. She and I were talking about putting our mothers in care. I think I was probably there because I, you know, thrown my back out lifting stuff to reorganize my mother’s many possessions in order to help her to downsize and move into a home. And Gail was in a similar situation. And we talked about how we neither of us wanted what we saw as the options for our aging parents. That is the retirement home. If you’re lucky, as a nursing home if you’re less fortunate. We didn’t want it and the kind of care that we were arranging for our mothers we couldn’t afford either. My mother was in a care facility in Maryland that ended up costing a church run but private care facility ended up costing something like $11,000 a month, which was simply just not I couldn’t foresee ever being in a position where that would be possible. And if I were that wasn’t the way I wanted to spend my final days nor use the money. So we did some investigation, and very quickly found a book that had been published. This was 2011, let’s say maybe late 2010. And it was a book that have been published the year before by Charles Tourette called the senior cohousing handbook. I got a copy. We both read it, Gail and me. And we said to each other, he’s written the book that will allow us to do exactly what we want for ourselves to create it for ourselves. And we’d been talking for some years about maybe starting a co op, maybe buying land in the country, maybe you know, eco village and then meanwhile we’re all getting older. So working in the fields is less and less attractive but still kind of compelling because we are not not really coming to grips with getting older. So even as we’re putting our mothers at home so we’re having trouble imagining really we’re getting older too. We read this book the senior cohousing handbook and it changes everything because it’s step by step. So, Gil’s husband is an architect to Andrew. Andrew Moore and he Gail says you and Andrew should go to California and you should take Charles Tourettes course on Create starting the study groups. He has a study group called wo imaginatively study group one to help to prepare for coming into a senior oriented cohousing. So that was all it took. I had been teaching about cohousing back in Ontario. I had relocated to Sook and then about 2004 then teaching part time at York University, from then through 2010. And in my courses about cross cultural housing housing around the world I talked about because I like to teach about our culture as well as all the so called exotic cultures, because we’re all pretty exotic really, and the exotic ones are actually more familiar than you would think. So in teaching a course on cross cultural forms of housing, I taught about cohousing and I had done that since Tourette’s began publishing in the late 80s and brought brought cohousing in fact to North America. And cohousing in the sense that they use it isn’t intentional neighborhood design. That is a design in which each household has its own private accommodation, and it’s complete. It includes a kitchen full kitchen and living and sleeping quarters for whatever you define as a household. cohousing also includes common space, and usually the common space is collectively designed by the people who will be living there. And the whole project is designed by those people working with the professionals that they need. So the professionals that they need part escaped me on the first pass. Andrew and I trained with Charles Tourette, we did learn how to offer the study group one with direct we, after teaching that course twice over a 10 week period in 2011. We realized that was not sustainable. If we were to go into offered on a regular basis to everyone who might come into our cohousing community. We couldn’t offer courses that were 10 weeks long, we couldn’t sustain it and work with the people taking the courses. So with working with Chuck a week, I created really a new curriculum for it based on his that spanned a weekend. So we began to offer what did we call it? Aging, something like aging well and community. We began to offer that in affiliation with Royal Roads University here in the Victoria area, British Columbia. And we offered that maybe maybe 12 times in the building of harbor side, we required that every buddy who became what we called an equity member of the community, that is a shareholder in the development company required that each of them take the course. So devote devote one weekend of their lives to looking at aging well and community and what that could be like for them, if they chose to become a member of the senior cohousing that didn’t have a name at that point. What and we did we require that and everybody who came in during the development period took the course, a lot Matt, half the people who took the course did not continue with the group. So it was a very good gatekeeper. I wish we still had the ability to let people know more fully what they’re getting into when they join our community. But now we’re simply a condo association or strata title. So it’s an willing buyer willing seller. We don’t have that ability to select members as carefully through self selection, actually, which is what happened during development. We never kept anybody out. People decided for themselves if they were not a good fit, and it worked really well. Now, the missing piece, as I mentioned before, was that in reading Chuck’s book and then in teaching the course. It was easy to overlook the fact that the book is a great start, but it is it doesn’t include everything you need to know Not surprisingly, to develop a complex RS was $13 million project I think it was and the ones that I’ve I’ve worked since in the field as a consultant and community building consultant in a cohousing capacity, and those projects were many more millions of dollars. People like me and anthropologist by training have no capacity to provide the didn’t even know what the professional advice is that you need to create a cohousing community. So we quickly learned that we needed to enlist the aid of a project manager familiar with and successful in CO housing. And we hired Rene Matthew of CO housing development consulting in the Vancouver area Burnaby Burnaby was just adjacent to me and Cooper, and she led us through all of the steps and we created harbourside with wonderful architect, who has done a lot of cohousing with all of their requisite engineers and the insurance advice, the financial advice, the legal advice that we needed to make the project work. So it took about five years from start to finish, and that’s a little longer than many cohousing communities take. But four years is not unusual. So we were, we were really pleased with how it all turned out. And that we didn’t lose any money. And that we got really lovely homes to live in and a lovely community that that I continue to be involved in harbourside, I do a lot of facilitation, a good bit of work on the on the website behind the scenes sort of stuff. But the community is really carried by the energies of all the other people who, some of whom have been with the project from the very beginning like myself, and some of whom joined row last year, and now contribute hugely to the success of this place. So it’s a real mixture of people who’ve been in for the long haul. And people who joined more recently, and and people who have a tour coming up 12 people on Sunday, which may include some people who will eventually become our neighbors. So that’s a long winded answer to your question. But as you can see, I love to talk about what it’s like to be here.

Rebecca Mesritz 16:38
Well, I think that’s really lovely, because it hopefully will give people listening who are interested in something like this, some framework for what what to expect. I’m curious, you know, for the people that are living there, you know, I’m my I have an aunt who’s living in a senior housing development in Baltimore, actually also a church run. And I’m familiar with sort of the setup there and how for them, they they they buy in, they own their place. And then once they’re in they can basically hers is set up so that they could never get kicked out if something happens, and it has sort of a graduated care if they become ill or when their health declines. And I’m wondering how your community helps people or supports people who have declining health. Is that is that a part of what you do? Or do you have an on? Is there some staff there that supports with health care?

Margaret Critchlow 17:48
Yeah, it’s a very important question, I think to clarify for your listeners, the difference between a cohousing that’s oriented toward people my age, and the you the care facilities such as your, your family maybe in and what we’re much more familiar with is what you’ve just described, if you can get into one that provides kind of a kit, they often call it a campus of care, where you come in to independent living, you can come and go as you please. You can cook for yourself, if you want to often but meals are provided is a meal plan that you buy into, you may, as you say, buy your home. But some some facilities like you’re describing I think Rebecca require that you sell the that the community will buy the house or the unit back when you die or you move out of it, and then they find the buyer and so on. So we don’t do anything like that. And this what we’re offering is much less secure, if you like, then what your relative has, that is not less secure, and that nobody’s going to throw you out of harbourside. But if if my needs increase substantially either in terms of my mental health or my physical health, then I will need to enlist my family or my friends or both to find a good facility for me to get the care that I need. What we agreed to do when we started harbor side was to provide neighborly voluntary, neighborly mutual support for each other to age in place and to flourish the rest of our days here if possible. Now, that’s just not always possible. And we’re very clear that we do not offer assisted living. We have no staff. We are just volunteers, neighbors who care about each other, and through the relationships that we’ve built with each other and continue to build. There’s a lot that we’re willing to do for each other It mostly manifests in food, food is, you know, something we do really easily. And I’d have to say quite well. So if someone has had surgery I had, I had two hip replacements, the first year that we lived here, two different hips, you be glad to know. And it was very successful. And even so, we, my husband, and I were really grateful that we received lunches and dinners every day for a week on trays hot, because you don’t have to get in a car and drive anywhere to do to deliver that. So that’s the kind of care we can give. We keep people company we’ve been knitting with one member for that’s been very beneficial. We’ve supported people here through cancer treatments, we’ve driven which still do drive people to visit loved ones who are in the hospital or drive people to to their appointments. But we do not provide personal care. You know, unless we’re such good friends with somebody that we do that. And then we, you know, I don’t know what people do for each other privately. But there’s no obligation to provide any kind of care. And we do it because we love each other. And we do what we’re comfortable giving. So it’s quite a limited palette, if you like, of the colors that we’re willing to sort of paint on to the care structure this community. And we are fortunate to live in a town that’s pretty well served medically. And it’s pretty well served in terms of assisted living in an L, what do you call it continuing care or longterm care. But there are waiting lists, and there are challenges around all of those things. What how this will work out, I don’t really know sometimes I think it’s we’ve got more people with increasing needs than we can possibly support. And sometimes, we think we can find a path through it quite easily by simply encouraging people to bring in the care that they need. So a number of the age range here is from the 90s. To maybe we’ve got some people in their late 50s, more likely 60s. So it’s about a 3035 year age range. We have multiple generations with people living here who have other members of their family living in the community are closely connected to the community. So it’s more diverse then in terms of age than it first appears. And so for the people who are older and frailer, that’s very possible and they have succeeded in bringing in care. So daily care, even personal care help with getting dressed help with bathing, help with medications. And the family members who live here also provide that for each other. It’s proven to be a really good structure for people supporting each other of different ages to live multi generationally, but with privacy, so they’re, the limits are around. Mobility to some extent because we’re on a hill. Strange choice of sight, one might say for a senior cohousing community, but the what we our vision and values work suggested so strongly that we will wanted a good water view. And if you look on our website Harbor side.ca You’ll see there’s a video tour there as well. You’ll see how important the waterfront location is to this community. So we picked it for that we picked it because we had easy water access, we have a wharf. Our sailboat is tied up and our war of other people’s are two. We have lots of kayaks. We have a gazebo on the wharf where we can have picnics, barbecues, we can catch crabs from the wharf. And our neighbors are our professional crab fisherman. So that’s been beneficial to us too. So the location kind of chose itself for us. And we’ve used the slope to advantage with seven buildings 31 units, and each of the units has a view of the water most of those all but three I would say are unobstructed south facing water and mountain views. So pretty fantastic. And it isn’t the best site for access to the waterfront. Really. I mean, if you’re in a walker, it’s pretty challenging to go down that hill and then back up that hill. That said we have at least one probably two members of our community who do exactly that who are quite elderly. Every day, but the Yeah, the site didn’t make an awful lot of sense for the cohousing thing. But one of the things that it did lend itself to was thinking about bringing in a caregiver and bringing in more care as we as we age in place. So we bought a resort. We bought a small resort called So Sook Ocean Resort from Captain Ralph Hall, who remains a senior member of our community. And that resort building included what was at that time, his living quarters, the Owners Suite, and it’s a fully studio apartment basically fully self contained with its own entrance. And when we, when we envisioned harbourside, we envisioned that space as a caregivers suite, where we could have a caregiver, maybe even a couple, if we were lucky, provide living care, and maybe, maybe the guy would be a trained nurse and could provide care for those of us who needed it. And maybe the woman would be a landscape gardener and could do all the maintenance on the property, we have about two and a half acres, and including a woodland. So that dream hasn’t materialized nor have we actually gone looking for it yet. But we have reserved that suite for always for its care purposes. So you can book it for a family to visit, for example, but if it’s needed for care reasons, like somebody’s coming to provide care for a friend who lives here, or if a caregiver were needed, and they would live there, then the guests have to have to find another place to be. We do have other guests base, we have two other guest rooms and all sweep as in the resort building that has become the common house. So that remains a possibility to support us better to age in place. Hmm.

Rebecca Mesritz 26:58
Well, I mean, there’s so much that I want to talk with you about and thank you so much for sharing about harbor side. I just want to hear before we move on, because I’m just so curious, a little bit more about kind of what, like what daily life is like in your community? And what what people I mean, it sounds like people are walking down to the water are people It sounds like most of the people are active. But can you just paint a little bit more of a picture of you know, how does the community interact with each other? And yeah, what how are people involved other than, you know, providing meals, if someone comes back?

Margaret Critchlow 27:44
Sure, that’s a be a pleasure to answer that. So I’m in the, I’ll just sort of imagine it at this time of year in the winter, we do a lot more indoors things. But right now, we start by the newspapers delivered down on the entry, floor like but by our parkade. So people often meet as they go down to pick up the newspaper in the morning, they then have the opportunity to share coffee at 10 o’clock. That’s usually out this time of year, there’s a covered patio, which we’ve has assumed the name of sages corner. So they go down to sages corner and have coffee with the with friends. Many of us will meet for a walk and talk in pairs or threes or, you know, whatever, and, and walk down to the waterfront there’s a way to obviously to access the waterfront from our own property. But often we will go down and walk a boardwalk or books to the municipality, which is quite lovely and right now that the Eagles are desperately feeding babies. So they’re fishing, fishing, fishing. So there’s lots to watch and lots of chances to observe nature together. It’s one thing I’ve learned from my neighbors is how to how to better seal the richness of nature around us. So we spend a good bit of time looking at flowers and birds and talking about that and educating each other. There often is the opportunity for casual and informal encounters in the gardens. So we have some vegetable gardening. Two major places where vegetables are grown on their property. One is has the opportunity for individual beds and that but then we all can help each other with that and learn from each other and the other is a plot for growing community food. So we often meet there there’s a gym that’s used quite a bit in the early morning and then less throughout the day. It’s the gym is equipped with really nice equipment that people have donated. People meet in the library to which is full of books that are curated from donations. meaning, things get tossed out from time to time and they get organized. And new things come in and get sorted. The maintenance team meets once a week after, I think it’s once a week after coffee, and does the routine maintenance that we require. The only person we’re hiring right now is a janitor. And she comes in a couple, few hours a couple of days a week to clean common areas. She also does private cleaning for a number of us here, so and then other people bring in their own cleaners, but the members are doing the work. So we’re doing Yeah, all of the maintenance and Night Patrol brings people together. We have we’ve just stopped this for the summer. But we have had up until this week, Wednesday, soup lunches, where people get to couple of people make a big soups, and usually a vegetarian and non vegetarian and we get together and share a meal at least once a week, not as much as some other communities do. But at least once a week. And then we’ve often had Sunday brunches. And, and then potlucks have various sorts of things like that. We have a monthly community work be and we always have a lunch after that. Where everybody gets together, you sign you sign up or just show up for different jobs around the property. We have one this Saturday, it’s two hours, from 1010 to 12. Excuse me, and we get a huge amount of work done. It’s amazing. If you get 20 people out, we have about 40 Something people living here, and even half are able to show up. You know it’s 20 people to us. 40 hours of work done right there bang on a Sunday, Saturday morning. So we celebrate that with food that some of the work be people prepare. We have talks. So tomorrow evening, we have a report from one of our members who just spent two weeks in Slovenia, assisting with the investigation of war crimes on behalf of the as a delegate for the Canadian government. fascinating to hear about I’m really looking forward to that. And that’s one of our own members will also bring in members who have interesting things to share with us, or the community hosts and participates in an elder college and has a film Night international film class I should say once a week for a period of weeks. We have a legal finance team that gets together regularly as well. And they use our office in the former resort now common house building for their files and paperwork. There’s a movie night once a week. There’s bridge night, but sorry. There’s another game. Oh, my gosh,

Rebecca Mesritz 32:59
I just found so robust. It’s fine. Yeah, no, there’s a lot. There’s a lot going on. I’m exhausted.

Margaret Critchlow 33:09
Not everybody. Not everybody goes to everything, right? No, you couldn’t possibly I’m pretty selective about it myself. Oh, and tonight is drumming is drumming every Wednesday and a common hands. So and all of this Rebecca is self organized. So the really cool thing about it is it doesn’t take the fun squad at the retirement home to organize this. There is no cruise director, right? We do everything by consensus. It’s all voluntary. If people don’t want to come they don’t come. If there’s like with soup, it became clear that people were running out of energy for producing soup in the summertime, and other people were still willing to come and eat it. We ran out of cooks. So we close that down for a while. And then we’ll try it again. You know, so it’s a very organic way of of living together and of of my theory is that by not having everything taken care of it supports us to be more robust and more engaged with life and more active. And we’re always hoping to attract people who are drawn to that sort of thing. You know, we’re really careful if somebody says I’m looking for a place for my mom. I’m really actually not interested. I want to meet your mom

Rebecca Mesritz 34:32
thank you for sitting in on this conversation with Margaret Critchlow. I am so thrilled to be able to bring you conversations like this and I hope that they are meaningful for you and useful and helpful for your life. If they are please take a moment to visit ic.org/podcast and support the show with a donation so that we can continue to bring you thoughtful guests with loads of it experience to talk about tough issues and things that can be hard and challenging so that we can all learn and grow together. And thank you so much for your support, and for supporting my other sponsors.

Rebecca Mesritz 35:19
The inside community podcast is sponsored by the Foundation for intentional community. fic has over 35 years of partnership with hundreds of intentional communities around the world. Our mission is to champion social, ecological and economic justice and resiliency, through the support and growth of cooperative culture, and intentional communities. We do this through our free directory of intentional communities, online events and courses, a free forum space for discussion and connection, and many other tools and resources for creating starting and living in community. As a thank you to our podcast listeners, go to the shownotes to find a coupon code for 20% off fic is books and workshops. This is a time when people need community. When most of the world is isolated, you can find connection through the communities@ic.org Catus is not your everyday architecture firm. Their interest and regenerative and community supportive design has cultivated an expertise in intentional and cohousing communities, with the focus on rich and healthy human experiences. Design Excellence and pragmatism are at the core of their work, as is an ethic of service to the client and natural or urban environments. caddis is a leader in sustainable design, Zero Energy homes, passive house and delightful neighborhoods. They are experts in grassroots community engagement, and apply attention sophisticated design and creative solutions to every project. If it’s worth building, it’s worth building it well find caddis on Facebook and Instagram. And at caddis pc.com. That’s CADDIS pc.com.

Rebecca Mesritz 37:21
Yeah, so I guess what all this leads me to is like the big question. And the big reason that I wanted to speak with you is really, you know, how can community support each other to age? Well, and I think you’ve touched on a little bit of that, but it’s kind of a big question to unpack. And I’d love to hear your hear your thoughts on that.

Margaret Critchlow 37:45
It’s a very big question, Rebecca. And, you know, I probably can only partially unpack it, because you said how can communities support people to age well, right out each other to age? Well, so that the two levels to it, just to flag at the at the beginning. One is the ways in which within a community we can support each other to age well, and there’s a lot I can say about that. There’s also the ways in which communities plural, like the foundation of for intentional communities does can support communities to age well. And that’s happening across the communities movement. So many communities were founded by people who were young 20 years ago, or 30 years ago, even. And in those communities, people are now older, and they’re having to deal with issues of aging that they were never really maybe intending or the communities were never designed to deal with. So how can communities themselves age? How and that is not something I’m an expert in but I think the foundation has a lot of wisdom around that. And then how can communities support each other to age and that’s something that we are doing with ourselves and Westland Harbor, cohousing are doing like emergency preparedness training together, we’re looking at how we can support the difficult conversations that we all need to have around aging. And so the communities themselves can support each other in talking about the challenges, and how and I don’t know that we will have the answers. But my experience in my face, I think is that communities working people working together are the best way to create the answers to co create the answers. And then communities working together can co create the answers for the communities movement, in fact, so that’s one level of it. Now, within our community, we support each other to age well in similar ways, but a lot of it has to do with companionship, as I say walking together Walking with people who need accompaniment, either for mobility reasons or mental health reason, memory reasons. And, and exploring the limits of what it is that we can offer, and not being afraid to do that. And we’re starting to have the difficult conversations around death and dying as well. As we age and as more of our members become frail or have are hospitalized, for one reason or another. We’ve We’ve, yeah, we’ve only had a couple of deaths here. And in the eight years, and it’s there’s a lot that we don’t know. And that’s still a little scary to all of us. So I recently bought it, I can show this to Rebecca, because we can see each other with the people in podcast land, for your benefit. It’s a deck of playing cards called the Death deck, a lively game of surprising conversations, indeed. And it’s available at to the death deck.com no spaces, no capitals, the death deck.com. Quite a fascinating exercise, which is a series of multiple choice questions. I’ve been playing it with anybody who will play some people find reasons why they can’t or just can’t fight, don’t want to do it. But it’s I’ve been playing it with my husband, who’s quite long suffering about this, and includes great questions about, you know, whether you prefer cremation interment, green burial, or a mushroom jacket in which to be buried, because apparently, that will decompose you. And whether you want your remains shot off into space, or not, if you can afford it, and so on. So some of its silly, a lot of it is really helpful to talk to access the stuff that I can’t, haven’t been able to talk with my children about even, or my partner. So we have the opportunity living here to demystify aging, the death and dying and to support each other by learning together to deal with. Yeah, everything from how to access retirement benefits to how to deal with grieving.

Rebecca Mesritz 42:37
So, you know, I guess as both for your community and for people listening, when you come together, and you start thinking about creating the plan for aging, what are some of the elements that people should be thinking about, including in that plan? And what would a good plan include?

Margaret Critchlow 43:01
And this is something that I teach about in the course that I offer through the foundation for intentional community, which has just been renamed and I’m having a hard time holding on to the name. I think it’s exploring community for aging. Well, right now, it has all those words in it anyway. Aging Well, community exploring. And I think it’s very valuable to create a plan. Whether or not you can flip that plan out exactly the way you create it. You probably can’t, right. I mean, how many plans have you ever made that you’ve carried out exactly to the letter the way you designed them in the first place? And you know, harbourside cohousing turned out pretty much the way we thought pretty much. I mean, it’s it’s a three story apartment building, and it’s six other buildings. But in many, many ways it varied from the plan. And there were these oops, moments where the fire departments didn’t, you can’t do that, you have to give us a place where we can turn the fire truck around. So you know, it led to a redesign of how we would do that. Anybody’s plan for aging is going to be like that as well. But I am a believer in the value of planning in any case. And as I teach in my fic course, I worked with graduate students, I was once a graduate student that I worked with a lot with graduate student research planning. So designing your PhD thesis, right. And in anthropology that involves fieldwork. And that may involve going deep into Toronto, as some people do to study housing cooperatives, or it may involve going to Zimbabwe or find a way out to where I worked in the South Pacific and living in a remote village and really wandering, having no idea what it will be like to be there. So that plan that I developed to research Vanuatu had many moving parts, and they were always changing and always had Having B to be redefined. And it’s in that process of changing developing your plan in the first place that I believe equips you. And this includes a plan for aging. Well, it equips you to revise your plan and to adapt and to be resilient when the unexpected happens, which is what we’re all in for, I’m sure. So your aging well plan, I think begins with looking at where, where I’m where I am now, what my mobility level is, what my family history is, and my life is, I mean, my mother also had two hip replacements, my grandfather would have if they’d been invented yet. So I could see this was likely in my future, and you know, about 2010. And so I wanted a place where I could always have step free living, which I’ve got no problem, my aging plan included, putting in the tracking, it can’t even see it now, inside the ceiling, to put a lift from the bedroom bed, actually, to the bathroom, if that was necessary. So as I said, you can’t see a thing, but the backing is in the ceiling, which would have been, I want to say impossible, or at least very difficult to put in after the fact. And for a pretty reasonable amount, you could put it in during constructions over boom up in the ceiling. So we put in that sort of thing. And the bathrooms of harbourside were all designed to be big enough for wheelchair turning radius. They’re not you know, we have a cupboard where we would need to have a wheelchair turning right now. But if we needed it, we could change it very quickly is nothing fundamental in the design. So I think that’s analogous to the plan for Ageing, well, you know, design it in a way that you can replace the different parts with other things, you know, but that, that the scaffolding or the main structure of that plan will serve you well. And for me, it starts with, what’s my mobility? likely to be? I mean, what’s if we look at family history, what you know, what took you? What took your parents to the home? Or the grave? And, and what is your own lifestyle? And you know, are you likely to fall off a ladder, because you’re picking Apple, apples in the orchard every day? That sort of thing. But then look at your home, what works for you the way you live now? What doesn’t work for you the way you live? Now? What might work better? If you’re living in a single family home? How much space do you really need? Because most people I’m guessing in your listening audience, certainly in the fairly privileged world that I live in. Most people have us who have a single family home have more space than they need right now unless they’re raising young children, in which case they hit don’t have anywhere near as much space as they need. So for the over 50s, I would say look at where you live. Now. Start now, do not put this off, and so easy to put off. And and look at what space you need, what you have now that you don’t need, or that you could share. I do not need a slow cooker. Right? I could share that with my neighbors. I use a slow cooker maybe four or five times a year. Some people use them every day. I know that or an Insta pot. But I know what I use and don’t use. I know what I could do with less of books, paper, anybody the screens this surgery screens in. If any of you see a video from this podcast, you will see that I have carefully screened out my messy bookshelves. So you can do all sorts of things in a small space with a little creativity. The aging plan also includes I think the things that you’ve always wanted to do and if put off doing, why. Why not now, for me, that includes a lot of personal growth work a lot of going on retreats to places or workshops, just because I’m so curious, and I just want to be fully the full person that I can be. For others. It’ll be cruises in the Caribbean. Why not? One of our founding harvests I’d found deer harvested founding members passed away on a cruise, you know, and what a great way to go. She was exactly doing what she wanted to do. Oh too soon, but but do it you know, do it. What don’t delay. So I would say live fully into your life. Look at your house. Consider getting rid of a lot of stuff. Consider what it would be like to grow old where you live now. If you couldn’t drive for many of us in North America. That’s a big, sobering consideration, shall we say? Harvest site is walkable to the whole everything our little town offers, which is not everything. But you know if there’s two grocery stores, a couple of drugstore, three drugstores library or good nice library, nice community hall banks, doctor’s offices, coffee shops, restaurants and so on. And I can walk to a whole array of those not everything, but a whole array of them in 10 minutes, is a bit of uphill. This is good. And many of us walk to the shops or the whatever’s every day as part of just our daily exercise or, and or down to the waterfront and do a loop every day through the woods and the boardwalk. Is your home walkable like that? Is it located? What’s the wall? You know, there’s something called the Walk Score, which tells you how convenient your home is to communities. It’s a it’s an app and look up your Walkscore ours is about 75, I think, but the one that cohousing in Sydney is like a 90. It’s really close to everything and it’s flat. Some cranberry Commons in Burnaby is also about a 95 or something like that. It’s just everything is right there. So consider is what do you want as you get older? And that question, what do you want is one that a Hungarian teacher of mine drilled into my brain, she wasn’t teaching me Hungarian, she just happened to be Hungarian. And so she used to say, what do you find? And so yeah, if I do find, it really makes a difference. First of all, you have to know what you want. And that means you have to think about getting older. So that’s, that’s part of the challenge, I think in creating a good aging plan. And in the course, the next round of it is that starts the 23rd of June and runs weekly on one day a week, I want to say Fridays,

Margaret Critchlow 52:01
in the morning, Pacific Time, that course walks us all together through the various steps to create an aging plan. And you can you can create as detailed as plan as you want. Nobody’s going to collect it at the end. But it’s a great opportunity to workshop it, really take notes and start to delve into what it is that you want, as you get older and what you don’t want. And sometimes knowing what you don’t, I used to teach that. Don’t focus on what you don’t want. Nobody ever gives the taxi driver or the Uber driver directions saying the one thing I don’t want is I don’t want to go to the Empire State Building. Don’t take me there. Nobody says that. Right? So I used to think that you shouldn’t you should focus only on what you do want, not what you don’t want. But a student in my class, the last time I offered the course on planning for aging, well, students said, Well, why do you why do you say that because in fact, if I know what I don’t want, it really helps me to see what I do want. And I thought yeah, there’s a real truth to that. So if you’re a contrary thinker, like that student, think about what you don’t want, and it will help you to visualize what you do want. So however it works for you think your way into a plan that includes a future in which you have less mobility and possibly, but I really hope, not, less mental capacity. So and if you’re in your home, it’s in the country is beautiful, the maybe you designed it yourself, it’s got everything you ever wanted. And the gardening is amazing. And you’re out in the garden every morning and you just love it. Think about what that might be like for you in 10 years, especially if you can’t drive to the grocery store. And the biggest risk for all of us as we get older is social isolation. And the North American pattern of single family living, and I must say of individualism are both death sentences to us and certainly impair our capacity to live well in our later years. So your aging plan, I believe, needs to include a proactive approach to social connection. Because I mean, the studies or the research is out there. The studies show very clearly that social isolation is as big a mortality risk as smoking, heavy smoking, the kind that can kill you. So why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we believe that we don’t need help? We’re better off alone. Don’t really like people that much anyway. I have a I have friends that are just not here. I have lots of friends who are scattered all over the country and we zoom and sometimes we get together. Yeah, and And who’s there? You know, to give you a shoulder to cry on once in a while, who’s there to laugh themselves silly with you? Who’s there to walk with you and listen to bird songs? Or the sound of the waves? Who’s there to talk out a tricky issue in social relationships? Who’s there to clear with you, the confrontations that you get yourself into that kind of social connection? Who’s there just even to look into your eyes, you know, and help you find the spectra got in there? Nobody right? So what, what will serve you better and meet your needs as maybe an introvert but someone who nevertheless needs social connection, we we have occasionally checked with the community and done on one of these continuum where you stand up on two to extremes so you know, far corner everybody who considers themselves a profound extrovert. They never met somebody they didn’t like they’re really outgoing. And this corner over here, all the introverts, well, this corner over here in our community is chock a block full of people actually, they don’t want to get that close to each other would be in that corner if they could all fit right. A huge number of introverts self identify it as attracted to cohousing. And that may be true and other intentional communities as well, I don’t know, but it’s really noticeable in cohousing communities, maybe because we’re, we’re not. I think we are intentional communities. Some people here would debate that. But we’re certainly not communities that share an awful lot of values, we really just believe that living together is going to be better than for each of us than living apart. So that’s our commitment. And we believe that growing old together will be better than growing old in our single family homes. That’s it. But even so, we’re drawn to, to community and connection, and we recognize the importance of social connection, because isolation is not going to serve any of us well. Does that cover what you wanted to cover?

Rebecca Mesritz 57:08
I think so. Yeah. I mean, just hearing the Yeah, I mean, even if there’s not a lot of shared values, the value of companionship, you know, and being seen and being held together feels really, really solid. And all of that. Yeah. Yeah, it is.

Margaret Critchlow 57:33
And it’s, it’s also a sort of an uneven terrain, or difficult to navigate sometimes, because some people here really value authentic connection. And that can mean speaking very, frankly, very directly with each other. And others really value polite connection, and not saying really what I think, but, you know, being a being nice keeping the piece and that sort of thing. So we have quite a bit of work around communications, and the different styles that we have, we’re all pretty much you know, within a 3035 year age range, we’re all pretty. Not Brown, let’s put it that way, degrees of whiteness, degrees of middle class SNESs. So there’s not a lot of visible diversity in our community. There’s a huge amount of diversity that is invisible, in terms of how we think what matters to us, what we think is proper communication and polite, and what we what we think matters in how we live together and community. And that’s fertile ground to work with. And it’s, it’s one of the challenges is where the challenges and community for me come from. And I think that to Rebecca is still more stimulating than the home, then the care facility where everything is done for you. You don’t even have to think about what you’re going to cook, right? If you can think about what you’re going to eat, but it’s from a menu that is laid there laid out there for you. And the rough edges in our community, the difficulties in navigating it, the challenging people who show up and sometimes those challenging people are me. They all give us huge opportunities for growth and connection. And I think it helps to keep us mentally alive and and, and really high functioning. working it out finding ways to make decisions together by consensus is not easy, right? And in the home that doesn’t happen at a dear friend who ended up in a home on Salt Spring Island not far from here. And he was fine. It was in his early 80s at the time and he was so mentally, totally fine. Here’s another also an anthropology professor, which is how I knew them. He and his wife had worked in New Guinea and really tough area to do their field research for many years, same community, they were well loved in that community and loved them back, is named as David. And when David found himself in the care facility, his only problem was he just lost it lost his sight. So he was severely visually impaired, but not otherwise impaired. And he, he said, I’m losing my mental ability, by the minute, he said, because there’s no decisions, there are no decisions for me to make. There’s nothing I have to think about. Everything is decided for me, you know, when I’m going to get up, when I’m going to go to bed, what I’m going to eat, where I’m going to eat it, who I’m going to play. And he said, it was bingo, I think, which was hard for him after playing bridge for many years. It was all taken care of. And that makes it too easy. So I think the struggles that come in, you probably have in your community too. I think that we all have struggles in community. It’s not easy, right? But I’m really increasingly sure that hard is not bad. Heart is actually good for us. So hard is good. And that’s part of what we do on a daily basis is is work through the hard stuff. Well,

Rebecca Mesritz 1:01:25
so I would love to I mean, there’s another side of this conversation that that I want to address, which is, you know, it’s kind of about this hard stuff is that it for our community that’s mostly comprised of elders, people who are in their 60s 70s 80s 90s, hopefully, hundreds. There’s a certain set of needs and a way of communicating, but I’m also aware of multigenerational communities that have younger people in in those communities as well. And even in a community where you have someone who’s 60. And then, you know, they’re still rockin rock in their life. They don’t need extra health care. They don’t need extra support, really, they’re still doing themselves. And then you have someone who’s in their 80s or 90s, who maybe has had a decline. You know, just how can younger people support the elders in their community and what are the I think even beyond cohousing? You know, I’m trying to think of like the big picture for community what, what are the roles and the responsibilities of the youngers? Versus what are the roles and responsibilities of the elders? And how to what are some ways that you’ve learned through both your community and talking with others? That the twain shall meet? Younger people younger people can show up for the elders and also Yeah, be mindful of their own energy I guess. And their own with their with their being asked.

Margaret Critchlow 1:03:16
Yeah, yeah, yeah. youngers and the elders. And that is a whole nother side to this conversation. And it’s, I think it’s a great opportunity. If you have family, living in community, older family, living in community, and you are yourself a younger, either in community or in another community or not living in community at all. It is an opportunity to work with those elders in a new way, maybe for us. And that is making sure that the agency or the ability to make the decisions rests with the elders, and for the youngers to support that with and recognizing that that’s a gift to the younger people, that they don’t have to make decisions for their elders, that they can, that we all make decisions for ourselves. And we can all support each other to make good decisions. And I think that’s true, whatever the age, different sort of, you know, when we work together and community to make a decision, we’re always trying to make the best support each other to make the best decision that we can, given the information that we have, for that moment for that community. So in working with your elders, as a younger person, I think it’s the same thing. We’re all in this to the best possible quality of life for all of us. And the younger people can support that for older people without being either too. Hands off or too hands on. So you’re asked I think as younger people to walk a very The fine line in a sense, or a path, it’s not always easy to discern, that provides support when it’s needed. But hands off when it’s not. And many younger people dealing with older parents will be familiar with raising children. You know, not everybody has children, for sure. But everybody wants was one. And, you know, you can remember back to being a child, if you don’t have children, and that dance between I do it myself, or, you know, help me help me, you know, I want to be lifted up. So that’s what your job is, I think as a younger person dealing with elder people is discerning, when it is that help is wanted or needed, even when the elder person may not be able to identify it. And the In contrast, when you don’t tell them what to do, and don’t, don’t over help, I had an interesting conversation with a friend here recently, in which she expressed concern about kind of over helping each other at Harbor side. And a fear that our children will do that for us, right, that they will move us moves on, when we’re not really ready to move, they will think, oh, that, you know, that Margaret, she needs to be in the home because she’s making some bad decisions these days, and I’m afraid she’s gonna burn the place down. You know, an older person leaves the kettle on once and they’re toast around, you know, with their kids, like, they’re in so much trouble with their kids. Whereas if you ever left the kettle on, you know, we all have. So when there’s that fear that I think she was articulating or concern anyway, that young people will be on us and move us and make us do whatever that is that they think is good for us. So advice to younger people is listen, and, you know, step in when wanted, and, and listen well, because the flip side of overwhelming of moving someone into the home when they’re not, they don’t want to go. The other side of that is under helping and we’re having some challenges with that, from time to time at harbourside, where family for example, or whoever is the next of kin for household. Maybe they just don’t want to see what’s going on with mom and dad. It’s too hard to believe or whatever. They’re not here enough. But there’s a certain sense of, of reluctance to step up. And, and that puts the rest of us in the CO care, part of harbourside in a tricky position, because we’re not, we’re not here instead of family. You know, we’re neighborly mutual support, family plays a key role. So they, the other side of overwhelming would be under helping. And so being just tuned in listening, having those conversations, like really talking to each other younger people and older people. I’ve had some wonderful conversations when I was a young woman with some old people, both in Virginia, and in fun to want to write about what it’s like to be old. And you know, what, and what their advice is, to me, as a young woman, it was to get out there and do everything I wanted to do and let nothing stop me, which I think was what they had done or wish they had done. And, you know, my ability to learn from them was great. And to see that they were still living really vital, full lives, just with less ability to run around fast, or even run around for that matter. But but a huge mental capacity and an accumulated wisdom. So listening to each other having the conversations are both really priceless. And I think also younger people the younger people can do a lot in terms of the latter like round here. We love younger people to come in and do ladders ladder work for us. We really prefer not to be up ladders, we do. Some people here do it. But it’s, you know, it’s not the smart thing to do, in my opinion. We do have one woman my age who still prunes the trees, apple trees, and there’s no changing her mind. But younger people are great for that. The problem is most younger people in our world are working really hard and don’t have any time. And so elders have more time but less physical ability. So trade off in that department, right? Childcare resources, something where the elders can be quite helpful as long as it’s within their capacity. So you know, there’s a lot of that goes on around here we have the sound of children all the time around here because of The number of grandchildren in during COVID, somebody was homeschooling a grandchild here. So that’s really nice. And we’ve we’ve had a three year old living here for quite a period of time. So the the young, the really young, and the old, often are a good combination.

Rebecca Mesritz 1:10:22
Yeah, I mean, I think part of what this touches into, for me as a, as a younger person that’s been in community with people who are older, is that there is a, there’s a difficulty. A lot of people who are aging, getting a little bit older, don’t really want to talk about or look at sometimes the realities or as like a younger person, it’s not that we think they’ve got one foot in death’s door or anything like that. But there appears to be a lack of a plan or a lack of a program or lack of, you know, either financial, having your affairs in order or having your health plan figured out for, for what appears to be an impending health crisis based on everything that you see in that person. And I mean, I think it’s one thing if it’s your I mean, obviously, if, if you’re talking about someone that’s in your family, then there’s a certain kind of pressure to help that person. But if if it’s someone that’s in your community that’s older, that maybe doesn’t have a family, and they don’t want to talk about it. I mean, we’ve been in this situation, I’ve been in this situation where someone that I care very much about but doesn’t seem to be necessarily having a plan for themselves. And it kind of leaves the community to wonder, well, what do you think is our responsibility? What is your responsibility? You know, these conversations are just so can be very difficult. And I’m wondering, yeah, what what your recommendations are for how to talk about these, particularly with someone who is maybe resistant to, to recognizing what a reality that everyone sees around them, but they’re, like, no, nothing to see here. I’m fine.

Margaret Critchlow 1:12:30
I’m fine. I’m fine. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, for one thing, we started with a community of people here who were willing to get out of denial. One of the striking things in creating harvests I was how few local people join. It was a surprise. In fact, one of the big surprises was local people were not joining harbourside, the people who are close friends, including including the two with whom I got the idea of to hatch, harbourside didn’t join, getting out of denial. It’s really tough, right? about aging. And we have a family doctor who is a member of our retired family doctors, a member of harbourside. And she said, Yep, people are in denial, in denial, in denial, they don’t get out of denial, they’re not ready to move, they’re not ready to make a plan until it’s too late. And it’s a pattern. So I think living in community, we have the opportunity to break patterns and to have insight into our patterns. And so you have the opportunity in that situation that you describe Rebecca to Yeah, it’s hard, but to have those conversations, and if the person in question won’t have them with you to have them with the people that they’re close to, like, who’s their family, have them that we’ve done that recently, here’s to say, you know, this is, this is the care that we can provide, lay it out for you, this is what we can do. And this is all the rest, it’s the big part. And we don’t do that. And, you know, you need to talk to the family doctor, you need to talk we need to find a care facility and find out what the availability is, you need to get a good assessment, you know, caseworker and so on. So one thing that you can do is to find out as a younger member of the community, who the members, you know, what, what, what the what your community offers, not your your community, per se, but the town say, or the rural area, wherever you live, what are the steps that someone can take? So for example, in the early days here, we had a nurse come in, or no, it’s actually the same retired family doctor, but we’re now having a nurse come in and work with us all to complete a document called My wishes, which was end of life care document. This is what I want, if I’m not able to, uh, A 10 My own affairs, I’m designating this person. And then you have legal documents associated that you have to draw up about Power of Attorney enduring power of attorney, there are just plain old things you can pieces of paper you can fill out, that forced the conversation if you like. And it’s something really that you could do as a community with young people too. Because who knows when a crisis will strike? Right? I mean, I It’s a very moving class I went to led by one of the dancing two of the dancing rabbit community members about a death in their community was a 31 year old. Right? They were totally unprepared for this. But you can do this as a as a group. And I think it would raise young people’s awareness of what it’s like to look at death, which we tend to separate our young people out from now. And we’re young people are not exposed to death the way they would have been in the 19th century when the body was laid out on the kitchen table, you know. So it’s a chance for all of us to demystify aging and dying. And to have those frank conversations. I would count on somebody saying to me, I will I do, if I’m starting to lose it, you know, my kids would, I believe would tell me, and they might joke with me about it. But they would also, you know, let it be known Gee, Mom, it seems like you’re being more forgetful than ever. The absent minded professors gone to new levels. And we wonder whether harbourside is going to be a good place for you to stay. We’ve got to be able to talk about it. And your community otherwise is going to be in a very difficult position. You want to throw somebody out after they’ve been there all that time? Because their needs are greater than you can meet? No, probably not. Right? And then it was exactly

Rebecca Mesritz 1:16:49
it. I mean, that’s exactly the feeling is like, we love you. And this is like it is like a family in many ways. And we care about you. And also, there has to be how do you have those like, we need you to have more self responsibility, or there’s only so much that we can do. And I think that puts that weird position where you feel like where you feel like an obligor a sense of obligation. And you don’t want to be operating from a sense of obligation. It’s,

Margaret Critchlow 1:17:32
it’s not joyful. No, that’s right. And then and then it becomes inauthentic. And then that’s a slippery slope right there. So yeah, I think as difficult as the conversations are, they need to be had, and it needs some sort of a plan. I know one community were the first person who grew really old and unable to work because they were dependent, they needed people to all work. The first person who reached that threshold, they were able to get just support financially like to give a bit of a stipend to buy his groceries, that sort of thing. And then they went, oh my god, we can’t do this for other people. And so then there were three or four people at that age and then what so planning it and anticipating it and being real about what you can and cannot offer. Super important because I think in many not cohousing communities but other kinds of intentional communities. It’s not just that the person may become they’re not being self responsible. They’re not able to contribute to the community that where they used to, but the you need people who can contribute to the community, in a people who can do the work the community depends on it. So it’s tricky. It can any village in Vanuatu Can, can get by with a certain number of really dependent on people have for a certain number of years, right? But there’s a limit. And then and then what right? Nobody gets set out on an ice floe in Vanuatu, because, you know, ice flows, perhaps. But they’re, and they’re kind to their elders. But there does come a point where you can see the patients, you can see, oh, God, you know, this is getting hard. And so for us, we have the ability to have a good conversation about it, we have the ability to call in medical support, even free medical, you know, subsidized medical support, at least here. And and I don’t know, it’d be very concerned, where you live if someone didn’t have some sort of health plan, and some sort of plan for the future. So there’s no I don’t have an easy answer to it. But I do believe in the value of the conversations.

Rebecca Mesritz 1:19:47
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don’t I don’t think there’s easy answers, especially because probably most of this is on a bit of a case by case community by community basis. I think the other thing that we’ve kind of touched on a little bit that I just want to dive into a little bit more is really around this idea. You know, the eventuality for some people have dementia diminished cognitive function, Alzheimer’s. And this is a part of aging for a great number of people in North America, and probably the world. And I wonder if communities should or could support folks if as illness become severe? Or is that the kind of thing where I mean, again, you would want to have a professional diagnosis and professional support. But how do you see communities being able to support people through that journey of diminished function?

Margaret Critchlow 1:21:02
There’s a wonderful podcast. That was a radio show by a woman named Karen wells, k r. I n wells. She did a documentary radio documentary about harbourside, two of them, actually, that was very good. And she did one, I can’t come up with the name of it offhand. But about a community in Denmark that was designed to, to include people living with dementia. And it’s a wonderful exploration of how far you can go in community living to accommodate people with different cognitive capacities. They’re there the Danish approach to dementia, as documented in that recording anyway, which is on its it’s findable through the Canadian Broadcasting Company, CBC is to have a lot more freedom than we would be comfortable with. Yeah, there are people, people with dementia get lost. But they get found in Denmark, and bad things seemingly don’t happen to them. But they speak of a man who just loved his daily walk in the woods. And so they just equipped him with a GPS and off he went. And that, you know, once in a while he would get lost, and they’d have to go find him, but mostly found his way back, it was a very different approach that say, a comfort with risk to what North American society is used to. What can we do in community with dementia, we’re just beginning to learn, we’re just beginning to learn as we live into it. And one thing I think that stands out, in my experience at Harbor side, is the willingness of people to live with their own risk of hurting themselves, and the families of those people to accept that. So we have, you know, a woman who takes a walk every day with her walkers down to the waterfront, going off like it’s pretty rough terrain, some of the places that she goes with that, walk her through the woods, and then down onto the boardwalk in the water and back up. And the family. Like, yeah, we have, you know, we’re letting that we’re not going to stop her from doing that. Because it means the world to her. So this is a place where people who have a heart of people living at Harborside have a pretty high tolerance for risk. I think it’s fair to say, I certainly am seeing it that way. Others might, I don’t want to just put in the disclaimer that if you had anybody else from my community doing this podcast, you get a different story, right? Because we all have our own stories. But my story is that, that the freedom to go up to do the things that someone loves being out in nature is priceless, and that the people who do that are willing to take the risk of hurting themselves. And the families of those people are willing to live with those risks. You know, knowing that mom may crash with her walker in the woods and she might lie there for a while before anybody found her is a risk that I’m sure it’s uncomfortable, but this is bearable because the restraining her to quarters which did have to happen during COVID is not something that is worse. It’s worse. It’s just worse. There are limits though, around what we can do to support people with dementia. It limits around how much companionship we can give. There are limits around how much respite care we can provide if that person has a partner. What we’re mainly doing is trying to support people that situation and their families to access the resources that can support them. Because they’re every, every community has the resources to do this. And it’s it takes that kind of community to come in to the mix, we do worry about the danger of fire, for example. But we’re sprinklered, at least the apartment building is so it, you know, whatever happens, it would be contained, it’s not what we want to see happen. And, and we’re because we care about each other. We’re concerned about how people are like, their mental health, but not just the cognitive mental health or happiness factor, you know, how, how hard this is, for people have really, really challenging it is to be the person experiencing dementia, and to be a caregiver for someone like that. And to provide the kind of community support that we can as friends, but that’s the limit of it. We’re not a locked ward, and we never will be right, we’re very insecure. In that sense, you know, even the whole buildings, parts of our building are locked and other other parts are not locked, and anybody could go wandering off at any time. And it’s a worry, it’s a worry. And you know, people have those necklaces that you wear to call for help and lifeline are something that’s called and are setting it off inadvertently. And so the ambulance is coming. And it’s it adds to the stress for sure. No easy answers at all, but involving the family, the next of kin, and us as neighbors, in the capacity that we’re that we remain comfortable in as neighbors. And knowing when we’ve hit the wall. And using like self responsibility is as something is, I think, extremely important. Being self responsible is extremely important. But it’s it’s it’s often used as a blunt instrument in community, in my experience, it’s like, self responsibility is important that you are not being self responsible. So it’s a it’s a charge, right? Guilty as charged, you are not being self responsible. So I try to work with my own self responsibility, and my own boundaries. And I think boundaries are just as important as knowing well, that actually this is my limit. This is as far as I can go as a member of the CO care team, offering community support. That’s it. And to be clear with family members, particularly that this you know, we love this person to, and we are, you know, we will remain friends. And this is the limit of our helping ability for this week, or this month or ever, right? This these are the lines, and that that those those boundaries are where we meet. And so knowing what the boundary looks like and where it is, and that it’s shifting all the time, but only in these sorts of ways. And beyond this, you all need to find a way to provide the resources that your loved one needs. So your community member must have somebody else in their lives, either in the community or outside the community, who could be involved in decision making. And if they don’t, then I think connecting with the healthcare system, legal system to provide this fine, find the support that they need. And that’s where people often need help is in navigating that system. We’re fortunate to have some community members really well placed to help us navigate that system. And a couple of them gave a talk to the community a few weeks ago about exactly that, is how do you get care? You know, because they had brought in really excellent care for their family member in our community. And so how do we get what you have? Because it looks like it’s working really well. That was priceless. So draw on your own resources, I would say. I love that.

Rebecca Mesritz 1:29:10
Well, I think my my final question for you is like kind of ended a lot of my conversations in this way is you know, who Who do you see out there that is doing this really well. I mean, it sounds like you’ve got some things figured out over at Harbor side. But are there other communities that you’ve seen that are rocking it and and what does it look like when when a community is doing a really good job with supporting people to age? An age? Well?

Margaret Critchlow 1:29:42
Um, there’s a community in Virginia, Abingdon, Virginia, I think it is called elder spirit. That’s been around a long time now. And they, they seem to be rocking it. I had someone from their community in my class last term, aging class, they have a community that seems to work really well both on property, as they say on this on a site or on campus, they may say, an off campus, but in the same town, so some people living in private homes, but they see him from the outside, they have a huge sense of community connection, of mutual support, and the ability to live really well into well, all for the rest of their lives. I don’t know what it is about that particular community, I know it’s been well researched. There’s a researcher named and P glass GLA s s, who’s written extensively about that community. And so if I read that stuff, when we were starting harbor son, she’s continued to write about it. I would suggest if you’re wanting to start a community, or even join a community that’s focused on aging in place that looking at elder spirit, it’s a good place to start. There’s a community I kind of think of as our sister community across the strait of Juan de Fuca from us in Port Townsend, Washington called Quimper village that puts out a monthly I think its monthly or regular newsletter anyway. And they seem to be doing a great job to it and what is what is a great job look at to me, people are enjoying living there, they’re active, they’re staying engaged with life and with each other, they’re doing a lot of stuff together, they’re having a lot of fun together, they’re learning together. And they’re in as much as possible in charge of their lives. They’re not maybe my bias shows here, but like submitting to authority, they’re not letting other people take care of themselves, right, or not letting other people take care of them. They’re taking care of themselves, but with all this, all the support that they need, bringing in getting being proactive for themselves. They’re being self responsible. And they’re also being really connected with each other. And with the larger world. I think harbor side is doing a pretty darn good job, all things considered. We’re still building the airplane while we fly it, which is how it felt during development. And it still feels that way. We could use more active people who want to aid their to engage in active learning and aging of the sort that I’ve been describing. There is a concern that we’re only attracting older people, like at sign up. And, you know, for for succession planning, we really need to have younger people in the community. And we love having younger people in the community having a young man wife and three year old was fantastic. We had that for about six months, she was working a government job from home, he was taking care of the house and a little girl. And it was just a huge boost to the community. And so we don’t have an age restriction. We would love to have anybody living here who wants to be living in and living in and contributing to community. And so I think there’s a huge future for community aging. In multigenerational communities where there’s a willingness to support each other both the the older people supporting the younger ones, and the younger ones with the older ones. There’s some far eco village type farming communities that are doing that quite well too in our area. So there are models out there. It’s but the thing is, it’s each one is different. And it’s living into the peculiarities of your own community. That is the challenge and the opportunity. So as I said hard is not bad. And using self responsibility to make myself better and more responsible rather than accusing other people of not having it and having the hard conversations and developing a plan and then being willing to change it are all keys I think to aging well together in community. Well,

Rebecca Mesritz 1:34:32
Margaret Critchlow thank you so much for taking this time to talk to me about about aging and I’m really looking forward to yeah, having these conversations here in my own community about some of the things that we’ve talked about today. So thank you for shedding light on a lot of this for us.

Margaret Critchlow 1:34:54
Good for you, Rebecca. That’s great to hear and it’s been a pleasure talking with you

Rebecca Mesritz 1:35:04
Margaret Critchlow will be teaching a five-week course starting on June 23. Through the foundation for intentional community, entitled exploring community for aging well, for listeners of the show, you can use coupon code inside 30 for 30% off. I also have a coupon code inside 20. If you want to check out the fic bookstore, there are tons of books on how to start a cohousing, how to build community and all kinds of topics related to community life. So check out the bookstore, you can find links for that. Links for the courses all in the show notes as well as all of the links that Margaret mentioned in the show today. You can follow the show and see inspiring images and videos of community life on Facebook and Instagram at inside community podcast. I would love to hear from you there. Please reach out drop me a line let me know any questions or ideas you have about things that you want to learn about. While I definitely appreciate any donations to the show, you can also support by rating reviewing, subscribing, sharing all the things so please help us to get the word out by taking a moment and sending this on to a friend or someone that you think might be interested in joining you and your journey to living inside community. Thank you so much for being with me today.

Dave Booda 1:36:33
Who left the dishes in the shared kitchen sink? Who helps her Johnny when is too much to drink? How do we find a way for everyone to agree? That Sinsa Can you it’s a podcast y’all

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The Inside Community Podcast brings folks along for an inside look at all of the beautiful and messy realities of creating and sustaining a community. We provide useful and inspiring content to support people on their quest for resilience, sustainability, and connection.

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Inside Community Podcast host Rebecca Mesritz is a community builder living in Williams, Oregon.  In 2011, Rebecca co-founded the Emerald Village (EVO) in North County San Diego, California.  During her ten years with EVO, she supported and led numerous programs and initiatives including implementation and training of the community in Sociocracy, establishment of the Animal Husbandry program, leadership of the Land Circle, hosting numerous internal and external community events, and participation in the Human Relations Circle which holds the relational, spiritual and emotional container for their work. 

In June of 2021, with the blessing of EVO, Rebecca and 3 other co-founders relocated to begin a new, mission- driven community and learning center housed on 160 acres of forest and farmland.  Rebecca is passionate about communal living and sees intentional community as a tool for both personal and cultural transformation. In addition to her work in this field, she also holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from San Diego State University and creates functional, public, and interactive art in metal, wood, and pretty much any other material she can get her hands on. She is a mother, a wife, an educator, a nurturer of gardens, an epicurean lover of sustainable wholesome food, and a cultivator of compassion and beauty.


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September 7, 2022 @ 3:00 PM 4:30 PM CDT

Sep 7th | 3:00-4:30pm Eastern

Rising Together | The Power of Singing in Your Community

Join artist and healer Lyndsey Scott for an interactive workshop on the uplifting and relaxing power of song in your community.

What muses live beyond the obligatory food gathering tune? Many communities already have a practice of singing to circle up for sharing meals, and many more are discovering the power of community singing to slow down, bring beauty, regulate nervous systems, and anchor visions of the more beautiful worlds we feel and dream.

Science tells us that singing together “alleviates anxiety and stress and lessens feelings of depression and loneliness.” History tells us singing together is the glue and heart of change-making social movements. Making music together is medicine for these times!

In this interactive workshop, we’ll sing!, and explore moments that are ripe to weave song into community life. Simple songs will be taught call-and-response (with participants muted because of lag), and ample space will be given to questions you might have has you imagine leading more song in your community.

Key outcomes of this workshop:

  • 4 fresh songs to share with your community
  • 3 tips for creating ease and clarity in teaching them
  • An understanding of song’s power to uplift and relax
  • Access to free online resources for continued song learning

Workshop Presenter

Lyndsey Scott

Lyndsey enjoys living life as multimedia prayer. Educated as a painter, she spent a decade in St. Louis, MO experimenting with parades, photography, and participatory art as catalyst for community transformation. Encountering personal and collective trauma initiated a decade of inquiry into healing modalities, which led to a move back to her rural hometown in central IL. There she seeded restorative practices, including opening a small yoga studio, facilitating a permaculture garden for formerly incarcerated men, prioritizing mending with her family of origin, and teaching art at a juvenile detention center. Now she weaves creativity & healing together in ritual and song, by offering community song circles, ecstatic grief ritual, and group work aimed at dismantling internalized white supremacy and patriarchy.  She is currently traveling and weaving song circles at intentional communities and earth churches, sharing mantra from her new album Well Held: tinyurl.com/LyndseyScottWellHeld

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All our events are run on a sliding scale basis. Generous donations cover the costs for low-income attendees. FIC is committed to making our programs accessible to people of all walks of life.

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You’ll receive the recording of your event to view for up to one month (unless otherwise noted). So don’t worry if you can’t attend a live session. Watch or listen whenever it is convenient for you.

Loved by Community Builders

What a beautiful gift to our intentional community builders and leaders! FIC’s programs provide a way for thinking and concerned people to collaborate for solutions to our multitude of global crises. Thank you FIC!Terri Garcia

I am constantly impressed by the down-to-earth practicality of the FIC workshops combined with the philosophical questions that are so vital for us to explore. I’m grateful for the excellent planning and delivery of the workshops by skilled and inclusive presenters, who create a space that is both welcoming and invites participants to challenge existing ideas and world views. Well done and thank you FIC.Claire Ogden

$10 – $40

Creating Inclusivity with Sociocracy with Ted Rau

Inside Community Podcast — Ep. 012

Hear Ted Rau share how sociocracy brings an incredible opportunity to cooperative groups to embody higher levels of inclusivity through their governance.

At the beginning of this episode, we get a unique opportunity to hear Ted’s story of transitioning in community with children, as a transgender man.

In this episode

  • What is sociocracy? (24 minutes)
  • Size of community and timeline for implementing sociocracy (31 minutes)
  • How sociocracy supports inclusivity (38 minutes)
  • Downsides to sociocracy (41 minutes)
  • Sociocracy 3.0 (49 minutes)
  • Feedback and evaluation (57 minutes)
  • Good process is quiet (1 hour 8 minutes)

About Ted Rau

Ted Rau is a trainer, consultant, and co-founder of the non-profit movement support organization Sociocracy For All. He grew up in Germany and studied linguistics before earning his Ph.D. in linguistics there in 2010. He moved to the USA and fulfilled a long-held wish to live in an intentional community where he still lives with his five children and 70 neighbors in a cohousing community in Massachusetts. Ted’s perspective is influenced by being transgender, by his interest in Nonviolent Communication and social justice, by being part of a global sociocracy organization at work, and a parent at home.

Learn from Ted

Ted’s course “Sociocracy in Community” – in collaboration with Jerry Koch-Gonzalez – is offered through the Foundation for Intentional Community and is now available as a pre-recorded course available anytime. Podcast listeners, use the code INSIDE30 and get 30% off your purchase!

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Thanks from Rebecca, your podcast host

Episode Transcript

Rebecca Mesritz

Welcome to the inside community podcast. I’m your host, Rebecca Mesritz. One of the things that I think brings a lot of people to community. And perhaps this is something that you can also relate to, is a deep desire to be at home in a place where you feel like you truly belong. To feel like you are accepted for who you really are. This desire extends to a lot of different facets of community. And it’s not just about the social, or the intimacy that we build with our community mates. But we also want to see this type of inclusivity and acknowledgement and how we make decisions, and how we allow all of the voices to be heard in a conversation. My guest today has had an interesting journey in certain places and contexts that not only allow, but deeply support the presence of true and authentic self. As a transgender man and sociocracy trainer Ted Rao brings a unique perspective on how to make organizations function more efficiently, while honoring the voices of all of their members. Ted is a trainer consultant and co founder of the nonprofit movement support organization sociocracy for all. He grew up in Germany and earned his PhD there in linguistics, and then he moved to the USA and fulfilled a long held wish to live an intentional community, where he still lives with his five children and 70 neighbors in a cohousing and Massachusetts. Ted’s perspective is influenced by being transgender, by his interest in nonviolent communication and social justice by being part of a global sociocracy organization at work and a parent at home. Ted Rao, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
Well, I usually start my podcast with the same question. So I’d love to ask you if you can give the viewers the listeners a little bit of a snapshot into your community and what your community is like.
Oh, so I live in a community in Massachusetts. We have 32 houses. And it’s been built since 1994. So it’s been a while. But kind of at the edge of a town of a college town. So it’s not urban, but also not super rural around here, which is a good combination. And yeah, we do some gardening, we have a gorgeous common house. Yeah. But that’s I guess the snapshot. I’ve lived here since 2011. The people that really know each other.
So I’m part of the reason I’m excited to have you here is really to jump into ideas about inclusivity and community. And one of the ways that you really bring ideals of inclusivity forward is through your work with sociocracy. But you also have a really interesting personal journey. And I would love if you could share a little bit about your personal story. Give a little context here.
So So I assume what you’re referring to, is that a gender transition the last few years, maybe five years ago, it feels like forever, but I think that’s right. So that all happened in community that was interesting, of course, coming out to 90 people out at once. I also have five children. So that was an additional angle in the in the whole thing. And actually, I want to say that that to me, both transitioning and living in community and the work that I do actually are all, to me, that’s all the kind of the manifestation of the same vision, I want to say. Because one thing that came up for me around around doing the work that I do with sociocracy is that one of the pieces that we care about is people really showing up as themselves, right. And I would say that’s also a value that I hold in community, like I want to be connected to people with who they really are, and not some nice facade. And what came up for me around that is that I just had a hard time showing up as my whole self with this gender thing in the way. So it I see it actually as a consequence that I had that I had to come out in transition because of the community in the sociocracy context. So to me, they’re all They’re all really connected.
And And how was that for you too? I mean, obviously, I mean, I can only imagine that With 90 different people, not to mention, I know that you were living your your former partners also in your community and your kids, but I’m sure everybody has their own opinion and thought about that. Usually when people I think come out in any way, it’s, you know, maybe to their, to their immediate family, it’s not always to such an intimate community reality. So what was that like for you?
Yeah, I know, the irony of all is really that most people were very concerned about the kids. And the kids dealt better with this than any grown up. So I don’t know what that is about. I don’t know. But that says something about it. But there’s something interesting there. So my kids, I mean, they all had different reactions, you know, because they were different ages and different level of exposure with the topic, but most of them are like, okay, that makes sense. Okay, cool. Kind of like that. But for many it was in the community. Now, it was, first of all, for some, it was the first contact with somebody who transitions as a grown up. They had their own morning to do you know, of like, oh, this, you know, mother with five children. I was like, wait an hour. Now you’re telling me your man, like, how do I how do I reconcile that? So we actually do we did this thing that some people in this community do we have done it previously on a different thing is basically, they can Ask Me Anything session, like come to my house, ask me. So we did that there were maybe many people, they also. And I was just trying to explain what it feels like, how the path has been by I didn’t really see any other way than transitioning. And I remember one of the things that was said, for example, and that might help people are listening to kind of wrap their head around it, is that the most touching thing for me, I think was when somebody said, you know, I support you in whatever you do, I just want to also have some space to mourn because I have kind of, I hold you as a particular person, and now I need to let go of that. So that’s just gonna take me a while, you know, that’s, that’s a thing. And I remember somebody that a good friend of mine then had a beautiful response to that. And she said that it’s a little bit like when a child grows up, right? We wouldn’t tell her child and don’t grow up, you’re not allowed to because I want to keep you as a cute little child. Right. But we also have some feelings around, right? Like my my oldest child, just graduated. And honestly, I do get sad when I look at pictures of her as a seven year old because she was adorable. And seven. And yes, I am sad. Would I want to freeze her in time? Of course not. So this both admits right? Of like, Yeah, time, you know, things change. And that’s okay. I also have memories from the past. And that’s also okay. And it all somehow comes later. Now, I guess it all turns out, okay, in the end. So that was the yeah, there were of course, many, many different stories. But that I would say was the big flyover off of my experience was me.
Yeah. Did you feel supported? I mean, it sounds like this listening session was really helpful for people. I mean, it’s interesting, because I imagine I mean, I’m trying to imagine in any case, because this is very new, this I would say, probably for people like me who are operating in kind of more of the mainstream context, a lot of these ideas of transgender issues are very new. Not to say that being transgender is new. And I’m wondering, you know, not just did you feel supported, but did the community feel supported in in navigating, you know, how to be with you and how to be with the children and how to talk you know, like, obviously, you’re using he him pronouns, but I would imagine for your children to go from calling you mom to I don’t know, what they call you now. Might be difficult. You know, how did the community get support to to know how to navigate that in a good way?
Well, I made some clear requests. You know, he him pronouns, my new name, I don’t want to, I don’t want people to use my old name, even if it’s about things in the past. The way I describe that to people is that it would be like putting me back in like, just the name evokes the fear of being put back into the prison I was in pre transition. So that’s not a fun memory to me. It’s not kind of a matter of fact, kind of thing. The impact is actually quite significant to me. So the requests of just people please give it all you have to make the switch because when whenever somebody slips So part of me is like, okay, that will just happen you know, that just happens it just habit and part of me is just in absolute freakout mode about it, actually. So it’s really not an enjoyable thing. And I know people make mistakes. And and just I want to, I want both sides to be in the picture, right, the impact on me, and of course, the people. It’s not people’s fault, right. So my role was a lot educating people. So you ask, Was I supported and I would say, that might be, might be too big of a word, actually, there will be individuals that supported me inside and out of outside of the community, that community as a whole, I would say, was almost busy, like needed education and was busy with itself in a way in, in their own react in their own coming along with that, it wasn’t that it was particularly helpful, because I mean, you know, educating people and kind of explaining it again, and again, has something helpful about it, but near another piece is that I think the people who did maybe the most education work were my kids, actually. They, for example, explain to people that even if one talks about an instance that is 15 years ago, when just doesn’t switch pronouns, and it’s because it was still me who I am now, back, then it’s just that I had this at this persona that I was playing, that doesn’t justify using my old name for a past event. And my kids, for example, is super clear about that. And they explain it to everybody. Interestingly, I never explained it to them to them, that’s just so obvious that they actually a little, like, surprised how that cannot be obvious to other people. So they’re great about it, you know, they completely embody it. And they, they don’t hold back and explain it.
Wow, that is so that it’s so touching to me, and so beautiful that that, yeah, that your children were able to provide that level of support for you through this. That’s, that’s really amazing.
Yes, I continue to be very close with my children, they, when they talk about it, you know, like, is there anything different? They say, No, nothing is different, except it is happier now. And that’s good. And you know, and if pressed, they will say these wise things, people sometimes say, you’re like, wow, how old are you? 95 or 14, because they will say things like, you know, and of course, Ted also taught us, you know, how important it is to be who you are? And even if it’s hard to, to bring that. So, yeah, I guess in the long run, it certainly is. I would say it’s been good for them.
Beautiful. And you’ve done all of this with your former partner, and in the community as well, you know, and I could only imagine that, you know, just living in in community with someone that you were previously romantically involved with, and are no longer romantically involved with is probably a minefield. I mean, most people have a hard time just living in the same town as their exes. So yeah, I did, how I’m if you feel comfortable talking about it, you know, did your Did you feel like that? transition through partnership, you know, I’m just wondering what you learned, and what you would recommend for people that are out there who might be in community and uncoupling or going through transitions like that, but really want to stay in community because I feel like, you know, we come into community in partnership, my husband and I, actually, we started our last community together. And then during, at one point, we broke up for about six months. And it was pretty serious. It was kind of major, because we were co founders and we were both extremely invested in this thing that we had created and people weren’t invested in us as partners. Luckily, we after our time apart, we were able to find our way back together and and find some healing and now we’re married and have a daughter and a little more happily ever after, I guess. But that time of being separate and community was was so intense. And I’m wondering you know, what tips you might have or ideas about how folks can navigate that because that’s, that’s big.
So first of all, when my when my ex and I split up, we I think we were both deciding that we tried to best the best exists one can probably be so we continue to have very warm contact. The things that we were really good at we still do like we were excellent My parents, that’s so weird we do kind of managing things together. That’s what we still deal with the things that weren’t working so much previously, we don’t have to do anymore. So that’s all good. And he was a big support also in the transition. So there was no no hesitation, no issues, no pushback, no nothing. He actually said an interesting thing, I think when we split up, and then also that came up around transition, he said, well now makes perfect sense to me. Because in our time together, he said, I always had the sense that I only see half of you. That’s actually quite touching as a piece of feedback, from my point of view, because I think he was right. And maybe, I don’t know, had we ever talked about it, maybe it would have helped to have his feedback earlier. But one thing that’s interesting in terms of transitioning later in life and with with kids and all, kind of out there connected with the world, right, I didn’t have the luxury of moving. Is that when, for example? Let’s say we had the auto at my kids orthodontist. Okay. And I like they say, oh, we need to schedule with somebody in Sar. Sorry, that’s the other day and how they will be scheduled in that week, it’s going to be the other time for scheduling. And so for me, that’s fine. They know, but for my ex, that’s not necessarily. I mean, it’s fine. He kind of I think he just accepts it, but it does put him into a slightly awkward position. Because Because that’s not necessarily it’s making assumptions about his identity, that that are not correct. And there’s kind of no way out for him around that. So that’s, that’s funny, but he’s, you know, he’s accepting it. And I’ve really very much appreciate that. Because I think that’s a rare that I can imagine many more people that would try and wiggle their way out of those situations. And he just is.
Wow, that’s, that’s really, I had never really considered that aspect of, of this issue. You know, there’s no, like, you don’t really have a say, Yeah, you don’t have a say, in this perception of identity, which I guess, you know, is probably true for all of life, really, like, we think we’re in control of our identity. But in actuality, it’s 90% What someone else’s story is, but wow, that’s, that’s really fascinating. Yeah, so I mean, in terms of maintaining, you know, beneficial relations inside of the community, do you have, you know, coming back to that question of do you have advice for folks or ideas about good ways to do that?
Well, well, I have a few regrets, actually, that I want to share. That would be kind of if I had to do it again, here’s what I would do differently, I think it would. We were kind of planning and then not following through something like a ritual. I think that would have been good for the community and for myself as well. Because it is kind of interesting transitioning. And now, of course, I’m the same person. And then again, I’m not. Because of all the relationships, all of the relationships in my life really needed to be renegotiated. Outside of my kids, actually, my kids didn’t have to be renegotiated because I don’t know if there’s something more back there. That’s kind of not mediated by gender, my relationship to the kids. So that stayed in touch with everything else. Like, for example, again, now, if I have good friends that are women that I typically hung out with now, it’s somehow a little different, it’s, I can’t really fully put my finger on it. But you know, just the perception is different from the outside. I do think that it was holding back on male traits that I have before and now I’m not so much anymore. So now I kind of am more with that. So it does change things. So there’s a renegotiation that needs to happen. And I wish we had made that more explicit. Because since it was not explicit, it was on me to with each person, kind of either bring it up on on, let go of it and just kind of do my own internal V, whatever, recalibrating. So I just wish that would have happened more, but I didn’t make the request. I mean, of course, how would other people have known? So that would be my advice for people one who want to kind of stand on most my shoulders, that would be a place where one could improve it?
Yeah, I mean, I’m a huge advocate for the importance of ritual. And in our lives, it’s something that we’re I think, as a culture as a society were very much lacking, especially with the sort of, in a lot of arenas, and for a lot of people, the decline of religious life, and the ways that religious life provided certain, like marked rites of passage and things like that. And now that a lot of people don’t seem to really identify with that anymore. Yeah, there’s just really such a place for, for ritual, I’d be so curious to learn more about what types of rituals trans people do employ to help them and help their communities? It’s a pretty fascinating area of inquiry. Well, you know, part of why I’m excited to talk to you today is also about your, your take on sociocracy. And before we dive too far into that, I’m curious to know, did sociocracy play in any way into this sort of personal lived experience? Did it inform your community did the values or ethos of sociocracy support this personal journey of yours?
Well, there is a piece of showing up as a whole person, there is also a piece around. One thing that I love that we do in sociocracy, is holding more perspectives without necessarily assuming that they have to converge as much. So one of the values I like until circus is that we have to find enough convergence to make an extent, but we don’t have to convince each other of everything. And that’s something that I learned, both in life and in community and in sociocracy. And in transition, that sometimes things don’t perfectly align. Sometimes there is a little bit of incoherence or kind of lack of whatever full I don’t know what call it I guess, yeah, not everything neatly falls into place all the time. And yet, we can still act. That’s one of the strings of sociocracy of acting, without having to be on the same page 100% About everything. To me, that’s a plus. I know, some people might hear that and think like, what, why would we, you know, why would we not get 100% alignment on everything? Doesn’t that sound sweet? And honestly, to me, that sounds a little, I don’t know, claustrophobic from for me. So that’s just my perspective on No, I don’t think we need to be on the same page on everything. They can be room for us being different, and even being split and torn within ourselves and still moving forward. On some.
Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of a fairy tale, this idea that everyone is going to be completely aligned on all things all the time. And I think that’s one of the things that I really see as a strength of sociocracy, as you’re saying, is this idea that, you know, we’re actually better for not all being 100% on the same page, it helps us to see different perspectives and create better plans moving forward and also to exist in a space of curiosity and exploration. And, yeah, continual growth,
right? Because the learning comes from being different, right? That’s where the learning is, it’s at the edges, it’s where we’re different. So if we all always thought the same thing about everything, if that was even our goal, then we wouldn’t have as many opportunities to actually encounter something new or see a perspective we hadn’t seen. So it wouldn’t be like a monoculture that I wouldn’t that just is not healthy. It’s neither realistic, nor is it healthy, nor is it resilient. So there’s many reasons for me to hold that multitude of, of perspectives. Really, really.
So for people that don’t know it, sociocracy is can you give us just a brief intro?
Sure. So I’m going to give it from the point of view of a community, okay, you can just replace community with organization and then basically have other organizations as well. But for community. We often think that the people’s impulse is to make inclusive decisions, we just get everybody in one room and talk. And yet our experience is that that doesn’t typically work that way, right? If you let’s say in my community have seven people in one room, it’s not true that everybody will be heard quite the opposite. It will tend to happen that some voices dominate and not everybody will speak or we’ll just speak for a minute and then that would still be almost one and a half hours. Right. So one thing that sociocracy does is to give decision making power to smaller groups so that you have a group of five or six or seven people that take care of one particular aspect of the community. And not only do they do the work in that part of the community, but also they make the decisions in that, in that part of the community. For example, we have a circle that stewards the common house, they make the decisions about the common house. And that is policy decisions and decisions they need to make to just, you know, figure out who does what. So all of it, we have a circle, that sort of team of people that to look at the membership, and they make the policies of our membership. So that way in membership circle in those 567 people, they can have much deeper conversations and really understand an issue to make an informed decision, which is simply different than a group of 70. So one of the big pieces of sociocracy is the authority to small groups. And the advantage of having that depth and expertise and the connection in that circle. Another piece in sociocracy is decision making decision making by consent. So typically, the decisions that are made would be made by the circle that holds that artist vote, for example, if it’s a decision about the common House policy decision, that decision would be made in common house circle by the people who are on common house circle. And if there’s a proposal and one of the people of that circle, if they have an objection, that decision needs to be looked at more, because we can move forward. If one of those, let’s say six people on common house circle, as an objection says, whoa, hold on, this is not going to work because this isn’t that. And those two pieces with a few other bells and whistles, those two pieces, create a situation where we have clarity, because we know who’s to say to in deciding what but we also can change those things. For example, the area of decision making can change. And we have a system of how to change that so that we are always flexible and can respond to whatever happens and change our own system. So that we can respond to whatever is important to us right now. And when we input energy. So those are the I guess just to kind of check a few more boxes, we also decide who is, for example, leader or let’s say facilitator of a group by consent, so the group needs to give consent to its leader to its facilitator, and so on. And those are, for example, typically on a term, so nobody’s facilitator forever. But let’s say you get selected for nine months, and then you can revisit it again. So that overall also with policy decisions on a term, you get to a situation where you revisit all the things that you’re doing constantly. So they have that learning, and you have those conversations, again, in the review, to change and improve what we do.
So what do you do when you have, you know, if, for example, I’m on the common house circle, but there’s decisions that are being made in the membership circle that I don’t like, or I feel like, are bad for some reason, you know, is there a space or a place for other members of the community to kind of weigh in on some of these things? Or have a vote or have a say?
Yes, thank you for the question. So first of all, let me say that the, the, the responsibility and the authority that we give to small groups, comes with the expectation that they will get feedback. So for example, if they make a policy about renters and the community but you assume they check in with renters and with landlords, so that we have a situation where we don’t learn it, learn about new information when there’s an outcry in the community when something new came up. As there can also be more, more, I guess, intentional feedback also that affects the whole community. For example, before sociocracy was adopted 11 years ago, 11 years ago, we had those monthly general meetings that whole group consensus run communities do. And we still have those meetings, we now call them full circle meetings, but we had still have all member meetings, where a lot of people show and then for example, membership circle would say hey, we’re planning to change the policy give us input. So the trick, really the magic sauce from my point of view in sociocracy is that both and have feedback. And then decision making in small group feedback, large group, decision making small group because that way we can have those many many opinions and perspectives. And we have a small group of people that can digest all of that. So the information isn’t lost, it’s just fed into. So that’s one thing. And it so far, we’ve always been able to, either with feedback before a decision was made, or after a decision was made with feedback, we’ve so far been able to deal with everything that has happened in our kind of constitution and our governance agreement, there is an appeal process, that to my knowledge, has not been used yet. And I always joke that it’s a little bit like bringing an umbrella so that it doesn’t rain, okay, it’s like that we kind of have it in, in a community agreement, so that people are at ease. If a circle really does, you didn’t add a real thing, there is a way to appeal. And it would be super weird if somebody did use it. Because that would mean that our regular process of talking to each other and working things out didn’t work. And that would really shock me. So I would go at length in kind of mediation and talking and giving more feedback and more listening and so on, to make sure that doesn’t happen, because it would be a total power over movie mode that I wouldn’t want.
A lot of what I’m hearing that you’re sharing right now sounds like it’s successful, because you have a larger community. And I’m wondering, you know, we implemented sociocracy, at the Emerald village, and we had a much smaller community, we had, you know, 10 founders, and including kids, probably 25 folks total, at most, so maybe an additional anywhere from five to 10, or five to seven, I guess other adults on the property working together. And our experience was really that in some ways that we were wondering, are we too small to really implement this, because with the different circles that we needed to have, you know, everybody was on multiple circles? And yeah, I guess I’m just curious, I always thought, oh, it seems like this would be a lot better if we had, you know, 25 more people to kind of spread throughout the circles. How do you see this being able to work for smaller groups?
Yeah, I guess my the short answer, and I will elaborate a little bit is that of course it there is it is easier in a in a larger group. That’s true, I agree with you. And you can not get all the benefits as easily or it’s not so easy to see what the benefits are in this monitor. That said, there are in between sort of really like for smaller communities. So they’re even in a group of, let’s say, 10 people, it is typically the case that there are some of the issues that some are more about and know more about the others. So let me come from the other side, the idea that we’re working towards, and sociocracy is that in any given meeting, every person in the room cares about all the agenda items on the agenda. Right, that’s what we want a circle is made up of the people who work in that area, they should care about everything that goes into that circle. And that’s also what I see. So now in a group of 10, let’s say they make all the decisions together in one big circle, basically, that’s probably not the case that everybody cares about everything equally. So then we’re already in this little bit of like, oh, maybe there should be a circle on this or that yeah, now, because really, not everybody cares about it. But maybe not everything needs to be decentralized into circles, maybe some like more than in my community can stay in the kind of the big blob. And some things can already be be distributed out. So that’s kind of a mix that I do in a way, the circle in the middle that we call general circle is typically just made up of two people from kind of the main circles. And it’s easier to Google that and look up a visual to understand it. But the, the general circuit can also have more people. So they’re kind of mixed forms. And by the way, we did a webinar on sociocracy and farming communities that describes that transition of how they go from a group of eight to 10 to 15, when it’s a tipping point, where organizing like you did is one bigger group that decides many of the things together to a fully distributed community, where the tipping point is in what it would look like how one gets from A to B. So and I guess if one looks at it as a continuum with many of those little in between steps then with a group of 15 people for example, maybe you just stay at a certain point of the metamorphosis and that’s totally fine. As long as you have clarity about where you are and and shared reality with everybody else to me that
how long does it normally take a community to transition into sociocracy? Or how long did it take your community? I guess, I think you said that they were beginning to implement sociocracy when you joined, what was that? Like? How long does it take to actually do it get everybody trained? What can people expect for
that? Yeah, so as I arrived, my first meeting, so when I became a member, I had to attend one of the general meetings. And it happened to be that that general meeting was the meeting where sociocracy was adopted. So by consensus, the decision was made that now decisions will be made by consensus, or by consent and in circles. And leading up to that it’s been, I think, more than a year around here of work of an implementation, circle, learning sociocracy, using sociocracy, with each other, listen to people’s concerns about the transition, and just preparing it really, really well. And then I think it took maybe, I mean, then circles were happily working against, but there were a few bumps in the road that will really just learnings for everybody. So there was more that that came up. And I think some people that are not as involved, for example, they’re still on that learning curve. So it’s not, you know, it’s not that this kind of a before where you know, nothing and then it is after way, you know, everything, right, that’s not the case, it’s the kind of learn from different starting points. And then there is some critical mass you make the necessary changes in the infrastructure and who decides what, and then you get closer and closer to what you want to have over time. So I would say a year before, and then counting, probably another year to really settle there and really arrive where you are. And from then on, it’s just continuous improvement. It’s never done, it’s never complete, they will always tweak things, and learn things and see things from a new angle.
If this conversation with Ted Rao has piqued your interest around sociocracy, I would love to point you towards the five week course that he and fellow communitarian Jerry Cook Gonzalez, are going to be running through the foundation for intentional community. It starts on June 23, which is right around the corner. And it’s going to be a great way for you and your community to deep dive on the ins and outs of this amazing governance model, and find new ways to streamline your communities meetings. If you go to my show notes, you can find a discount code for 30% off this course and a link to the course through icy.org. The fic offers lots of workshops and free events on topics related to community. So check them out today. If you want to get some different perspectives on sociocracy, and start to figure out if this governance model could work for your organization. There are a lot of articles and communities magazine on this very subject. You can read perspectives from Diana leaf Christian, Tina meadows, a rear and John buck, Laird shalbe. And even today’s guest, Ted Rao. This publication of the global eco village network has an amazing online catalog of all of their past issues. And their digital subscription is only $20 a year. Learn more at Gen hyphen us.net/communities.
So how do you see sociocracy really supporting inclusivity? Like specifically, like what are the ways in which this governance model as opposed to other governance models make space for that make space for all the voices?
Yeah, in many, many different ways. So one that I’ve already mentioned is that it’s easier to talk in smaller groups and really listen to each other. So that’s, that’s an inclusivity thing. For example, a small group of six people, five people works much better for introverts. I’m not an introvert. But for people who, who are uncomfortable talking in a group of 50 or 60 people, for them, it’s much more inclusive to really have as a smaller group. So that’s the thing. The other piece is one thing that I haven’t mentioned that it’s kind of a standard thing in sociocracy is talking in rounds. That can also be found in other places. So it’s not unique to sociocracy. But it’s one of the four things in sociocracy that we talk in rounds. And by that I mean the practice of talking one by one by one. So let’s say we have five people in a room number one, like let’s say Person A speaks and then Person B, Person C, Person C, the person D, and then it’s same for Person A again, and that creates a culture where we’re not interrupting each other constantly. That creates a culture where people know they can speak without being interrupted, but also important. And ultimately, it just turns into more of a culture of listening to each other. Because often, I noticed that in myself, when I’m in a, in a situation where we’re talking in rounds, then I settle into a listening mode, because I know it’s not going to be my turn until it is. When I’m in this situation with this mod debate style conversation, I noticed myself going more into internally thinking how that person is wrong that speaking right now, and when I can interrupt them, to tell them that they’re wrong. That’s kind of the energy with which debates or conversations I have. So rounds as one of the ways of being inclusive. The other one is a decision making method, right depends on what you compare to, for example, compared to majority vote, where if you’re one of the 49%, you’re just in tough luck. In consent, you can’t be outnumbered. Just because you’re fewer people doesn’t mean you’re not going to be heard and your needs are not going to be met. If you come here to consensus, that’s kind of a deeper, deeper story. That’s why group size really comes in. And it depends a little bit on how consensus is practice. Because there’s not one way there’s a little bit of a more complex comparison that one has to really go into to distinguish how consensus and consent might differ from each other. It is very close in many different ways. I would say.
Do you think there’s any downsides to sociocracy are things people should be looking out for, if they’re going to consider implementing this as their governance model.
So surrogacy is really hard for people who are not willing to let go of being able to have a say on everything. That’s huge. So if I cannot possibly deal with the idea that a common house circa which I’m not a part of, will decide what color the basement of the common house with to be painted, then sociocracy is going to drive me insane. Because then you’re going to suffer all the time, right? I’ll be be that person that sends circles, angry emails, that’s not a fun position to be in. It’s also not a fun to be, it’s also not fun to be on the receiving end of it. So that that’s, that is a big obstacle for some communities because of the tradition of guess that’s why I’m going to share a little bit of my judgmental side, I think that many people join communities because they have this deep longing for kind of merging into this community experience where we’re all kind of understanding each other blindly. And we’re all kind of on the same page, as we talked about in the beginning weight. And that’s just not a thing, I think. But if we’re really deeply attached to talking to, we all think the same thing, or talking to everything that I have to say is going to be heard by everybody or by whoever the decision makers, that’s not going to work. So circusy is fairly pragmatic. And it’s fairly like, Okay, any input now, okay, great, then let’s go, just go do it, you know, until we find out, it wasn’t a good idea, and then we’ll change it. So it has this experimentation mode to it, which I appreciate. But for some people, it’s really scary, if they’ve been conditioned in kind of, let’s not make mistakes, we should control everything so that nothing goes wrong. You know, when I say that kind of with judgment, and I also know that for some people who are in that space, it’s connected with a lot of pain that comes from previous experiences, so I don’t want to dismiss it. But anyway, if there’s energy like that in the community, that’s something to watch out for. Because then I know many communities where, let’s say, in our two thirds of the people really, really, really want sociocracy because they’re done with a large group meetings. And some people on the other side have really holding on to the values of everybody should be heard on everything all the time.
Yeah, I think one of the places that our the Emerald village, we kind of struggled with sociocracy was around issues that crossed circles. So for example, an event was going to be put on and the events issue, or the event that might be proposed was something that was part of the events circle, but it also sort of crossed over into land because there would be these certain land needs that might need to be addressed or there might be a financing and budget accounting component. And so we’d have these issues that would then be brought to the general circle because they were affecting multiple, multiple circles. And then it would come time to do, for example, a proposal forming process around that. And there would be a lot of resistance to doing these proposal forming processes, because they seem to take up a lot of time, it seemed to take a lot of time to go around, and, you know, get all of the aspects of the problem, and then go around and get all of the possible solutions, and then go in tune it, you know, this process, while in my mind, it was very thorough, it actually helped us to create a better proposal that could really address a lot of the issues that we might run into up front. For folks who were kind of really just wanting things to like, Alright, let’s go come on, let’s just, let’s just figure it out, can’t we just do a different, different way of figuring this out? A different type of proposal forming process would get kind of frustrated by that. I’m wondering what your thoughts might be on that?
Well, with my consultant hat, when I hear those stories, a bunch of questions I have, and actually, instead of just talking about that particular experience, because I would hit need to hear a lot more about it, let me highlight a few of the things that I see in general. Here’s I, I often go back to this to this image of this metaphor, that any kind of organization is, is like a garden, right? So it’s a garden where you attend to all the different things and your garden, you know, how good your garden is doing depends on how well it’s watered, the water situation is the soil, the sun, everything. And some things are beyond our control sometimes are in our control, but stuffs complex as I guess what I want to say. And it’s the same thing in governance, right. So for example, if there is a lot of overlap between things in I’ve circled so and so can make a decision because circumstance also seems to be impacted, then, maybe the way the domains are set up is not is not really helpful, because it’s not fully clear. This should be the idea that we’re striving to have a set of domain sort of circles that are empowered in their decision making in areas that shouldn’t have as many interdependencies. So, another pieces, well, couldn’t have dealt with just feedback from one circle, and another circle takes care of it, those issues, from my point of view, shouldn’t even be in general circles, channel circle should just facilitate that it happens in a circle. So but all of these things that I’m saying there should have should have kind of stuff, to me at different leverage points that I see. And what really is humbling and exciting at the same time is that people’s readiness, for example, to let go of power, but also people’s skill level of making decisions fast, you know, how do you go through process fast people’s appreciation for process, clarity of our aims, and domains, all of those things. All of those things are both the leverage points and points where we might struggle. Just like a garden needs sun and soil and water. It’s the same thing here. And it’s not so much used to just look at one, right? So if now I say, oh, you know, whatever that could have been solved in in the structure or something like that. That’s always just one aspect. Because there’s always many aspects to everything. And the metaphor that I use then with groups is we want to be in an upward spiral, right? We want to be in an upward spiral, which means Okay, let’s look at this and see if we could divide up the the decision making areas better so that we don’t always get entangled. Okay, let’s look at how can we make this process faster? Or let’s look at how can we play more with feedback versus decision making here, like all of these things can help. So I always have a multitude of ideas of how we can address it. But it’s always going to be systemic, right? It’s not all just to that, and then it’s all fixed. It’s always going to be a bunch of things that contribute to an easier flow and governance, or that inhibit that. So it’s never just one thing.
I like that. I like that a lot. I it. It makes me think of, you know, when we implemented sociocracy, we were trained by Diana leave Christian. And here we are. My partner and I, my partners and I are now creating a new community. And we’re looking at our governance model. And we’ve still still are using a version of sociocracy as taught by Diana but we’ve recently been starting to explore s3 sociocracy 3.0 For those of you that haven’t heard about that, and starting to like look at the differences between those models and sort of the spectrum of this more Traditional socio kradic Circle method versus s3, which seems to be sort of based in more of the agile, sort of tech world tech business. And I’m wondering what your thoughts are about that spectrum?
Yeah. So the spectrum to me. Let me start differently. So in sociocracy, from my point of view, everybody who use the sociocracy, or learn sociocracy combines it with everything else they find. So for example, if your thing is agile, you’re going to combine it with that if your thing is non binding communication, your thing is that what you’re going to combine it with, of course, all the things that we’ve learned should, you know, governance is something so dear to our heart, and so around us all the time, because whenever we’re with groups, we’re dealing with governance. So all of those things will flow into that experience. So from my point of view, there’s sometimes in the perception, a little bit of a polarization of kind of, you know, Socratic Socratic method versus sociocracy. Remainder. And to from that, from what I see, the different styles are different enough within one of the groups, and there’s so much overlap, that to me, this polarization doesn’t quite hold water, actually. Because everybody combines things anyway. So that’s going to be a lot of variety already. So given that the differences are a thing, most of the most important differences, to me, besides a little bit of jargon, and a little bit of processes here and there are in whether we assume that people know what they need. So on one end, and that’s where, from my perspective, Diana, good question is, is a side that I have a lot of compassion for. And I completely agree. I also will agree with the other side says a spoiler here. And that is that sociocracy has a system you know, as this ecosystem has its garden, where ever you know, where soil and sun and water and all of it has to kind of dovetail and work together to create this beautiful garden. So to say, Pratik circle method, so kind of the basis of sociocracy was meant to be a set of tools that dovetail and work together in a mutually reinforcing way. So if you take one part out, that’s like, you know, not having seatbelts in the car or not having whatever a cooler and cooling system, it simply is not a good idea. You know, you of course, you can go and tweak it. But is it a good idea? Probably not. So that’s one side of the story. The other side of the story is that they’re hot, hardly any implementations that I’m aware of that are 100%. Because 100% all the time, that’s a tall order. That means being a perfect human being and nobody is right. We will not remember all the things all the time like, oh, I should have asked for around here. If like no, you will, it will always screw up something. And not each organization or each community is willing to do all the things. Sometimes I as consultant have judgment about that, for example, a community that kicks out everything that has to do with feedback, I don’t think is a wise idea. And yet, isn’t that choice to do that? Absolutely. So the other side of that of that spectrum, from my point of view is that everybody will adapt to things that they see some value in, and it might be that they pick and choose, pick and choose is always risky, because you might miss key ingredients where you didn’t see the usefulness of them, but you will fill the gaps maybe years down the road. But then maybe if they’re alert enough, they might tweak, notice that and tweak it and fill the gap. So the question is, how much do we trust that people know what they need to know to hold their own system. And I think one side is a little over optimistic. And one side is a little under optimistic, I trust people a little bit more that they would say, Oh, just do what you think makes sense. But I also sometimes worry when I see people kicking out the seatbelts, for example. That is like the whole feedback system. For example. I’m, I’m skeptical of that. So in sociocracy, for all we’re trying to be the big umbrella that is holding all of it today, if I teach I might sound more than dial in if Christian but we also have I also work together with people in our organization that teach s3 and all kinds of other stuff. And to me that there’s no contradiction to me, these are all manifestations of the different flavors and different contexts that we might encounter, where we need all of it. So to me, there is no competition we need at all all the time. And we need to be good at distinguishing when is consultant might say hey, I think you should adopt more pieces. Or we might say hey, I think you have a good handle on it. How would you go with what you have for now? And that’s like the Serenity Prayer right? Will I always make good choices about that? Oops, always make good choices about that. That’s the question. But we’re all just winging it all the time anyway.
I, you know, it’s interesting to hear you talk about people that leave out feedback. I don’t know if you are if this is a direct experience that you have with groups that are leaving out the feedback, because I personally feel like feedback is probably one of the most valuable contributions of sociocracy. I know, it’s not unique to sociocracy. But the idea of not only are we creating proposals, but we’re, as a piece of our proposal as a piece of the plan that we’re wanting to implement, we’ve actually included evaluation criteria that we’re going to come back to later and make sure that it’s working. And we’re going to have methods by which we ask the community is this working and get their opinion. And all of that, to me feels like such a key piece of the safety of saying yes to something, especially if you have a you know, beef with it, I guess for lack of a better word, you know, if if, assuming that everyone does not always agree 100% with the proposal, knowing that like, Okay, this is this is good enough, for now safe enough to try, we can actually kind of just move forward with it as is. And we know that we’re going to come back to it in three months, we’re going to come back to it again, in six months, we’re going to be revisited again in a year, to make sure that this is actually working. We’ve actually put dates on the calendar that we’re going to evaluate this thing. I think that that’s such a brilliant piece of advice for communities, regardless of whether or not they’re using sociocracy. It’s one of those those nuggets of wisdom that I think really make things work. So I’m curious, how do you even have people that? What’s the what, why wouldn’t somebody want to do that?
Oh, I can tell you, I can totally tell you what they say. And they also have good points. So let me let me play devil’s advocate here. Do we really have to evaluate that? Again, we spend so much time evaluating things I don’t like all this process. Yeah, oh, actually, then there’s then there’s inter personal feedback that you didn’t even touch just now. Like, I remember when I was saying, in my own community, something to the effect of I would want us to have a more feedback rich environment just with with each other’s people, you know, somebody said, Hold on, somebody said, butthead, if we’re talking, if we’re giving. If we’re talking more about each other. Why would you want that? It just means that people talk more about behind other people’s back. I was like, wait, no, that’s not what I said, you know, but that’s where that person was taking more feet or more, you know, more feedback means more gossiping, like, no, that’s not what I meant. But that’s, it shows you where people’s minds go to almost automatically, you know, if like, Oh, more feedback, that means I’m going to hear more uncomfortable thing. And I’m going to have to tell people uncomfortable things. sounds super scary. Let’s not do it. And then you can argue and it also takes so much time, and we should leave when you know, we should rather plan this event, you know, and then people say I explained the event, you know, that’s how it happens. And then and then we’re exactly in the moment that we talked about in that in that in that tension between our let’s just pick and choose versus no. sociocracy is one system do it as it was intended? Because now in that moment, what do I tell the client? What What should the what should the organization do? You know, they’d say, Forget about the client, let, what should the organization, the community think about itself? So now, which way do we go? To? Are we able to say, No, we don’t want feedback? Is that a good idea? Are we are we exercising our right to choose our own system? Or are we making a pretty stupid mistake? No, it’s really I find those things hard to answer.
I mean, I think I think it comes down to the values of the organization and the values of the community is does your community value growth and learning? Is that a goal? Is that something that you aspire to as, as a community, and I think, you know, in the communities that I’m a part of, whether that’s social circles, or, you know, actual intentional community or, or business organizations, growth and learning is, is such a core value of mine personally, that it’s hard for that not to be a part of any organization that I’m a part of. And so the fact for me is that while we You can talk about it or not talk about it. But either way, the issue is there, like someone might not want personal painful feedback about a way that they’re behaving, that’s not prosocial, that doesn’t work for the group. But us not talking about it doesn’t mean that that issue goes away. It just means we’re not talking about it. And kind of the same with with with proposals, like, you know, if we don’t talk about whether or not this is working, then it doesn’t mean it’s working. It just means we’re not talking about it. So I always feel like, are we trying to grow? Are we trying, you know, if you’re a business or an organization, are you trying to continue to provide a better product or better service? Are you trying to learn more and create deeper intimacy with the people that you’re in relationship with? And, to me, if the answer is yes to any of those questions, then you need feedback. Just period?
Of course. Of course, I absolutely. I mean, yes, I completely agree with you. And then I wonder what we do with the people who don’t want longer meetings and don’t want this? And they don’t want that. So yes, I agree with you. And it’s, I guess, one thing I want to bring here, though, is that it’s never an all or nothing, right? So even somebody like you and me, because we’re on the same level, I, you know, I’m where you are on that. We don’t evaluate everything all the time. So even in a way, putting a review date, let’s say nine months into the future, or let’s say 12 months, because like, we just talked about it, you know? So that is almost a compromise, because in theory, if we take it to an extreme, everything should be evaluated every day, right? That’s also not what we do. So when it’s not an all or nothing, it’s kind of like, well, how much? How many things do you engage in feedback? On? And how often do you do it and there will always be negotiation to do around what level you want to be at. I mean, of course, people who are kind of categorically saying feedback, I don’t do feedback. That’s of course, hard. But there’s always feedback around us, even if people don’t want to engage in it. Now, so where do we go with that? And actually, one thing that’s pretty key for me in sociocracy, is just the, the insight that circus is compatible with either, right? It’s super flexible, you can schedule a review every week, you can schedule a review every 15 years. sociocracy is just the pattern language that lets you define that. And the problem almost is that now in sociocracy, of choice, which means I want us to make a choice, like if I’m in a circle, we’re going to make a choice of what the review data is going to be. Which means we now have to engage in that question of how far is how fast do we want to go? How quick and dirty do when do things? Or how much do we want to spend on our process caretaking. And not everybody is ready to be intentional in that area of their life, they kind of are used to that somehow being preset by the system. But in this case, it’s not. So now whether you do so and I noticed that just so often that sociocracy gives you more choice and people are actually used to having and that is a little overwhelming for some.
Yeah, or even beyond more choice, you know, as you were saying you were used to society or the government, creating the metrics. And now we’re saying actually, we’re going to create the metrics. And to me that really speaks to, you know, if people have an aversion to creating metrics or creating criteria for evaluation, it’s like, well, what, what do you need to feel safe? You know, there’s definitely been times when I’ve gone in for personal feedback. And I’ve had to be really clear, you know what, today, I can’t receive critical feedback. Like the feedback I can get today, the feedback I’m open to receiving today really needs to be positive because my mental state actually can’t handle negative criticism right now. Not to say I can never handle it just today. I can’t handle it. And you know, maybe there’s there’s opportunities for folks inside of who might have an aversion to feedback to say, Okay, well, this is the type of feedback that I’m open to receiving today or this is the type of feedback that this project can can bear right now while we’re getting off the ground. But I just I love that there’s a possibility to design it, how we how we want it to be
and you examine It’s beautiful, I love it. And it’s beautiful because it shows both how it is manageable. to design it the way it’s to to fit with where you’re at, but it also shows at the same time The point that it was making about just the level of clarity and inner clarity that we need to have to make a request like that. I mean, most people just shut down and don’t talk at all or don’t come to the meeting, you know, I mean, that is where some people’s if they don’t even engage then with that, so having the clarity about what am I, what capacity do I have right now? What am I needs? What am I? How much learning Am I willing to do today? That’s, that’s, of course, that’s golden. You know, that’s great. And it’s sort of a tall order. So the point that it’s a tall order still stands? Yeah, and I think we can all learn it, it just requires being more in touch with ourselves having more more of a sense of what the tools are that we’re playing with being better at using those tools. So that’s where I go with all of that of like, oh, yeah, if we’re all clear about these choices, these are the feedback systems they are this is how we could do it this time, and good connection to ourselves, where am I at with this? Now? How do we make a choice together, that that meets where we are as a group, that’s the learning to me. And I do assume, actually, that in the next few years, we will all get better at that we just really have to do a lot of learning to get there.
Well, my final question for you really is kind of just to bring all of this full circle, you know, as you think about your journey, and and both personally and with sociocracy. And this value that I see of creating inclusive contexts for people to to thrive. What are the patterns that you’ve noticed in the communities that have been the most successful in creating these levels of inclusivity, either through their governance or through their personal, more interpersonal policies?
Well, I’m very, very fortunate and that this community has done a lot of work, because we’re such an old community right into has been established for a long time. So there has been a lot of learning that has happened. You know, many people got trained in nonviolent communication, and Byron, Katie, and whatnot, all kinds of stuff. And that just created, I think, most spaciousness to really receive each other. More often, in our net, nothing is ever fully perfect, but just creating more space so that people can be who they are. And I do hear from people, I wasn’t there. So I just hear from people who count their blessings that we don’t do those big decision making meetings that used to happen anymore, and how the loud voices were heard back then, and how that all calmed down so much. So I think both about inclusivity. And also about governance. That’s one thing, I guess that I keep going back to. And that is that good process, both around inclusion and good decision making good processes quiet. And it’s so sometimes we have people who were like, Oh, it’s so good a community can we can we come visit and witness you know, your governance system? Like we have these sociocracy tourists and I couldn’t see quite a bit? And my answer is always, you’re welcome to come. And just know that there’s basically nothing to see. Because what you see, what you see is the absence of drama, what you see is the absence of people who are upset because they don’t exclude it. What do you see is the absence of all of these things, you know, not again, not that everything is perfect, there might be people who said, you know, this, and that wasn’t great. And I would have liked to have been heard on this or that. But ultimately, it’s just rather quiet and almost boring. And that’s what I would want. Because then we can focus on the get together that’s that we want to do you know, then we can focus on things. And there are some big things that we’re dealing with right now. So it’s not even as quiet right now as it could be. But ultimately, that’s where I want to go right, just doing things together, and not having to work through so much drama. But I guess people sometimes it’s my sense, they expect something more grandiose and I just expect silence on that silence but quiet, you know, quiet and calm and focus on each other and the work that we do. That’s that’s what I want. So that will then also be inclusive.
Yeah, there are some other pieces that have really served us that we’ve already thought but plenty like the feedback things like for example, I recently learned from a neighbor that she disliked chickens that we do, not the way we do them, but she just dislikes them in general and that was such a good learning from you if like, wow, okay, we found a tweak that worked for her. So having that can do attitude of just speaking whatever you do, really sort of the Swaledale and how present it is consistently and cannot tell. So, all work in progress.
Beautiful. Well, Ted Rao, thank you so much for spending some time with us and sharing your story and your perspectives on sociocracy. It’s been a lovely conversation with you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the inside community podcast. Ted Rao has a couple of books available through the fic bookstore, I recommend checking out who decides who decides is the essential guide on how to form a group within three meetings and establish shared power and self management. His other book many voices one song is a manual on how to implement sociocracy and is CO written by Jerry Cook Gonzalez, with whom he’ll be teaching the sociocracy demystified course, that’s also offered through the fic. If you check out my show notes, I’m going to have links to all of that as well as discount codes for the class, and the books. And if you’re in an internet mood, I hope you’ll come and check out my website at ic.org/podcast for the show. And while you’re there, please consider making a donation to the show. I love creating this content, but I got bills to pay y’all. You making a contribution helps to keep this thing going. And I really, really appreciate it. You can also learn more about community and community life by finding me on Facebook and Instagram at inside community podcast. I would love to hear from you there. So please don’t hesitate to reach out. Of course reading and reviewing the show and sharing it with your friends is also a great support. So please pass this on to anyone you know who’s interested in community and collaborative culture. Thanks so much for sticking with me and I really look forward to seeing you next time. Take care

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The Inside Community Podcast brings folks along for an inside look at all of the beautiful and messy realities of creating and sustaining a community. We provide useful and inspiring content to support people on their quest for resilience, sustainability, and connection.

Meet Your Host

Inside Community Podcast host Rebecca Mesritz is a community builder living in Williams, Oregon.  In 2011, Rebecca co-founded the Emerald Village (EVO) in North County San Diego, California.  During her ten years with EVO, she supported and led numerous programs and initiatives including implementation and training of the community in Sociocracy, establishment of the Animal Husbandry program, leadership of the Land Circle, hosting numerous internal and external community events, and participation in the Human Relations Circle which holds the relational, spiritual and emotional container for their work. 

In June of 2021, with the blessing of EVO, Rebecca and 3 other co-founders relocated to begin a new, mission- driven community and learning center housed on 160 acres of forest and farmland.  Rebecca is passionate about communal living and sees intentional community as a tool for both personal and cultural transformation. In addition to her work in this field, she also holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from San Diego State University and creates functional, public, and interactive art in metal, wood, and pretty much any other material she can get her hands on. She is a mother, a wife, an educator, a nurturer of gardens, an epicurean lover of sustainable wholesome food, and a cultivator of compassion and beauty.


The Inside Community Podcast is sponsored by the Foundation for Intentional Community (FIC). Reach out if you are interested in sponsorship or advertisement opportunities on the podcast.

Creating Cohousing

Building Sustainable Communities

by Kathryn McCamant and Charles Durrett

Creating Cohousing: Building Sustainable Communities is an in-depth exploration of cohousing – a uniquely rewarding type of housing which is perfect for anyone who values their independence but longs for more connection with those around them.

Written by the award-winning team that first brought cohousing to North America, this fully-illustrated manual combines nuts-and-bolts practical considerations and design ideas with extensive case studies of dozens of diverse communities in Europe and North America.

Cohousing communities create unique opportunities for designing more sustainable lifestyles. Whether you are seeking…

  • urban, suburban or rural
  • senior or intergenerational
  • retrofit or new

…Creating Cohousing demonstrates that the physical structures of cohousing communities lend themselves to a more efficient use of resources, and make everything from gardening to childcare to socializing easier.

It puts the “neighbor” back into “neighborhood”; and is an essential resource for anyone interested in more environmentally and socially sustainable living.


About the Authors

Charles Durrett is a principal at McCamant & Durrett in Nevada City, CA, a firm that specializes in affordable cohousing. He co-authored the groundbreaking Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves with Kathryn McCamant. He also authored The Senior Cohousing Handbook: A Community Approach to Independent Living.

Kathryn McCamant co-authored Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves and founded McCamant & Durrett Architects and The CoHousing Company. They coined the term “cohousing” for which they are credited in the Oxford English Dictionary. Kathryn founded Cohousing Partners in 2006 with developer Jim Leach.

Together they have designed and developed over 50 cohousing communities.


Want to learn more about cohousing?

Our virtual learning center offers webinars and 5-week courses on topics surrounding cohousing.

From getting started to exploring the future of cohousing, you can deep dive at any stage of your journey.

 

 

 

May 13, 2022 @ 2:00 PM 3:00 PM CDT

May 13th | 3:00-4:00pm Eastern

The Key to Creating Trust & Connection in Community

Join facilitator Aaron Kahlow to learn how to create trust and connection in community through Conscious Circles.

Aaron will share the steps and essential elements of creating containers of safe space to help participants connect and go deeper together.

The key to creating trust and connection is the container of holding safe space. Small group work, in circles or otherwise, is a fundamental ingredient to allowing the process and depth of connection and inner work to unfold in a way not often seen in everyday life, even in the most intentional of communities.

We will explore the fundamental ingredients for facilitating safe space, how to start and grow a small group for such work, and all the tips, tools and pitfalls to avoid.

During this session you will learn:

  • How to make people feel welcome and comfortable to saying yes to small group or circle work
  • 3 easy steps to creating safe space in any group
  • The essential agreements all groups must establish
  • Ways to continue depth and momentum to allow participants to go deeper

Workshop Presenter

Aaron Kahlow

Aaron is a well recognized facilitator and educator on social health, emotional well-being, mindful living and spiritual counseling. His personal passion is around creating more meaningful human connection, especially in small group work that he calls Conscious Circles – a safe and soulful space for all to have a place to ground, clear and be witnessed…a transformative life experience.

He founded the Society of Social Health and Well-Being, a cause-based initiative to support professionals dedicated to creating more meaningful connections and community (aka Social Health), that solves societal disconnect and loneliness. Aaron is a successful serial entrepreneur, product & marketing executive, and community leader. His past leadership roles include: BusinessOnline, Online Marketing Institute, Conscious Business World Summit, Conscious Company Media, Mindbody, Fabriq, Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching, EVRYMAN, and more.

Aaron’s combination of facilitation skills, Zen practice, entrepreneurial success and real world approach to changing our behavioral health is not only inspirational, but also highly practical for all those trying to manage the chaos of living in today’s busy connected world.

Registration

The Online Event Experience

 

Live Zoom Sessions

Nothing pre-recorded here! When you sign-up for an event with FIC, you’ll have the opportunity to join a live session on Zoom with the event presenter/facilitator and other participants.

Affordable and Accessible

All our events are run on a sliding scale basis. Generous donations cover the costs for low-income attendees. FIC is committed to making our programs accessible to people of all walks of life.

Watch the Recording

You’ll receive the recording of your event to view for up to one month (unless otherwise noted). So don’t worry if you can’t attend a live session. Watch or listen whenever it is convenient for you.

Loved by Community Builders

What a beautiful gift to our intentional community builders and leaders! FIC’s programs provide a way for thinking and concerned people to collaborate for solutions to our multitude of global crises. Thank you FIC!Terri Garcia

I am constantly impressed by the down-to-earth practicality of the FIC workshops combined with the philosophical questions that are so vital for us to explore. I’m grateful for the excellent planning and delivery of the workshops by skilled and inclusive presenters, who create a space that is both welcoming and invites participants to challenge existing ideas and world views. Well done and thank you FIC.Claire Ogden

$5 – $20

Finding Co-Founders and Creating Cooperative Culture with Yana Ludwig

Inside Community Podcast — Ep. 004 [Part I]

Thinking of starting an intentional community? The first step is finding “your people” ⁠— the fellow founders you will join with to build community. This is no easy task! Timing, personality, finances, vision, and values are but a few of the considerations. How are you supposed to find and come together with the like-minded visionaries that will be your co-founders?  Here to share her insights on this topic is Yana Ludwig.

Yana Ludwig is one of our most beloved guests on the Inside Community Podcast. In honor of her new book, Building Belonging: Your Guide to Starting a Residential Intentional Community, we are re-releasing episode 004 of Season 1: Finding Co-Founders and Creating Cooperative Culture with Yana Ludwig. The episode focuses on creating a cooperative culture when starting an intentional community, finding your people, and coming together with the like-minded visionaries that will be your co-founders. Her new book Building Belonging takes this conversation a step further. The book is both a practical guide for how to start a residential intentional community and is a collective framework for addressing the racial, social, ecological, and economic disparities affecting all aspects of the living experience for humans, land, and its co-inhabitants. Building Belonging is now available for pre-order at ⁠www.ic.org/building-belonging⁠. Get your copy today!

Yana Ludwig is a cooperative culture pioneer, group process trainer, and consultant and anti-opression activist who has lived in community for 25 years. She is the former Executive Director of both the Center for Sustainable and Cooperative Culture at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, and Commonomics USA, an economic justice organization, and currently serves as the Executive Director  of Leadership Eastside in Washington. Yana is a dynamic, compassionate and thoughtful speaker and teacher, committed to creating a world that supports the well-being and vibrancy of all beings. Her writing includes ⁠⁠Together Resilient: Building Community in the Age of Climate Disruption⁠⁠ (published under the name Maikwe Ludwig) , ⁠⁠The Cooperative Culture Handbook⁠⁠ (co-authored with Karen Gimnig), and numerous articles in Communities magazine. She has spoken on Tedx and hosted the Solidarity house podcast which centers on policy, culture and law. She was also a candidate for US Senate in 2020, ultimately placing 2nd in a crowded Democratic primary field.

You can learn more about Yana and her work at  www.yanaludwig.net.

You can find Yana’s books at the Foundation for Intentional Community’s online bookstore at www.ic.org/bookstore:

  • Use coupon code INSIDE20 for 20% off your book order
  • Yana’s online course, Starting an Intentional Community,  is a learn-at-your-own-pace, on-demand course ideal for people just getting started with a community project or dreaming of starting one.

Follow the show and see inspiring images and video of community life on Instagram @InsideCommunityPodcast – I’d love to hear from you there!  If this content has been meaningful or useful to you, please subscribe, rate and review on your favorite podcast platform, and share with your friends and folks you know who are curious about living Inside Community. Your financial support of Inside Community helps us to continue to create meaningful and exciting content and I hope you’ll consider donating.

— Rebecca, your podcast host

Episode Transcript

Rebecca Mesritz 0:01
Hello communitarians, one of our most beloved guests on the show, Yana Ludwig has just finished writing a new book. And in honor of this new book, we are releasing the interview from last season. This episode focuses on creating a cooperative culture when starting an intentional community, finding your people and coming together with the like minded visionaries that will be your co founders. The book building belonging takes this conversation a step further. It’s both a practical guide for how to start a residential intentional community and a collective framework for addressing the racial, social, ecological and economic disparities that affect all aspects of the living experience for the humans, the land, and all of the cohabitants. Building belonging is available now for pre order at ic.org/building-belonging. But you don’t have to remember that just go to the show notes, and you can click the link and get your copy today. If you’ve already ordered your book and are sitting there waiting for it to arrive, you can go back into last season and I also recorded a bonus episode with Yana where I asked a couple of extra questions, and there’s some really great information in there as well. I hope you enjoy this rerelease of my interview with Yana Ludwig. Welcome back to the inside community podcast. I’m your host Rebecca Mezritz. In this podcast I bring you along for an inside look at all of the beautiful and messy realities of creating and sustaining community. In today’s episode, we are going to continue to explore the process of finding your people how to come together with the people you will be building community with. Now there are many facets to this topic, ranging from how to find your ideal community to how to actually become a really wonderful communitarian. But today we are going to focus on the beginning of the process of starting community, how to come together and join forces with the like minded visionaries that will be your co founders. Here to share her insights on this topic is Yana Ludwig. Yana Ludwig is a cooperative culture pioneer, group process trainer, consultant and anti oppression activist who has lived in community for 25 years. She is the former executive director of both the Center for Sustainable and cooperative culture at dancing rabbit ecovillage and common omics, USA and economic justice organization. And she currently serves as the executive director of leadership Eastside in Washington. Yana is a dynamic, compassionate and thoughtful speaker and teacher committed to creating a world that supports the well being and vibrancy of all beings. Her writings include together resilient building community in the age of climate disruption, published under the name may equate Ludwig as well as the cooperative culture handbook, co authored with Karen GIMP Nick, she has spoken on TEDx hosted the solidarity house podcast, and she was also a candidate for US Senate in 2020. Yana, welcome to the Inside community podcast. It is such an honor to have you.

Yana Ludwig 3:23
Hi, Rebecca. Thanks for having me.

Rebecca Mesritz 3:26
That is quite an illustrious bio there. And I know that as I was reading through it the first time I was like, okay, trying to simplify it a little bit. But you have such an amazing breadth of experience and so many realities, it seems like you’ve danced through so many realities. I really appreciate that you bring all of that skill and insight to the communities movement.

Yana Ludwig 3:51
Yeah, thanks. It’s been interesting. I feel like I’m just sort of creating community and 25,000 different ways throughout my life. So it’s really just variations on that theme for me. So yeah, so it’s been interesting ended up some in some places, I never expected IBM.

Rebecca Mesritz 4:06
Well, I hope that we can touch on some of those places. In this interview today. I usually start my interviews by asking the guest to give us a snapshot of the community that you live in. But I know that right now, you’re not currently living in a community. So I’m wondering if instead, you could just give us a little bit of an overview of what your community journey has looked like?

Yana Ludwig 4:24
Yeah, sure. So yeah, so as the bio said, I’ve been doing community for about 25 years now. And I moved into my first formal intention of community, I had done a little bit of like, you know, group houses and that kind of stuff beforehand. But my first formal, intentional community was in 1996, I was pregnant with my son, and really was kind of dragged kicking and screaming into community the first time by my son’s dad who had spent a year on a kibbutz and was sort of like, oh my god, if we don’t do this community thing now I’m never going to do it. We should go do this. And I was kind of like, there’s no way in hell But I’m going to some stupid hippie commune in the middle of nowhere, I want to go home and hang out with my mom. And so it was not a very smooth start for me with community. But I think the first time that I got there and spent a few days in this space, I started looking around and going, like, Oh, these people are actually figuring out how to do the things that I’ve been talking about in my activism work, you know, they’re growing their own food, they’re doing things cooperatively. They’re finding leverage points around like, you know, gender equality and that kind of stuff. And so I community sold itself to me pretty quickly. And then since then, I’ve spent, you know, I’ve been in eight different communities over the years, and four of those were ones that I was in a co founder role with, and I’d say those four were kind of varying degrees of success. spent the longest time at dancing rabbit ecovillage in Rutledge, Missouri, where I feel like community that’s been probably the most influential on me and my thinking about things of the communities that I’ve been a part of. And most recently, I was a co founder of the solidarity collective, which is an anti capitalist anti oppression commune in Laramie, Wyoming. And so that’s been my most recent home, and when that I still have a lot of connections to and, you know, do a lot of support with and I’m sort of cheering them on now from a distance.

Rebecca Mesritz 6:19
So the Can you describe to me the difference between dancing rabbit and the solidarity house? Like how are those the same? And how are those culturally I guess?

Yana Ludwig 6:32
Yeah, well, so dancing rabbit is it’s an eco village, which means it’s one of those communities that’s really focused on ecological sustainability as a core thing. And so that was their starting point. And, and I don’t think that the founders, when that community started, which was 1997, I don’t think that they really understood that they were going to be doing culture change work, that was something that sort of unfolded over time, you know, they were very focused on like, well, we’re just going to, you know, buy a big piece of property and get 750 people to move there and do sort of a sustainable village together. And that was really what was driving them. And, and the communities, you know, never gotten anywhere close to that big, it’s about. I’m not actually sure what the numbers are right now. But they maxed out at about 75 During the time that I was there. And so culturally, everything that has been learned at dancing rabbit has really come out of wanting to figure out how people actually live together sustainably. And so that was their starting point. And, you know, obviously, coming in as a joiner rather than a founder with that I was able to step into really a fully fleshed out system. So they have, you know, car coops and eating coops and, you know, a whole bunch of different sort of social and physical infrastructure there. And it really is a small village at this point, you know, there’s a b&b, there’s a dance hall, there’s a big common house, you can basically never leave the property and have a really full life at dancing rabbit. Solidarity Collective is, you know, it’s a very new project. We started working on it about six years ago, and they’ve now been on the property for a little over three years. And, you know, we bought an existing property, and it was, you know, a bunch of leftists basically, so, you know, really coming more from a political orientation and wanting to be exploring, socialism, anarchism, communism, and you know, figuring out what we can contribute to moving the political ball in the state of Wyoming to the left. And so a very different starting point. And we also recognize that in order to live a good life, inexpensively, you need to be doing things like growing your own food and putting in place, eating Co Op systems and whatnot. And so like, I feel like in some ways, dancing rabbit and solidarity collective have come to a lot of the same conclusions, but from really different starting places. And, and I certainly brought my dancing rabbit influences with me when I came into being a founder for solidarity collective, so that has something to do with it. But I think it’s also just like you figure out there’s certain basic questions you need to answer. As a community. If you want to do serious work on sustainability or culture change either one of those starting places, you end up asking a lot of the same questions, I think,

Rebecca Mesritz 9:15
Yeah, beautiful. I would love to hear you know, when you talk about those same those lessons learned or those those same questions, can you just outline what a couple of those are for our listeners?

Yana Ludwig 9:28
Yeah, well, so I have a lot of influences from the global eco village network. And there’s a curriculum that Jen was part of developing, called the Gaia education curriculum. And the way that that curriculum breaks it down is basically that there’s four sort of, you know, domains or dimensions, I think, is the language that they actually use in the curriculum of sustainability which are worldview, social, economic and ecological. And the curriculum came out of eco village educators from all All over the world who, regardless of the political or social or climatic situation that they were in, really figured out at some point that like you couldn’t make real progress on sustainability without touching on all four of those, like, if you don’t have a worldview, that’s compatible with sustainability, you’re just not going to have the motivation to be making those changes. You need to be doing things cooperatively, you know, the hyper individualism of the United States and a lot of other countries is not very compatible with actual real sustainability. So you’ve got to be asking social questions and figuring out how to cooperate. And then of course, you know, the economic paradigm that you’re in makes a big difference with how far you can get on sustainability. And so I think it’s, you know, really asking, like, what’s our worldview? What are the motivational underpinnings, the, you know, our ways of putting together the world as far as our mental paradigms? What are those? How willing are we to cooperate? Are we willing to get out of our Everybody’s got their own house and their own lawn mower and their own lawn? And that sort of, you know, individualistic thinking and actually move into how do we cooperate? How do we combine our resources to be able to be doing effective sustainability work? And that gets you into economics? And, you know, are we going to hoard money for ourselves? Or are we going to actually, you know, share those resources and be able to be working together in some economically cooperative way. And when you do those three layers of work, it’s actually very easy to put into place sustainable systems, you know, a lot of the resistance that we have to sustainable systems are actually embedded in one of those earlier, dimensions, one of those earlier stages. And so, you know, I think it’s asking questions, like, you know, where does our power come from? And who does that affect how we’re getting our electricity? You know, are we willing to combine resources so that we can afford a solar power system, you know, most people by themselves can’t afford it. And so you’ve got to come together, oftentimes, as a group to be able to really afford that kind of stuff. So I think it’s those sort of looking at those patterns and what actually leads to a sustainable life. I think, I think those are the kinds of things that I’m talking about with that there’s patterns. So the kinds of questions that you’ve bumped into.

Rebecca Mesritz 12:09
Yeah, yeah. Oh, that’s great. That’s so good. I can definitely see that at the, you know, the Genesis points of the different different people and communities that I’ve talked to so far, about, you know, what is the motivator? And it’s like, looking around like, this is not tenable. We can’t do this is not working.

Yana Ludwig 12:28
Exactly, exactly. Problem Solver nature. Totally, totally. And, you know, nobody creates an intentional community, if they’re happy with what they’ve got, you know, if you look around, and you’re like, Oh, my needs are being met by this culture in the society, like, Why the hell would you do all the work to start an intentional community? I mean, all of us are in it, because we’re trying to do some kind of problem solving and something about that wider culture is untenable for us.

Rebecca Mesritz 12:55
Yeah, I guess, on the on the tail end of the holidays, and all of that I’m just really struck by, you know, looking around and seeing how many people it seems, even if it’s not, quote, unquote, working for them believe that it is somehow working for them? Like, we kind of get a what is it bill of goods or whatever that says that if you have X, Y, and Z, you will be happy. And this is what that is, like, you know, this size house and this kind of car and, you know, this many weeks of vacation, and that equals some kind of happiness factor.

Yana Ludwig 13:34
Right, right. Well, it’s a it’s a word in the American dream. Yeah, yep. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. No,

Rebecca Mesritz 13:41
it’s just interesting to I’m just reflecting on that now about how Yeah, some of that stuff’s getting unpacked, it seems because we’re realizing through these different diversity and equity movements that have really gotten a lot of traction in the last couple years that even if you do have all that those things, even if you do have that, that house and that car and that vacation and those things, that that doesn’t, it’s it’s actually not sustainable. You know, there’s actually a cost, like we think that we think that we’ve paid that price, but we’re not realizing that we haven’t even come close to paying the price for those things because the ecological and social damage that those freedoms have, have run us really kind of puts puts everything in an imbalance. So

Yana Ludwig 14:32
yeah, it does, does and I think we’re at a really interesting pivot point, because I do think that that, like the sort of gloss on the American Dream has rubbed off for a lot of people. And I think, you know, we’ve got a whole generation of folks coming up who are like, you know, my son is 24. And so I feel like his generation and the generation coming up behind him, like, they see through the fact that like, you can’t actually get it like most people are not actually able to achieve the American dream at this point. And so, so then what do you do? And and it’s a really interesting point, because, you know, in the sort of historical moment, because I think we have a critical mass of people asking those questions right now who don’t buy that, you know, having a good job is the ultimate reason to be alive. You know, there’s all these memes out there right now about like, you know, you weren’t intended to work 40 or 50 hours a week, have like three years of a good life and then die. Like, that’s not why we’re here. Like, there’s gotta be more to it than that. And I think that, that’s a really easy, so I think, for young people right now. And so it’s actually a pretty exciting moment to have kind of an eagle’s eye view of the community’s movement and be watching how many more people are going like, oh, there’s some options out here. And we could actually be leaning into those. And that’s been one of the really fun things is working with groups that are, you know, mostly younger people who just like, they never just bought into the bullshit. And so now they’re like, Oh, now let’s try to create something new. And that’s pretty exciting to be watching.

Rebecca Mesritz 16:01
Huh? Yeah, yeah. Um, so I, it’s one of the things I love about being alive right now is that we get to watch, we’re getting to really watch some major systemic changes, I hope start to take take hold. Well, you know, that does bring me to our topic today about getting started with the community and finding your co founders. And for people who are out there who are saying this is no longer a tenable solution. And they’re looking around now you’ve been through this process four times of CO founding. And let’s just start at the beginning. What are you looking for in your co founders? What are the qualities of the traits that you’re identifying in, in the groups that you’ve had the most success with? And also, what are the red flags? Hmm,

Yana Ludwig 16:51
yeah, really good questions. So I think that, like one of the things that I think is important to understand about the founding process is that I think starting an intentional community is different than just about any other kind of startup project that you could be involved with. And I tell people, and this is a little bit snarky, but it’s, you know, I feel like starting a community is a little bit like starting a nonprofit organization, because it’s very mission driven, you want to do something in the world, you want to change something, that’s usually what nonprofits are about starting a small business, because there’s all of this business planning and marketing and legal stuff that you need to navigate, doing a really intense personal growth course, that’s going to last for many, many years. And it’s also kind of like getting married, because you’re making a really deep relational commitments, people, but you’re doing that with the same group of people. And, you know, you can probably think of people you’d be happy to start a business with, but wouldn’t want to be married to and you know, vice versa. And actually putting together that group, that initial founding group is really important to have people that you actually trust on multiple different levels. And it doesn’t mean everybody has to be really strong at business, or everybody has to be like, an experts, like, you know, like relational ninja or something. But it means that you’ve got to be able to find a group of people that for your initial core group, where you’ve got enough trust in all of those different areas. And so I think sometimes people get frustrated about like, well, I thought somebody was going to be a good match. And then they weren’t, it’s like, well, I just want to validate people, this is really hard. And actually finding that sort of magic mix of people can be really difficult. And so if that, you know, sometimes the hardest step is actually finding your and I would say you want three to eight people in your initial core group, you know, three people is enough that you’re going to have skills variation, and you’re going to have perspective variation, where it’s not just what’s rattling around in one person’s head, or the skills that I have as an individual, but you’re actually being able to, you know, get some variation with that. And more than eight people can be too many cooks in the kitchen for the initial phase of things where you’re having to make some really big decisions about what is our vision, what’s our mission? You know, where are the boundaries of what we’re doing? And I think, you know, sometimes people think, well, I’m going to gather together 20 people, and then we’re going to all figure it out together. And that rarely actually goes well, when you try to do it, that many people and so, you know, gathering together about three to eight people who, you know, have enough of the different skills that we’re looking at. And, you know, and there’s a lot of different things that go into it. And nobody is good at all of this stuff. And it’s part of the reason why you need a group rather than trying to just do it as like a sole founder. But, you know, it’s like things like, you know, being empathetic and listening well, but also having like, you know, some good writing and public speaking skills and having a good head for numbers and having the kind of I’m going to do whatever it takes a vibe to things and at the same time being pretty even tempered without being comfortable with conflict. And I’d say in the historical moment that you were in having some savvy about oppression dynamic Next, you know, understanding business planning, understanding legal systems, I mean, all of that stuff goes into having a really good founders group. And you don’t need everybody to have a head for numbers, but you need at least one person who does and who can explain it to other people and bring them along. You don’t need everybody to be an excellent conflict mediator, but you probably need a person in that initial group who’s good at that kind of stuff. And so it’s really a mix of kind of soft skills and hard skills to use kind of the business world language with the stuff that I think you need to put it together.

Rebecca Mesritz 20:35
Yeah. Yeah. So in terms of the other side of it, you know, the, the red flags are the things that you would maybe say, Oh, this, we might have to hold off on this person. For right now, are these people for right now? What are the what are the things you see in there?

Yana Ludwig 20:53
Well, I mean, I think they can take a lot of different forms. I mean, I’d say the biggest one is they can’t share power, you know, they’re, they’ve got a little too much of a control need. And, you know, don’t do well, with other people’s visions also being part of what’s happening, you know, the thing about starting a community as that you’re starting a collective endeavor, and people who don’t share power, well don’t do well in community and definitely shouldn’t be part of your founding group, because that is the group that’s kind of gonna set the tone for the community, you know, at least for the first five years, and probably permanently, you know, I mean, the who you get into that group at the beginning, you know, you’ve got to be good enough at playing well, with others, I would say, you know, the social skills are really important at that point. You know, I’d say that, you know, people who have sort of litigious ways of approaching things, you know, we, you know, I’ve lived in community with people, and have actively avoided being a founder with people who, you know, when something goes wrong, their first urges to sue someone like that is a setup for having like a major crisis down the road. And so people who haven’t gotten out yet have that sort of competitive orientation and the like, Well, I’m gonna protect myself at all costs, kind of thinking like, that absolutely does not work and community. I also think that for your founding group, you know, you need people who are risk takers, and starters. And there’s a lot of people who are going to be terrific community members who actually, the founding process is going to be too stressful into anxiety inducing for them. And so if you’ve got somebody who like, you know, this is just, it’s too much, it’s too complicated, it’s feels too risky, like, you know, invite them to hang around at the edges and actually bring them in at the point that you’re ready to buy lands, but like, let them know, you know, if this isn’t the phase that you need to be in, it doesn’t mean you can’t play with us, but it’s probably not the right phase to be in. So I think having some discernment about, you know, what phase you’re in, makes a big difference in terms of who you actively invite in. And it doesn’t mean other people can’t eventually play and can’t live there. Because at some point, you’re going to want the maintainers. And you’re going to want the people who are, you know, who don’t necessarily have that founders urge in them, but are really solid, stabilizing factors. Once you get to that point, like that’s when you want to bring those folks in. That’s another red flag so much is it’s just a discernment piece about when the right timing is with someone.

Rebecca Mesritz 23:21
What I’m hearing you say is basically trying to find your founding group, somewhere between the three to eight person number, you want to have a range of skills, ranging from hard skills, like legal numbers, actual, like building skills of some sort, organizational skills, as well as the softer skills of relating conflict resolution, mindfulness in some way towards oppression, culture, and a willingness to work together to share power. Yeah, am I missing anything in

Yana Ludwig 24:02
there? Well, I guess I would, yeah, I guess I would add to things that are more about the the group itself, and not necessarily about what individuals bring to it. I mean, I think that trusting each other is really important. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s like your three best friends that you’re looking for. And in fact, sometimes that’s a complete disaster if you’re not really on the same page about what the vision is that you want in the community. But, you know, it takes time to build and assess trust levels with people but I do think it’s important that you have some fundamental like, I feel like this person has my back even if we have our differences. And the other thing is something about expectations management like this is a long term commitment to get something off the ground. I mean, the minimum that I’ve seen a community successfully get off the ground is about two years. Typically, it’s more like five to seven years from the time that you start the process and you Having people who are willing to be in it for the long haul is really important. And also having people who are willing to give somewhere between two and 10 hours a week, to the process for that amount of time. So oftentimes you have people who, you know, would be terrific founders in some way, but like, they don’t have five hours a week to be giving anything and so, so really making sure that you’re that you’ve got a group of people who are going to be putting in the same amount of time that you are, like, usually, if you’re the burning soul that gets the thing kicked off, like you’re in it for that long haul. And you need a few other people who are also going to, you know, embody that in terms of the time commitment both weekly and in terms of a number of years that they’re thinking about what it’s going to take.

Rebecca Mesritz 25:42
Yeah, yeah, I’ll say when we, you know, when we founded the Emerald village, we had five couples, and some of the couples had kids, when we started, two of the couples did not, but one of the things that we noticed was that over the course of time, and over the course, especially the early years, different at different points, different people would step up and and take the reins different people would be the like, the hard charger for that period of time. But staying, whatever the lead goose, you can’t always, you can’t always be the lead goose, sometimes you have to fly to the back and let another person be the lead goose in your in your V formation. And so we saw over time, that happen very regularly, that there would be a big push for an event or a project that would get us to the next sort of level of foundation. And then the person who had led that was then I don’t want to say burnt out. But there is a level, there’s only so much that you can give especially when you are also have a career or a family or your own personal projects or things like that they are also trying to nurture and maintain. And so people would kind of step forward and step back. But we did all have one thing, which you did touch on as well, which I think is really important, which is this quality of really wanting to show up and do the work, really being committed to we’re here to do this, there was no one that was kind of sitting on the sidelines, waiting for someone else to come in and save the day, everybody had kind of that bootstrapping. Alright, let’s we’re doing this, let’s go do it. And it was a lot more fun when we all did it together. But we all had that quality, which I think really helped us to get off the ground.

Yana Ludwig 27:29
Nice. Yeah. And that’s also I love the story. It’s also a really terrific story for demonstrating what I’m talking about, about power sharing, like, if you’re somebody who like always has to be the lead goose, like, that’s not gonna work. Like you have to be able to like step back and let other people step up and support other people in bringing their gifts to the table. Like I think sometimes you see people who have been in like a founding process for years, and like, the biggest issue is ego management, that they just can’t step back and let other people get in there and sort of direct the ship for a period of time. And it really doesn’t work. And so it sounds like you all did a really good job with that, like power sharing and kind of step up step back approach to things which is great. That’s a terrific example of what it looks like when it actually works.

Rebecca Mesritz 28:17
Yeah. Yeah, there is something to about the you know, not just the power sharing, but also support the support, like the support role also feels as important, you know, the whoever’s at the front end is the leader of that project. Obviously, they’re kind of getting their way in that in some way. They’re like, they’re, they’re the ones who are taking charge. But that leader person always was open to hearing the feedback and sort of actualizing manifesting whenever you want to call the vision of the group and the supporting roles of oh, okay, so this person is putting all this time into there. So who’s going to watch the kids who’s going to create the meals who’s going to, you know, do these other less glamorous roles that kind of keep all the wheels turning and greased throughout that process? You know, that’s the real that the power sharing, that’s how I always saw that happening, as well as it’s not one, it was never a one man show, even if a person is sort of taking the administrative lead on something.

Yana Ludwig 29:26
Right. Well, and I think I think there’s this image that people have sometimes of like, everybody wants to be in charge. And that’s not actually true. Like, not everybody wants to be the lead goose even for a period of time. I mean, there’s plenty of people that like, what they want to be contributing is that support role and you need that, like, you’re not like it’s not about, you know, I mean, you use the word glamour, I mean, it’s not really about glamorous roles. And I think if you’re in it for the glamour, you’re in it for the wrong reasons. I think, you know, what, what helps you be able to do that step up, step back thing I think is is having some good ego management and not being in it because you’d like the idea of having the label co founder next to your name, like, that’s not a good reason for doing this, like at all, and I know so many people that it’s like, like, they have these self aggrandizing stories about themselves as founders, and it’s like, gross, like, No wonder nobody has ever actually wanted to live with you. And, you know, because like, that’s not a vibe that actually is going to get the thing done. I mean, you’ve got to have, you got to have a motivation for doing this that’s bigger than yourself, ultimately, and, and I think that’s what allows you to step back and also allows you to weather it when, you know when conflicts happen. And I think you know, and it probably isn’t as true with as large of a founder group as you had, but with, you know, when you have a smaller pool of founders, like, you’re going to be the first person who gets blamed when something goes wrong. And like when that moment happens, which is almost inevitable. If your motivation was self serving, you’re just going to crumble or you’re going to fight back, and you’re not going to actually hear the feedback and be able to grow in that moment. And I think it’s really important that you’ve got that orientation to, you know, service and to something creating something that’s bigger than you and whatever your own ideas are about things.

Rebecca Mesritz 31:13
Yeah. Yeah, you know, that that makes me think about just this whole endeavor of, of founding community? Well, first of all, just say, it’s hard. It’s really hard. So if you can find a community to join that’s already up and running, that shares your values and has cool people in it, you should just go. Go do that so

Yana Ludwig 31:33
much, so much. Yeah, well, and let me put a thing in about that, too, is that like, you know, I think that sometimes people don’t want to do that, because they think they have such a specific vision, that nothing’s close, you’re not going to get what’s in your head right now. Like, you’re gonna put in two to seven years, and you’re gonna get something that’s close. And that’s kind of in the ballpark of what you’re thinking right now. But nobody ever gets the exact picture. And like, given that, isn’t it better to just join something that’s close, where at least you can pick the version of close that you’re going to end up getting? And so yeah, I am, I am very pro joining community rather than starting them, in spite of the fact that I’ve found myself in that role multiple times. I think, I think, unless you’ve got a really, really strong founders urge, it is almost always better to go join somebody else’s project than go through all of that work before you get a chance to actually live together. So, yes, so just seconding that thought, like, why don’t we do

Rebecca Mesritz 32:39
this? Yeah, it’s a lot. It’s a lot. Well, you know, and then I wanted to talk for a second about just the experimentation aspect of it, which is, you know, this whole thing of creating cooperative culture, creating a community, creating these ancient yet futuristic ways of being in right relation. There’s, there’s so many templates, but there’s no one template. And there’s so much experimenting that’s happening along the way. And so part of that, you know, is we’re thinking about who’s the lead goose and who’s the supporting who’s in the back honking away and support of the lead goose, is really the willingness to allow it to be an experiment and to stay in that kind of curious mind mindset. Because I think sometimes people who want to have control are afraid of failure. That’s what I that’s, I, you know, what, I’m just going to name myself in this, the reason that I have control the situation is because I want it to succeed, and I don’t want it to fail. And I might feel like I’m seeing something that other people aren’t seeing or that my vision is the right way. And so having a really good process for whether you’re using consensus or consent decision making, or whatever your proposal forming processes, having really good processes, whereby any concerns can be brought to the center can be talked about, and can you can continue to have the good feedback loops and the curious experimentation type of a vibe in your community that lets it be okay if things have little failures, because that’s how you’re learning and you’re failing forward as, as they say these days. Yeah, I just want to put that out there too, for folks. Yeah,

Yana Ludwig 34:23
totally. Well, and the reality is, it’s all experimentation. I mean, even if you’re creating a cohousing community where there are kind of templates out there, and there’s, you know, there’s a model that I think a lot of cohousing groups sort of lean into. You’re doing something that is off the beaten path for whatever country you’re in whatever culture that you’re in, or you wouldn’t be doing it. And so I think taking that attitude that like no matter how much you know, no matter how many books you’ve read, I mean, in my case, like I had been through three prior startup attacks Um, so before I got to solidarity collective and my work in solidarity collective was the most humble work of those four projects. And you know, because there was a lot of like, this is what I think I know, here’s some training, like, Let’s lean into it, but there was a lot of like, I know enough to know that this thing is not going to look like what I think it’s gonna look like, and that I need other people, and that I want this to be a project that’s really alive for everybody, not just a fulfillment of my, you know, I think my first startup attempt was very ego driven. And, and it failed for that reason, you know, it was too much of my ego in there trying to steer the ship. And so, you know, as I went along in those, the progression of those four projects, like I think I got more and more willing to have it be a community instead of an ego trip, basically. And so I think, I think that is really important. And I think that thing about, you know, having some sort of collective decision making and collective process around visioning and whatnot, I think all of that is really important, you know, to have in place, and to be making sure that the people who are steering the ship, you know, that that initial founding group, that they’re learning those skills and modeling those skills, because it’s not as simple as like, you know, you read a little bit about consensus, and suddenly you know how to do it, it really is very deep culture shift to be able to do consensus process really well. And that’s a lifelong learning process. And so I think the more humility that the founders can have about, you know, we want to bring everybody in, and we know, we can screw this up. And we know that we’re all just making it up. So let’s make something up that works for everybody. I mean, that’s really, I think, what the orientation ought to be.

Rebecca Mesritz 36:45
Hey, friends, I hope you’re enjoying the show, you know, I am so honored to engage in conversations like this, and to get to examine and dream into better ways of living together. And I know you are too, because you’re here, please take a moment to visit ic.org/podcast and consider financial contribution to the show, so that we can continue to create this useful and meaningful content for you. And thank you.

Rebecca Mesritz 37:19
You know, over the years at different conferences, or workshops that have either facilitated or CO facilitated, I’ve met a lot of people who’ve been really deeply interested, genuinely interested in building community and starting community, some of them even have the money to get get it started. But a lot of times, I will hear them say something like, Oh, I just can’t find the people to do it with or I don’t know if that’s something that you’ve run across. But I’m wondering, really, what’s your take on on that? Or what’s the next piece of advice for folks who can’t seem to find their founding group or can’t seem to find the people that they really trust?

Yana Ludwig 38:03
Well, I mean, I think that there’s, yeah, I’d have to know more about what the specific things are. But I think some of the patterns that I’ve seen are, you know, that there’s that ego management part that, you know, they just don’t have a good handle on, being able to do power sharing, and being able to let it be a truly collective project that they’re holding really tight to something I once had a group asked me if I could look at their website and sort of help them figure out why they weren’t attracting people. And the main thing on the website was a literal, 30 page document of their vision that was incredibly prescriptive. And, and it was like, all you have to do in the course of reading 30 pages is find two or three things that don’t work for you. And you’re like, nope, not my group, it was like, you know, you’re holding too tight onto the details a lot of times, or there’s sometimes like a lot of, and this is particularly true among people who have money and have land and have resources, you’re afraid of losing it, you’re afraid of giving that up turning over what is sometimes family property to a group. And so you hold on to ownership really strongly and to you know, the sort of the, all of the capitalistic reasons that you got the money in the first place, and you try to like take that into the project and really protect what you already have, and not be willing to actually share that with other people and have a clear agreement about turning the property over to other people or turning the vision over to other people. And so, I mean, the one word answer to it is ego. I think unhealthy ego. I mean, there’s healthy ego where, you know, you’ve got to have enough self esteem to be able to sort of keep rolling with the punches, but it’s pretty easy to, you know, to have too much of yourself in there and not enough of really being open to a collective. So I think that’s the biggest reason that I’ve seen people not get off the ground when they have been And sincerely trying for a long time. It’s like, are you actually trying to do something collective or you’re trying to do your own thing, and you want other people to come join you?

Rebecca Mesritz 40:09
Yeah, I want to build this big vision, I have the land already. And I want people to come. And I want them to build community on my property and help me build up my vision.

Yana Ludwig 40:20
Exactly helped me build my thing.

Rebecca Mesritz 40:23
I’ve definitely met quite a few people who’ve had Yeah, had their own land and want to build community on their land, but it’s still their land, and it’s still their, their thing.

Yana Ludwig 40:35
That’s right. But even, even if it’s not, so say, there’s a situation and I have definitely seen situations where I feel like the founders were totally sincere about wanting it to be shared with other people, they were willing to talk about down the road, selling the property to the group and whatnot. As long as you are still, the sole owner or a couple is still the sole owner of that you can pull the rug out from under people at any point like that is your legal rights in this country to be able to do whatever you want to do with your own property within like, you know, building and zoning code stuff. And even if you would never do that, simply the fact that you can, is going to make it really hard for other people to get invested, whether that’s like literally like with money or with their energy and their time, people are just not going to really relax into being a community, as long as you’re still holding title to the property yourself. So it’s one of those ways that like, best intentions aside, like, you’ve got a lot of legal rights in this country, when you own property that really undermine the ability to create real community.

Rebecca Mesritz 41:46
Yeah, you know, I, there’s a lot, there’s usually a very high need for capital in the early days of finding founding, rather, to get the projects off the ground, you know, you want to buy the land, do you want to buy the building, you want to, you know, you need to be able to qualify for loans, make down payments, on property, cover legal expenses, all of all of those things. And like you just for saying, you know, sometimes the person already has that, and wants to sort of put that out there as their offering towards that venture. And I, I love that. And I really, yes, yes, we need, we need the people to have the haves to help support. But I guess, knowing that you’re a person who’s really passionate about equity, I’m wondering what kind of strategies you can recommend for forming groups to overcome some of these hurdles with income inequality? Mm hmm.

Yana Ludwig 42:40
Well, I think there’s a lot of different ways to approach it. And, and so there’s an article actually, that I wrote in communities magazine about cross class cooperation and acquisition of land and founding of communities. So this is something I’ve thought about a lot. And, I mean, I think the critical things are that you are willing to put it into the group’s hands as quickly as possible, and whether that means you donate it, and you get some really good coaching on what it means to not attach strings to that donation. Or you enter into a really clean contract with the community to sell the land to the community. And it’s a business deal. And you keep it as a very clean business deal. And you don’t have any more control or decision making rights, because the community is buying a piece of property from you than anybody else who you’d be buying property from, I think the critical thing is like, is like releasing that control from your individual domain into the collective domain and finding some way to do that. You know, I also think that it is possible to get loans from people who have who are closely connected to the community, a note a number of groups that have, you know, solidarity collective got off the ground, that way dancing, rabbit got off the ground that way where they took out loans with people, but again, it’s a contract, and it’s very clear. And just because you’re getting the land, or you’re getting the financing from somebody doesn’t mean that you have some rights of control to that other than, like, if the project fails, you want to be able to get your money back. You know, if the, you know, if the land sells, I mean, that’s a totally fine thing to write into a contract. So I think there’s those things and I think there’s also looking at how you structure the economics of the community internally and you know, income sharing is something that scares the crap out of a lot of people because it is so far removed from the kind of individualistic culture that we’ve been raised in. And if you really want to level the playing field, inside a community internally, I’d strongly suggest seriously looking at income sharing, and I was involved. I know people freak out.

Rebecca Mesritz 44:53
I want to do

Yana Ludwig 44:58
Yeah, Well, and interestingly, so I was part of an academic study a few years ago with Dr. Zack Rubin and Dr. Don Willis, I was the sort of, you know, Content Specialist involved with working with these two amazing PhDs, who study community as part of what they do, especially Zack. And and so we did a really big survey study of communities. And one of the questions that we were asking was about satisfaction levels for, you know, people living in community, and what are the factors that go into people actually have a good experience living in a community and a lot of what we learned, I was not surprised by, you know, having some sort of mandatory conflict resolution works having some kind of egalitarian decision making works. However, the third one that was in the top three was income sharing. And I was floored, like I had had lived in income sharing groups, like I’m a fan of income sharing, but I had no idea that it was actually that potent, and so yeah, so I think sometimes people get scared about it. But there’s actually some research out there saying, like, maybe it doesn’t have to be so scary if you set it up, right. So just putting that out. And that, and that’s really a way to like, you know, if you’re serious about equity, income sharing is one of the things that makes the biggest difference in terms of, you know, gender equity, racial equity and economic equity.

Rebecca Mesritz 46:18
Wow. I’m not gonna lie like I can feel my heart racing, just thinking about that is definitely not in my comfort zone. And I have every intention on doing some more, at least a couple of episodes on income sharing, and what does that look like? And what can that be? And for people who don’t who aren’t familiar who are listening, who aren’t familiar with income sharing, there’s definitely some Reese’s resources out there. I don’t know if you have any specifically that you would like to decide for people if they want to jump down that rabbit hole?

Yana Ludwig 46:52
Yeah, well, I think. So the the, and this is confusing, because we have the foundation for intentional community. And then there’s the Federation of egalitarian communities. So it’s the F, E, C, and their website is just the fec.org. So there’s a ton of resources on that website from and for income sharing groups. And so that’s one of the places where you can like start going down that rabbit hole. There’s also been a lot of articles and communities magazine over the years that have been about variations on the theme of income sharing. You know, I’d love to be part of that conversation. If you ever wanted to do a panel interview about income sharing, I’d love to be one of the voices with that, because it’s something that I I lived in my first full on community was an income sharing group. And then I decided I didn’t like it. And I went off into a whole bunch of other kinds of community for a lot of years. And then I came back around to it and had have actually gotten back to a place of going like, actually, I really liked the model, even though there were things I didn’t like about it when I was in my late 20s, when I you know, decided to leave that initial community. But yeah, I mean, I think it’s, I think it’s also really important to like part of the rabbit hole is that that tension that you’re feeling in your body right now thinking about it, like, that’s part of the rabbit hole, like, what’s there? What is that tension about? And really being willing to spend some time you know, getting clear about like, what’s at the bottom of that, for each of us? And is whatever’s at the bottom of that, actually, the world that you want? Or not? And like really being willing to look at that and ask those questions, because we’re at a place where like, we need to shake things up, culturally and economically. And, you know, I’ve never seen more productive conversations about what internalized capitalism looks like, than the conversations that I’ve had with people living in income sharing communities, and actually, like, going through all of that, like, Oh, my God, this is super uncomfortable spot. And then it’s like, well, so what is capitalism done to our psychology? You know, yeah, that we have all of that in there. So, yeah. Well, it’s

Rebecca Mesritz 49:02
I’m glad that this has taken this. This conversation has taken this turn because it actually brings me to a question that I wanted to talk to you about, you know, the tagline for the cooperative culture handbook is a social media, excuse me, a social change manual, to dismantle toxic culture and build connection. And I really love this because in my community experience building connection has been the major motivating force for for doing communities wanting to feel more connected to people the planet, higher power. But the notion of dismantling toxic culture has only really been alive for me for the past few years. Since my own kind of diving into diversity, equity and inclusion work, and I say this totally naming and owning that my privilege has allowed that to be the case in my life. But now that the A curtain has pulled been pulled back. And I can, I can see. I can see the Wizard back there turning the gears, you know, I see this this capital, the capitalist culture, the oppression, culture, all these things that you talk about, and it’s hard to unsee them. And I, you know, I’m curious to know from your vantage point, what you see is the biggest hurdle or blind spot is for communities in terms of escaping that toxic culture.

Yana Ludwig 50:33
Oh, my gosh, well, obviously, I have a books worth of things to say about this. So and we broke it up into 26 different sort of, we were calling them keys, which are sort of like a particular aspect of, you know, noncooperative culture that we were sort of taking apart and then talking about, like, you know, well, what do we ought to be doing instead? I mean, I think the biggest picture answer to that is, we don’t think there’s a problem, or we don’t realize there’s alternatives. And so I think you can only solve something and start taking it apart, if you’re willing to look around and go, like, actually, this culture is not working and what’s not working about it. And so it’s that thing that you just said a minute ago, and that, you know, I share a piece of this, and you know, maybe, you know, a few years ahead in terms of like, when I had kind of a big wake up call about it, but it’s like, you know, when you live in privilege, I mean, essentially, what you’re doing is like, you’re getting the comfortable parts of the culture that we have right now, that works good enough for you that you don’t really have to look at it, you don’t have to question it. And so I think recognizing that, that we desperately need some cultural shift, I think is part of it. And, and I would say I mean, I’m a socialist, and, you know, which is not true for everybody in the communities movements by any stretch. So I’m definitely putting the IANA hat on, you know, really deliberately right now. But, you know, I think a lot of it is that our culture and our economic system, are so intertwined with each other, that questioning some of this stuff, triggers a lot of survival buttons for people, like you, you know, you have to buy into capitalism, in order to survive. But what does that do to your relationships? You know, I mean, if you’re bought into an economic system, where some people have to stay poor and struggling, in order for other people to be able to have the American dream. And we’re not questioning that because we can’t, because it means you won’t have healthcare, you won’t have housing, you won’t be able to eat. That’s a really big motivation to not look at this stuff. And so for me, I’ve gotten to a place where I can’t separate my community work from my politics, like, like being able to be a political is also a form of privilege. Like, you can bet that like big business people and your landlord are not a political, like they’re in there, like making sure that the system continues to serve their interests, rather than yours. And so at what point does it become worth actually starting to take some of that apart and taking the risks that are involved with that. And so, you know, we were just talking a second ago about income sharing about how the body clenches up when we think about doing that, and that clench is that same clench that I think we all have around like, you know, I have to keep running the treadmill in this economic system. And so I think that that’s like, for me, I think that capitalism is the thing that has it pinned in the most tragically and intensively and that it’s racialized capitalism in this country. I mean, you can’t really separate racism, from our economic system. You know, we’re on stolen land. We all interact with infrastructure everyday that was built with labor of enslaved people and continues to be sustained by, you know, things like migrant worker labor, super cheap, you know, like all of our systems, our social systems are really, really wrapped up with our economic system and questioning that stuff is scary as hell. And I think that’s really the thing that has a lot of it pinned down. And again, that’s the IANA hat. Definitely not this is what the community’s movement believes about anything. This is where I’ve gotten to through 25 years of being changed and challenged by living in community has radicalized by politics.

Rebecca Mesritz 54:42
Oh, there’s there’s so many layers in there. Like, I wish you did a whole other hour to like, just talk about that because or maybe five.

Yana Ludwig 54:51
I’d love to I would love to just talk about that for a while. So yeah,

Rebecca Mesritz 54:56
it’s been it’s, I mean, on a personal note, you know, This has been a really big topic of conversation in my reality for the last for the last several years. And I have a sister who’s living with us who’s a part of this project that we’re doing now, who’s extremely passionate about equity and who’s always turning the light on in rooms that I, you know, was kind of totally oblivious to the fact that they were the room was even there. And it is a really painful, it can be extremely painful, you know, it honestly, it brings tears to my eyes, sometimes to think about, like, the depth of some of the, you know, it’s not to point a finger or cast blame, but just to say, Wow, I have these beliefs because of a system. And giving up these beliefs would mean giving up so many other things in some way. But I just want to encourage listeners and people who are here to to just, you know, one of the benefits of being in community, potentially, is that you have the opportunity to have a support network, as you unpack some of these things, if you as founders, especially create a culture that says, you know, what, one of the things that we want to do here is just take a look at it, we, we don’t even have to say that we’re going to change anything, let’s just agree that we’re going to take a look at it. Let’s just Let’s just agree to open our eyes and have honest communication and just talk about how it makes us feel. And I think for especially for people that are of a certain level of privilege, which I think, you know, my understanding of the demographics of a lot of the communities movement is that it is a lot of people of privilege are choosing this this way of life. And so we have the option, we have the opportunity really, to use our privilege to start making these, these deeper levels of cultural change, if we can come together and agree to do it together as well. It’ll have all the more all the more power.

Yana Ludwig 56:57
Yeah, and I think I think it’s great that you’ve brought it in that close, you know that you’ve got somebody in your life who’s really, you know, as you say, pointing out the rooms, and then asking the questions in the rooms and that kind of stuff. I think that’s really important. And I think the other thing that community gives us, and the thing that has really sold me on getting into community and then staying at it is also seeing well, what’s beyond those standard ways of doing things. And just like how good of a life it is when you are being able to create different systems. And so it’s not just about what we give up. And I think, you know, that’s the scary part for people who have a lot of privileges, well, what am I going to give up? What am I losing? But there’s also the like, what am I going to get out of it. And I think that that’s really what has driven me to get deeper and deeper into this work over the years, it’s just that we have more to gain than we have to lose. And you have to take a leap of faith, I think, to some extent with that. But you know, being able to live in a place where I have deep, authentic relationships with the people around me, and I’m actually living with a really low carbon footprint. And so I feel good about my life on a fundamental level, that I don’t feel good about it, when I’m living by myself. And when I’m using a lot of resources to support my more individualistic lifestyle, which is what’s happening right now in my life. You know, it’s that kind of peace of mind is pretty invaluable, actually. And being able to know that you have somebody to go to like, for me a big part of it was, you know, my, my son had seizures when he was a baby. And had I not been living in community where I could literally wake up another mom at four o’clock in the morning and go, I am freaking out. Can you just be with me? Like, like, what is that worth to be able to actually do that and to have the level of connection and mutual support that you get in those moments? I mean, that’s the kind of stuff that, like, you know, being a billionaire doesn’t buy you that, you know, it’s like, doing the hard work of creating community gets you bad. And so, you know, so I think it’s important to look at the other side of the scale to about like, what do we have to gain by doing this really important work? And you know, I said earlier that I tried to talk people out of starting communities, I really don’t want you to not start communities, I want us to have a lot of them want you to know that it’s really hard work, but man, is it worth it? You know, when you actually get in there and are able to actually like have that kind of support in your life. It’s huge.

Rebecca Mesritz 59:35
Yeah, you know, I’m hearing this kind of theme of the intimacy and the connection, that is the real win that you get from this way of being. And I know that in your handbook, you have a lot of activities who are that are designed to kind of build that intimacy and build that connection. And I am the kind of person that really really loves that. I was on I was on our human, that human relations circle and my last community and I will be probably always, but we would play communication games and do things to kind of build that intimacy. But I didn’t notice. And I have noticed that not everybody is designed that way. Not everybody likes to build intimacy, there are people who are going to be a lot more reserved. And also, you know, I know that you kind of speak to different abilities in the handbook as well. And I guess I’m just wondering if you have any advice for listeners, especially as they’re, they’re in the founding process, and they’re trying to build that trust and build that intimacy and build that connection? That if they aren’t a group with someone who maybe struggles with vulnerability, or struggles with some of those things? How can they? Do you have tips for them to start to generate that meaningful connection? Despite maybe different comfort levels with intimacy?

Yana Ludwig 1:01:07
Well, I think I mean, I think that there’s a few possibilities there. I mean, one is some forms of community require higher skill level than others. I mean, there’s, there’s some versions of community where, like, somebody has to be okay with sharing what they think about things, and they don’t necessarily have to be in more intimate connection with each other in order to have it work. And so, you know, there’s a big relationship between what your vision is like, what are you trying to do as a community, what your membership process is, and what your decision making system is, like, those three things should be really tightly connected to each other. And, you know, the more radical meaning non mainstream, the more cooperative culture oriented, the more serious sustainability work you’re doing. And the more intimate meaning things like you’re using consensus, you’re doing income sharing, you might be doing spiritual work together, you know, the more you have those things happening, the more you have to be careful about who you let in the door, because you want people who are down for the work. And it is really hard work. And so, you know, I think that there are some forms of community that they’re basically like, you know, a nice neighborhood to raise your kids in. And it’s like, you don’t have to be that intimate with people to be able to do that. And you don’t have to be that careful about who you let in the door. But I think, if you’re doing more serious work than that, then you are going to have to be careful about it. And I think there’s like some really core social skills that you want to be sorting for in your membership process. And, and I’ll just name those really quickly. And those are, you know, things like, can you accurately hear what other people are saying? Or do things tend to get garbled? Can you communicate well enough? Both what you think and what you feel about things? How do you handle feedback? Like are you okay, hearing feedback from people? Are you comfortable talking about oppression dynamics, particularly somebody who’s in a dominant group? And do they have some kind of personal process that seems to help them in times of tension, and you don’t have to worry about what that process is, for some people, that’s I have a really good therapist, for some people, they have a best friend that they can go to who isn’t in the community and isn’t involved with stuff. For some people, it’s a meditation practice doesn’t matter what it is. But having something I think, is pretty important. And so you know, I think that it doesn’t necessarily help if you’re already living with somebody who doesn’t want to do that kind of work. But I think those are the kinds of things that you should be looking at in your membership process, and making sure that people have at least some minimal skill level with that, and are willing to build more. And so I think, you know, we, part of what we wanted to talk about today was membership process, I think that’s one of the more important things is that you’re checking for social skills, and you’re checking for vision alignments. And, you know, if you are already in a community and you wish you’d been stronger about that stuff, and you’ve got people who are already living there, I think the key with that is to work at building systems around them, that can support them and feeling safer about doing that work. So having good conflict resolution systems, starting to do matter of fact, things like have check ins at the beginning your meetings where and where you get real, and you share what’s going on with you and and you let people have some time to kind of ease into meeting you there. Rather than trying to like force it on people I think is pretty important. And so, you know, I saw some really good stuff. You know, I mentioned dancing rabbit earlier, where I lived for, like, gosh, almost a decade between the different stunts that I’ve been there. And for a long time, there really was no attention on social skills at all. And one of the things that started happening Putting is that people would try to get the whole community to like start doing something, they wouldn’t do it. And then a subgroup of people would just start doing it. You know, it worked with NVC, it worked with reevaluation, counseling stuff where somebody would just start doing it. And they’d get a group of people together. And then those people would start showing up differently in the community, and then that would start rippling out. And then eventually, people who weren’t comfortable with that shift left, and the people who were starting to come into the community, were more interested in doing that kind of work. So you can shift a community’s internal culture over time, without having to get everybody currently in the community to like, agree to something that they’re not ready to agree to.

Rebecca Mesritz 1:05:44
That list was just worth the price of admission. I love that. That’s great. I love that. So good. So so good. What do you wish you had known before you had started this community?

Yana Ludwig 1:05:59
The thing that I didn’t know, that I think got me on the trajectory that got me where I am now, is just how important the social stuff is, you know, I didn’t, it didn’t really understand how hard conflict was how hard real inclusive decision making was. And, you know, at some point, I decided that I needed to learn facilitation and like committed to becoming a facilitator. Because, you know, most, not just intentional communities, but most groups doing worthwhile stuff, period, that fail fail, because we don’t know how to do that basic getting along stuff. And so I think, you know, recognizing, you know, that there are those cultural change pieces, recognizing that we just need much better social skills than we have. At this point. I think that’s the thing that I wish I had been better at when I went into it and wish that I had been willing to acknowledge was actually like a real need, because I think I was pretty dismissive of it for the first few years. And then, at some point, I went, oh, oh, this is actually the thing that is not working, and that we need to have work better.

Rebecca Mesritz 1:07:15
Jana Ludwig, thank you so much for being here with me today and for sharing all of your wisdom. And I feel like we need to talk 10 more times.

Yana Ludwig 1:07:25
That would be Thank you. This has been really fun. Rebecca. Thanks so much for having me.

Rebecca Mesritz 1:07:33
If you’d like to learn more about Jana and her work, you can find her online at Jana Ludwig dotnet. You can find her books, the cooperative culture handbook, and together resilient at the icy.org Bookstore. And if you go to our show notes, we’re going to have a 20% off discount code for podcast listeners when you purchase both of those books together. I also want to mention that Jana has an online course called starting an intentional community that’s just been made into a self paced course that’s really perfect for people who are just getting started with a community project, or who are dreaming about starting one. You can find more information about all of that and learn more about this podcast hosted by the Foundation for intentional community at ic.org/podcast. If you’d like to see inspiring images and video of community life, come find me on Instagram at inside community podcast. I would love to hear from you there. And as always, if this content has been meaningful or useful to you, please subscribe rate review, share with your friends and any folks you know who are curious about living inside community

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About the Show

The Inside Community Podcast brings folks along for an inside look at all of the beautiful and messy realities of creating and sustaining a community. We provide useful and inspiring content to support people on their quest for resilience, sustainability, and connection.

Meet Your Host

Inside Community Podcast host Rebecca Mesritz is a community builder living in Williams, Oregon.  In 2011, Rebecca co-founded the Emerald Village (EVO) in North County San Diego, California.  During her ten years with EVO, she supported and led numerous programs and initiatives including implementation and training of the community in Sociocracy, establishment of the Animal Husbandry program, leadership of the Land Circle, hosting numerous internal and external community events, and participation in the Human Relations Circle which holds the relational, spiritual and emotional container for their work. 

In June of 2021, with the blessing of EVO, Rebecca and 3 other co-founders relocated to begin a new, mission- driven community and learning center housed on 160 acres of forest and farmland.  Rebecca is passionate about communal living and sees intentional community as a tool for both personal and cultural transformation. In addition to her work in this field, she also holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from San Diego State University and creates functional, public, and interactive art in metal, wood, and pretty much any other material she can get her hands on. She is a mother, a wife, an educator, a nurturer of gardens, an epicurean lover of sustainable wholesome food, and a cultivator of compassion and beauty.


The Inside Community Podcast is sponsored by the Foundation for Intentional Community (FIC). Reach out if you are interested in sponsorship or advertisement opportunities on the podcast.

We are hiring Live-In Assistants to support our homes & share life with us in Southeast Portland and looking for folks with and without disabilities who want to become Gabriel House Members at our home in Beaverton!

Live-In Assistants
Live-in Assistants and the Community Leadership Team work together to create and support community life in our Eastside / Montavilla homes. A Live-In Assistant must feel called to share life in our homes and build intentional community.

General Responsibilities include: Assist core members (adults with intellectual disabilities) with basic hygiene and health needs, which include toileting, showering, and laundry assistance. Assist core members with daily recreational and financial activities and support them in personal growth. Share household responsibilities including cooking, maintenance of house and yard, upkeep of
community vehicles, transportation for core members, record keeping. Help plan celebrations, welcome guests, support community nights. Attend regular meetings. Develop supportive relationships with friends and families of core members, and professional human service workers (case workers, health care providers, etc.)

$17/hr + benefits (see website for more information)

To Apply:
Please fill out our Assistant application by visiting https://www.larche-portland.org/join-our-team.

Gabriel House Member
Gabriel House members live in our newest home in Beaverton, Oregon. In this home, adults with and without intellectual disabilities build community together, but do not have a paid caregiving relationship with each other. All are encouraged to pursue activities beyond the home, including employment, school, and community engagement. Those who need support with activities of daily living contract with support workers on an hourly basis.

To Apply:
You can learn more and request an application to Share Life in Our Homes by completing an online inquiry form here: https://www.larche-portland.org/live-with-us.


About L’Arche Portland

At L’Arche Portland, people with and without intellectual disabilities (ID) are transformed by working together to create home, share life, and build community. We give and receive compassionate care and friendship as a community that fosters a deeper experience of being human. We welcome people of all backgrounds and spiritual journeys to find connection and belonging.

People with disabilities experience disproportionately high rates of discrimination, poverty, poor mental and physical health outcomes, and marginalization. Our society does not recognize one of the most important needs of all – the need to belong. Belonging is a need felt by all people, but it is often neglected for people with intellectual disabilities. L’Arche Portland addresses this common need for belonging and the isolation and loneliness that people with intellectual disabilities face through our intentional model of fostering mutual relationships.

We have three homes and monthly gatherings that provide people with and without intellectual disabilities opportunities to discover and build relationships across differences. L’Arche Portland cultivates an extended community of friends, volunteers, and supporters in Oregon, as well as across the country and world. L’Arche Portland is part of an international movement of 149 communities and 20 projects in 35 countries around the world.

Our vision of disability is based on the simple, powerful idea that love, relationships, and belonging are essential to all people and that every person has the ability and responsibility to contribute. Marilyn, one of our community members with a disability, may have summed it up best when she described L’Arche Portland as “a place where they want you.” We are creating, day by day, a place of belonging, a place where people—with or without disabilities—feel welcomed, valued and loved.

At L’Arche Portland, people with and without intellectual disabilities are transformed by working together to create home, share life, and build community. We give and receive compassionate care and friendship as a community that fosters a deeper experience of being human. We welcome people of all backgrounds and spiritual journeys to find connection and belonging.

February 23, 2022 @ 2:00 PM 3:30 PM CST

Feb 23rd | 3:00-4:30pm Eastern

Rising Together | The Power of Singing in Your Community

Join artist and healer Lyndsey Scott for an interactive workshop on the uplifting and relaxing power of song in your community.

What muses live beyond the obligatory food gathering tune? Many communities already have a practice of singing to circle up for sharing meals, and many more are discovering the power of community singing to slow down, bring beauty, regulate nervous systems, and anchor visions of the more beautiful worlds we feel and dream.

Science tells us that singing together “alleviates anxiety and stress and lessens feelings of depression and loneliness.” History tells us singing together is the glue and heart of change-making social movements. Making music together is medicine for these times!

In this interactive workshop, we’ll sing!, and explore moments that are ripe to weave song into community life. Simple songs will be taught call-and-response (with participants muted because of lag), and ample space will be given to questions you might have has you imagine leading more song in your community.

Key outcomes of this workshop:

  • 4 fresh songs to share with your community
  • 3 tips for creating ease and clarity in teaching them
  • An understanding of song’s power to uplift and relax
  • Access to free online resources for continued song learning

Workshop Presenter

Lyndsey Scott

Lyndsey enjoys living life as multimedia prayer. Educated as a painter, she spent a decade in St. Louis, MO experimenting with parades, photography, and participatory art as catalyst for community transformation. Encountering personal and collective trauma initiated a decade of inquiry into healing modalities, which led to a move back to her rural hometown in central IL. There she seeded restorative practices, including opening a small yoga studio, facilitating a permaculture garden for formerly incarcerated men, prioritizing mending with her family of origin, and teaching art at a juvenile detention center. Now she weaves creativity & healing together in ritual and song, by offering community song circles, ecstatic grief ritual, and group work aimed at dismantling internalized white supremacy and patriarchy. She currently leads song for Earthkeeper Wisdom School, supports the vision of her mentors at Holistic Resistance, and is recording an album of singalong mantra for the soul journey including her much beloved “You don’t have to know the way, the Way Knows the Way.”

Registration

The Online Event Experience

 

Live Zoom Sessions

Nothing pre-recorded here! When you sign-up for an event with FIC, you’ll have the opportunity to join a live session on Zoom with the event presenter/facilitator and other participants.

Affordable and Accessible

All our events are run on a sliding scale basis. Generous donations cover the costs for low-income attendees. FIC is committed to making our programs accessible to people of all walks of life.

Watch the Recording

You’ll receive the recording of your event to view for up to one month (unless otherwise noted). So don’t worry if you can’t attend a live session. Watch or listen whenever it is convenient for you.

Loved by Community Builders

What a beautiful gift to our intentional community builders and leaders! FIC’s programs provide a way for thinking and concerned people to collaborate for solutions to our multitude of global crises. Thank you FIC!Terri Garcia

I am constantly impressed by the down-to-earth practicality of the FIC workshops combined with the philosophical questions that are so vital for us to explore. I’m grateful for the excellent planning and delivery of the workshops by skilled and inclusive presenters, who create a space that is both welcoming and invites participants to challenge existing ideas and world views. Well done and thank you FIC.Claire Ogden

$10 – $40

Join us in our next PortalsofPerception.org Free Interactive Virtual Event on “Co-Creating Humanity’s Future” on Saturday Feb 5th, at 12:00 – 14:00 pm EST
Register now to receive your personal zoom link at: https://portalsofperception.org/…/co-creating…/
Inquiries to be explored:
– What is it like to be in a conversation where you feel you are co-creating the future?
– The future is emerging through us now. What do we want to co-create for ourselves and the people we love?
– How do we liberate our imagination and bring to life what our souls are yearning for?
This event will be hosted by Aviv Shahar, an author, coach, and global consultant, helping leadership teams create breakthroughs that produce transformational futures.
Our panel of guests:
– Ofer Dotan: – I am excited to explore together what emerges when we apply ourselves towards a common aspiration, to foster more humane collaborations, through which we can discover and express our potentialities.
– Ariel Levari: – I believe truth is not a final destination, but an ongoing journey that requires being in conversation with the world and the people around us. I’m looking forward to seeing what threads of truth begin to unspool through our conversations, and how we can trace them into a more beautiful future.
– Forrest Wilson: – Old systems and stories are breaking down all over planet Earth as we open up and make room for the new world that wants to emerge with and through us. Humanity is being invited to take a breath, pause in possibility, and dream a new world into being, together.

Do you feel a calling to create a housing community that fosters social connection, sharing, and belonging?

Are you inspired to develop an ecovillage, housing cooperative, tiny home village or co-housing and want support to make it happen?

Are you feeling moved to address the injustice around unaffordable housing, gentrification, and cookie-cutter status-quo housing developments

With climate change creating instability in our environment, are you wanting a neighbourhood designed for ecological resilience?

Do you own land and want to maximise its potential to serve the greatest good?

If any is “yes” then check out:

Common Ground

Our vision: Thriving, connected communities that enable a great quality of life and that contribute to the social, ecological and economic wellbeing of an area.

Our mission: Building the will and capacity of leaders, professionals, developers, and community groups to use regenerative design for the development of sustainable, affordable, connected housing communities and settlements.

Our unique role: We work at the nexus of regenerative thinking and wholistic design systems, personal and collective leadership systems, and the built environment, legal and financial systems.  We are a social enterprise based in Aotearoa New Zealand but work globally.

 

Services (see all current services)

Housing Community Creator Accelerator & Mastermind Programme

We’re launching this programme for those who feel called or have stepped into developing or supporting the creation of a connected, sustainable, and affordable housing community development.

In this programme, you will join other visionaries and community creators in a guided and curated group programme to go on this journey together while also working on and getting support for your own idea or project.

You will unlock your project’s potential, gain from group wisdom and accountability, feel supported and encouraged, connect with sector experts, and gain traction.

It is a 6-month online programme including live sessions, coaching, a facilitated Mastermind, individual project work, accountability sessions, access to a year Common Ground membership and access to resources.

Quick strategy session of 1.5 hours

  • Clarity of your vision, including its regenerative potential
  • Next steps and a roadmap
  • Identified potential partners or supporters
  • A sense of confidence in taking your project to the next level

Mentorship & Coaching

We offer a renewable 3-month package to support you with:

  • clarity on vision and purpose
  • a project plan with milestones and accountability to achieve targets,
  • identifying regenerative potential,
  • building and sustaining group cohesion and effective team processes
  • attracting resources and partnerships,
  • engaging greater community-wide stakeholders,
  • navigating affordability options and strategies
  • putting together a professional project team
  • understanding the land and support with creating a permaculture plan

One of our current clients is the Raglan Ecovillage Project

Bespoke workshops & short courses in a variety of topics such as regenerative design thinking, compassionate communication & cooperative group work

Membership platform, hosted on Mighty Networks, to find others in your area or who share your passions and goals as regards community-led and focused housing.

Housing in Service to Life Practitioners Consortium

We are growing a referral and collaboration consortium of housing and place-making professionals who believe that housing should be in service to life.

We aim to build the capacity and fill the growing demand for more professionals who can serve community-led and community-focused housing to achieve their collective housing missions.

We welcome new practitioners who feel aligned to this mission.  Fill in an Expression of Interest and we will get back with you.

 

Zola Rose, Director of Common Ground

Zola has gained knowledge and experience living, studying, and working with developing regenerative housing settlements.

Housing Community Achievements

  • Lived in an intentional rural eco-community in South Africa for nine years
  • Developed an off-grid rural homestead of one acre using permaculture design principles which functioned as a Sustainability Commons Learning Centre for teachers, local community, and international visitors
  • Initiated the establishment of the first Council-partnered and government-funded Community Land Trust in Aotearoa (for affordable housing)
  • Coordinated the building of 100+ houses on rural and urban sites in partnership with future residents and volunteers with Habitat for Humanity over four years

Qualifications & Memberships

  • Masters in community and international development
  • Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC)
  • Ecovillage Design Education certificate (EDE)
  • The Regenerative Practitioner course certificate
  • Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) Ambassador
  • Won the 2012 “Eduplant” award for best permaculture school in the province
  • Member of the Australasian Facilitator’s Network
  • Served on The Housing Innovation Society from 2020-end 2021
  • Served on the Co-operative Housing Society of NZ from 2019-2020

Testimonials

You’re like a co-housing dynamo. So much knowledge and connections. Talking to you was so informative and totally inspiring. I feel our goals are totally aligned around regenerative housing, community prosperity and ecological health. Thanks so much for your mahi (work). –Peter Grant, architect

Zola has huge knowledge about alternative housing – both local and global issues. She is well connected in the alternative housing area and brings a wealth of knowledge to events and courses. She is an excellent facilitator both in small and large groups. –Greer O’Donnell, Director Urban Advisory

Zola, you helped me be clearer on setting my goals, you keep me accountable, you help me with your connections and liaising with people, you helped me wording some of my presentation to council.  You communicate clearly, you are punctual and very organised, which helps me stay on track.  You have opened a whole new world around the regenerative principles, even though I find it sometimes overwhelming as it touches on so many aspects. –Nadine Simar, Raglan Ecovillage Project Founder

 

Storytelling and Awareness Raising of Regenerative Housing Communities

We seek and share inspirational and positive stories of people that are creating these kinds of housing projects/communities.  We invite you to share your story to be hosted on our YouTube and social media channels.

Women Revolutionising Housing

We are a diverse network of women who believe that housing is a human right, who are leading innovative housing projects, and who want systems change for more affordable, sustainable housing options.  Join us.

Common Ground website: www.commonground.net.nz

All contact information is on the website.

Have you been paying attention to the state of our country recently?

Do you know how much of our food is toxic, and how our supply system is barely working at all?

Do you understand the long term results of climate change and realize we HAVE to live differently?

Do you feel both the hate and the all-consuming greed in the world today?

Want to make a positive change and be a part of the solution?

I have a 159 acre farm in the Ozarks.  It’s a beautiful farm with lots of interesting land forms, and there is plenty of land to produce most, if not all, of the food we eat.  I am looking for several young people or couples to help create a small community.  There is a lot of potential for other income producing opportunities, but I can’t do it all myself.  In true permaculture mindset I want to share the farm and create a sustaining community.

Here’s what I am looking for:  people with a GOOD WORK ETHIC, people who understand and agree with the self sufficient (as much as possible) mindset and are willing to actually live it, people who have some skills, however, if you are young and want to learn these skills, that will work, too.   These people should be people who care about other people and are willing to work together and work out any problems.  Obviously, good communication skills are necessary or learnable.  Good personal hygiene is a necessity.  If you are interested and wonder why I say this, I would be glad to discuss it with you.  If you know something about permaculture, that would be a plus.

Children are welcome.  This farm needs a few kids to run around and observe and learn about nature like I did when I was young.

I have been here for almost 17 years and have been learning about the land, trying things and putting in infrastructure including solar panels, solar hot water, a pump in the creek, and lots of edible plants. There is now a new greenhouse with a soil battery.

Please remember…farms can be dangerous (think kids), and there is always plenty of work, whether it’s cold or hot outside or you are tired.  The animals still have to be fed, milked and taken care of.  On the other hand, living with the seasons on a farm is especially rewarding, as is creating a sustainable lifestyle, especially considering the mess that the country is in now.  (Don’t  worry, it’s not all  work and no play!)  If you are interested in joining me, call or write and let’s talk!   I will send  pics to anyone serious.

One other thing…somehow this area is not considered to be a premiere living spot. That is so wrong!   We have clean air and water,  beautiful scenery, wildlife, and no building codes.

Thanks for reading.  Hope to hear from you!

Lisa

 

 

If the lead image in my gallery moves you like it moves me, then please read on and see where you might fit.  Many, many thanks.  –  Eric

INTRO NOTES… as if to a woman I had never met before on a dating site, yet who is herself definitely searching for a Life Partnership.

Why are good “relationships” seemingly so hard to find and sustain and how do we (you & I) fix that for ourselves?
The answer lies far beyond “good sex & romance”…. yet includes it and actually makes it better. Read on.

First off: Even though I live in N.E. Texas,  I am not a “Texan” by any stretch of the imagination.  I am much more a “Californian” who left southern California to get out of the insanity / rat race mentality there; and moved to some truly beautiful, lush green rural land in N.E. Texas. To hand build my own house on fully paid up land and to establish a firm, stable ground/foundation with an intimate partner who knows the value of a supportive social system around us.

Why are good “relationships” seemingly so hard to find and sustain. Why are you still here on this dating site (or single)? Why am I here? Part of the answer lies in a simple truth   (fasten you sea belt!  A mind is like a parachute! Namely it works only if it is open.) The truth about us is this: One key reason is that our ancient ancestors on the plains of Africa survived, was that they were not bigger, stronger, or faster than the animals they ate or tried to avoid being eaten by; but they survived because they were much better at banding together into groups and cooperating. Evolution at work!   Just as bees evolved to live in a hive, humans evolved to live together in a TRIBE!   And our current culture is doing the exact opposite to us.

We are the first humans … EVER …. to disband our tribes!  It is not only making us feel awful, but via physiological/psychological reasons it is actually killing us slowly & surely. And our personal isolation is putting incredible strains on relationships. The famous cultural anthropologist, Dr. Margaret Mead over half a century put it very well.

“Nobody has ever before asked the nuclear family to live all by itself in a box the way we do. With no relatives, no support, we’ve put it in an impossible situation.” — Margaret Mead

And the isolation and stress has only gotten worse since Mead’s time. Each of the last 4 decades has had a decrease in the quality of life for the average USA citizen. Sexual attraction and “romance” so often are what bring us together when we are younger. Nice stuff without a doubt. And YET most likely, everyone here has had their fair share of “sex & romance” at various times in the past. Still it is not the glue that makes for permanently successful relationships. Hopefully you have had enough experience by now to realize this.   Margaret Mead some 50 years ago made her comment about the “nuclear family”… A marriage of one man, one woman and a few kids. Now some 50 years later, the number of marriages have decreased and the isolation of the individual man or woman has increased.  And you don’t like it any more than I do !!

I’m passionate about the need to establish and live, more “Real” Community / tribe in our lives. More connection, more Loving Honesty, more Creativity, more Integrity, and more JOY !   My background is that of psychology, science and a long meditation practice. All of these blend together in support of community creation. I’m looking for a Life Partner in creating a life together.   If this resonates with your own dreams, we should talk. If you still have notions that good sex and romance alone will fix your isolation, you should stop right here and search elsewhere. I’m looking for a smart, loving, and aware woman partner whose ability to love is based in mature reality, not a youthful fantasy.  Here’s another quote for your consideration in the quest for loving, happy relationships.

“The American myth of love and marriage is a recipe for emotional disaster. We still pay lip service to the notion that young people will fall in love and meet each other’s physical and emotional needs for the rest of their lives. That’s obviously ridiculous, but we have no other model of a “good” relationship.” — Sirenita

Well we do have a better model now. It involves the cry of the young boy who cries out in complete innocence awareness, “The Emperor has no clothes on !”  We are being increasingly isolated and it hurts us!   We need each other, along with presence of warm, caring others around us… namely “Tribe”.    With that present, individual relationships have a much better chance of flourishing.  Community is our natural social ecology !!

I am a very Intelligent, Loving, High energy, Honest and psychologically healthy man with an inquiring mind.  I resonate with the same in a search for a true woman Life Partner. I love to dance, to sing, to think deeply & ponder jointly with you on the meaning of life and what we can create with it. I have had a long meditation practice. I love the peacefulness of the lush green land I own here… home and land completely paid for. Never any debt.  Stable, safe & secure, and open to building whatever we might wish. I am a playful ‘imp’ at times, loving to surprise you with things you might like and appreciate. I am fully alive and carry a vibrant “Yes to Life!” energy within me.

If this appeals to you in your own quest, please contact me with a couple of pics and info about your own community passion, so we can start a conscious dance of Beauty, Truth and Love together.

Contact:  EricNBest@gmail.com

We are looking for new members of our intentional community in Bergerac, France. We are part of Life Itself, an organisation working towards  a wiser, weller world by creating intentional communities (we have a sister hub in Berlin) and carrying out research into radical social transformation. You can read more about us here: www.lifeitself.us

The space itself is beautiful. We live on the river Dordogne in the town of Bergerac, which blends historic architecture with modern amenities. You’ll be living in our characterful townhouse, just a few minutes walk from the centre of town. You’ll also have access to our stunning farmhouse, and all its surrounding land, a short drive away in Thénac. 

We eat together every day, with community members cooking on a rotating basis. We also clean and prep food together every morning, and there is time for (optional) shared meditation in the evenings. We’re also seeking to experiment with a range of other collective practices, from yoga to deep listening, and are always open to new ideas! 

If this sounds like somewhere you’d like to live, then we’d love to hear from you! Please send a message and complete the following short survey telling us a bit about yourself: https://forms.gle/Tu4NmTSwT2ta5i4U6

Hello…
We hope you are having a positive and affirming day of life.
After exploring happily  and living for some years within Australia, Canada, Thailand, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador,
the U.K., the united slaves and other countries.
Experientially exploring different cultures, subcultures, areas, etc…
and learning of yet,
other areas of other countries
which naturally have the qualities we are looking for
where we would chose to live…
We are ready to unite with others and co create our living educational community.
I currently live in the upper Patagonia of Argentina,
during the last year,
after a year of living in El Bolsón.
Amanda is presently in British Columbia.
The C Virus has kept us apart for some months.
Our relationship to one another is stronger then ever.
Our clarity within ourselves and together is clearer then ever in what we are creating for ourselves and to share with one another.
For me, its been clear for many years.
We are interested in collaborating with other deeply,
like-minded (is how some people articulate it…)
Though,
who we are interested in befriending are…
people,
who how they actually live their lives
and who they are, within themselves
are in sync
with who we each are
and how we live our lives…
Finding people who,
what is most important to them within their lives,
for themselves,
are in sync with is most important to each of us
within our lives
and who we are.
Obviously,
we will have differences,
though,
not in what is most vitally important
to us
and to them…
or, with minor exceptions
Co-creating and living in community.
– by our own personally clarified definition
firstly, within ourselves
and then discussed  –
of what living in community together would be,
in details,
with one another.
For a healthy, successful and lasting relationship
 we obviously must be…
for a lack of better phrase,
definitely, on the same pages.
As for the specific location…
Undecided as of this moment.
We are exploring
We are open!
In where I have lived and traveled so far,
I have most enjoyed living my life…
so far,
in the Hobart, Tasmania, Australia area.
and,
within the Slocan Valley, British Columbia area.
Parts of Denmark and…
Briefly,
 a little of who I am,
my skills, experiences, insights, etc
and what I obviously value living in my life
and integral within a community
I grew up from my birth
(literally)
playing and working,
professionally and personally
submerged within:
Permaculture:
(including but not limited to)
Eco housing design and construction,
food forests,
organic gardens,
appropriate technology,
y more
including, teaching some of these and other areas of permaculture.
Organics:
(including but not limited to)
Owning/operating my own successful,
hugely diverse
ethnobotancally (edible, medicinal and utilitarian plants)
greenhouses y nursery business.
Designing, implementing and caring for large and small scale organic gardens for others.
Managing retail produce and medicinal herbal depts
in large organic food stores for many years.
and  much much much more.
Self-sufficiency:   Largely diverse
Health and Natural Healing:
Medicinal Herbalist,
(12 kinds of) Massage therapist,
NLP/hypnotherapist,
Counselor (Gestalt y ….)
Teaching some of the above,
as well as,
Meditation
(which I begun meditation,
when I was 8 years old),
Chi Gong, 5 rythems / ecstatic dance and more.
Vegan /  Liberation of Animals and Nature
(40 +years, so far)
Montessori Education
upbringing and strongly influences
my approach to teaching/guiding others.
Indigenous Living skills
(or, as others call them, survival skills)
Exploring, practicing and teaching numerous skills.
I started out with plant identification, preparation and uses.
Wildlife and domesticate animals rescue and rehailitation
in various areas of the world.
Autopoietic
Direct Action Now social and political activism.
My own ethnobotanical research:
edible, medicinal and utilitaririan uses.
Being a multi-instrumentalist,
writer
and enjoy other self-expressions,
be it experimental theatre, story telling and dance
Self exploration and discovery through self expression (as I call a workshop of mine).
and other closely interrelated ways of living life in balance.
Living my own interweaving of these
and teaching / guiding others
in many aspects of these,
including, within Permaculture, Organic and Natural Health …
A lot of experiences, skills and insights to share
within a successful community,
continuing to within my own businesses…
I have absolutely no acceptance nor tolerance of dogmas:
…be it speciesism, (reverse) sexism, racism, nationalism/patriotism,
civilizationism, homophobia,
religious nor political dogmas.
Amanda is happy to share her own list of experience, skills, insights, manners of living her life
in a letter in correspondance with you.
I will also go into further detail about our mutual vision
of an educational community.
We would appreciate learning about who you are,
y whats most important to you within your life.
Feel free to contact us directly.
You can also contact me through:
WIRE / Telegram: 56 9 9297 8038
Email and…
Skype: Loving Life
(with photos of my two beloved dogs)
Love life with passion …
Jann Verschur and Amanda Stone

This article was originally published by TIME and accompanied by a video: https://time.com/intentional-communities/

‘Everyone Needs Someone Else’

BY JEFFREY KLUGER

There’s not a lot to do in Syracuse, N.Y. when you’re living alone and a winter storm system dumps 3 feet of snow on the city. There’s no going outside, but there’s no staying inside — at least not for too long — if you want to remain sane. A dinner with friends would be nice; so would a yoga class or a shared movie and a good long talk. And when that’s all done, it would also be nice to have just a little bit of that wintertime solitude, watching the snow fall, all alone, from the privacy of your own home.

At one place in Syracuse, all of that happens on those long snow-filled nights. That place is Commonspace, a “co-housing” community on the fourth and fifth floors of a restored 19th-century office building. The community is made up of 25 mini-apartments, fully equipped with their own kitchenettes and baths, with access to a larger, shared chef’s kitchen, library nook, game room, coffee lounge and media room. The 27 residents (couples are welcome) live together — but only sort of — in private apartments that are, once you step outside your door, un-private too. And they’re part of a growing trend in an increasingly lonely country: intentional communities.

SYRACUSE, NY – OCTOBER 26, 2017: Exterior view of the Commonspace building, located on E. Jefferson Street in downtown Syracuse, New York. Commonspace is an alternative work and housing concept in Syracuse, New York where residents occupy small bedrooms but work and socialize in larger shared spaces throughout the building.

In cities and towns across the U.S., individuals and families are coming to the conclusion that while the commune experiment of the 1960s was overwhelmed by problems, the idea of living in close — but not too close — cooperation with other people has a lot of appeal. An intentional community is a very different beast from the more familiar planned communities, which can be big, unwieldy things — hundreds or thousands of families living on small parcels across hundreds of acres of land. While there may be some common facilities — a swimming pool or golf course or community lake — the communities are really just villages writ large or cities writ small, easy places to be anonymous.

Intentional communities, by contrast, are intimate: a couple dozen apartments or single-family homes, built around central squares or common spaces. And they’re operated in ways intended to keep the community connected — with weekly dinners at a community center or other common area, shared babysitting services, shared gardens or games or even vacations. If you don’t want to participate, fine; no one will come pester you to play a pick-up game you don’t want to play or join a committee you don’t want to join. But when you need the community — because a spouse is away or a baby is sick or you’re just plain lonely and would like some companionship — it’s there for you.

It’s that business of relieving loneliness that’s key to the popularity of intentional communities. Human beings may not always get along, but the fact is, we can’t get enough of one another. There are currently 7.6 billion of us in the world but we inhabit only about 10% of the planet’s land, and roughly 50% of us live on just 1% of that land.

“We evolved to depend on our social connections,” says Dr. Vivek Murthy, former U.S. Surgeon General. “Over thousands of years, this got baked into our nervous systems — so much so that if we are feeling socially disconnected, that places us in a physiologic stress state.”

According to a study by AARP, over 40% of American adults suffer from loneliness, a condition that, Murthy warns, is as dangerous to our physical health as smoking 15 cigarettes or vape juice bottles a day, increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and more. Worse, loneliness is a condition that makes no demographic distinctions; it affects millennials just starting their careers, widowed boomers just ending theirs, empty-nesters, new divorcees, first year college students a thousand miles away from family and high school friends. Social media, which ostensibly draws people closer, in fact may be atomizing us further, creating virtual connections that have little of the benefits of actual connections.

A gusher of studies since the early 1990s have established the health dividends of social ties. Among people with cardiovascular disease, those with more social connections have a 2.4 times lower risk of mortality within an established period than those with poor social ties. Social connections lower the risk of cancer, speed recovery among people who do contract the disease, and reduce the risk of hypertension and other cardiovascular illnesses. Even wound-healing improves with social connections. Multiple studies suggest that part of this may come from the psychological boost—including the sense of responsibility—that meaningful relationships provide. When friends and family members are counting on you to be around, you make better health choices, even if they’re unconscious. Other studies have shown that similar brain structures control both physical pain and social pain—and that pain relief, through analgesics in the first case and relationships in the second, operate similarly as well. Being socially connected doesn’t simply make you healthier, it just plain feels good.

“Intentional communities are about creating attachment, the feeling that someone has your back,” says Harvard University psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, a decades-old survey of the health of a population of Harvard graduates and their descendants. “We often ask people in studies, ‘Who would you call in the middle of the night if you were really sick or scared?’ Intentional communities can help you have an answer to that question.”

It’s not easy to come by a firm count of how many intentional communities are out there. Only about 160 of them have been built from the ground up with co-housing in mind, but the regularly updated Fellowship for Intentional Community lists 1,539 communities in all 50 states that have also used existing housing stock to establish co-housing arrangements.

There are urban communities like Commonspace in most major cities. There is Milagro in Tucson, Ariz., 28 single-family homes on 43 desert acres built around a central green space with a shared community center and other facilities. There is Village Hearth Co-Housing, a similar set-up in Durham, N.C., but one intended for singles, couples and families in the LGBTQ community. There are other communities for seniors or artists or veterans; there are even rural communities for people who want the independence of owning their own homes but the collective experience of farming the same land.

For each of the communities, the relative compactness of the population is what creates the feeling of togetherness. “You can’t possibly know three hundred people,” says Troy Evans, real estate developer and the co-founder of Syracuse’s Commonspace. “But you can know fifty. What we try to do in Commonspace is create a neighborhood in a building.”

To all appearance, they’ve succeeded at that. The community’s 25 apartments rent for an average of $850 per month, which is admittedly pricey for a tiny, 200 sq. ft. space, though services like thrice-weekly cleaning of all of the common spaces and the costs of activities like the weekly farm-to-table dinners are included. And the social benefits — which are impossible to measure in dollars and cents — are included too.

Brett Carlsen for TIMEThe rooftop patio at Commonspace overlooks downtown Syracuse, New York and is available for all tenants to use. Commonspace is an alternative work and housing concept in Syracuse, New York where residents occupy small bedrooms but work and socialize in larger shared spaces throughout the building.

“We set everything up with a town square feel so when you come out of your door there’s not a long, dark hallway like in most apartment buildings,” says Evans. Town squares, of course, can be noisy — not to the liking of even some people who choose to live semi-communally. That’s why one of the floors has fewer apartments built a quiet lounge where locally roasted coffee is always on offer.

The mini-apartments are cleverly laid out, with a platform bed built atop storage cabinets and floor-to-ceiling windows that create an open feel. The bathroom is complete —though it has a shower without a tub — and the kitchenette is limited only by the fact that is has two electric burners instead of a full stove, because local regulations forbid open flame in such small quarters. The apartments are all equipped with TVs and high-speed Internet, and a Slack channel allows residents to stay in touch without having to remember 26 other email addresses.

Still, it’s the 6,000 shared square feet, not the 200 private ones that really defines the Commonspace experience, providing what Evans describes as “a lot of collision space,” which is something people who would otherwise be living alone often crave. “What we’ve found is demand from people who were landing in Syracuse for the first time and not knowing anyone,” he says. “We’ve got people from eight different countries and seven different states. It’s a really cool, diverse group.”

That diversity is not only cultural but temperamental. Rose Bear Don’t Walk, a 23-year old Native American studying environment and forestry at the State University of New York, Syracuse, moved in to Commonspace over the summer and soon grew friendly with another resident who works in computer coding. His mind operates arithmetically, hers works more emotively, and they took to talking about their different ways of approaching the world.

“He’s always building something or talking about building something or listening to podcasts,” she says. One day, when she was weaving decorative strands out of plant fibers, she decided to make him a bracelet. “It was just this way that our worlds connected,” she says. “He is very logical and mathematical and was very excited about this little tiny rope bracelet that I was bringing home.”

Meaningful as those kinds of connections can be, Commonspace residents don’t always have a lot of time to make them. Millennials can be transitory — characteristic of most people early in their careers — and the average length of tenancy is just eight months.

Things are very different at other intentional communities, like Milagro in Tucson. There, the buy-in is typically for life. The 28 homes in the landscaped desert space are sometimes available for rent, but are typically owned by their residents and have sold for anywhere from $175,000 to $430,000, depending on the market. The investment in house and land means an equal investment in the life of the community.

Brian Stark, a married father of two, has lived in Milagro since 2003, two years after the community opened, and considers himself a lifer. For him the appeal is not so much the community-wide dinner in the dining room every Saturday, or the happy hours or the stargazing sessions or the shared holiday parties. It’s the easy, collegial pace of the place, unavoidable when neighbors all know one another.

“You almost have to assume that someone may stop to chat with you when you’re coming or going,” he says. “It took some getting used to but when we’re in a hurry for school or a meeting, we’ve learned to explain our rush and connect another time.”

Even more important are the benefits that accrue to any community’s most vulnerable members: babies and seniors. “For families with very young children, we do baby care trades,” Stark says. “And having a supportive community to help as you grow older is also a wonderful alternative to assisted care living.”

Intentional communities are not without stressors. Stark recalls the decade of committee meetings that went into the simple business of deciding whether there should be path lights in the community — important for safety, but murder on the desert’s spectacular nighttime sky. Even when the community agreed that lights were a good idea, there was continued wrangling over cost, wattage and more. A similar struggle ensued when it came time to have all 28 homes painted, as residents debated color schemes for the homes’ stucco, trim and side boards.

Still, the long meetings and compromises are a small price for those suited to intentional communities. That’s true of diverse, cross-generational communities like Milagro, and it can be even more so when residents come together with a particular shared need for a particular kind of solidarity — as in the LGBTQ or aging Boomer communities.

Shortly after the opening of Village Hearth, the North Carolina LGBTQ community, one of the founders explained to a local reporter that she was tired of hearing about this or that intentional community that has “a nice lesbian couple or a nice gay couple.” She and her wife didn’t want to be a curiosity in even the friendliest surroundings, so they founded a community in which nothing would be remarkable about them at all.

SYRACUSE, NY – OCTOBER 26, 2017: Residents prepare meals using ingredients from a community supported agriculture box while another uses his laptop to work on a CAD drawing. Commonspace is an alternative work and housing concept in Syracuse, New York where residents occupy small bedrooms but work and socialize in larger shared spaces throughout the building.

There is little science so far that explicitly addresses the medical benefits of co-housing arrangements, but the benefits of the human connections the communities provide are being powerfully established. In one recent meta-analysis of 148 studies gathered from around the world, Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, compared subjects’ reported state of loneliness with their overall life expectancy. The total sample size was more than 300,000 people and produced sobering results: Adults who are socially isolated, she found, have a 50% greater risk of dying from any cause within a given time frame than people who are more connected.

In a follow-up study in which she used census data to assemble an even larger sample group of 3.4 million, the results were a bit less stark, but no less conclusive, with social isolation and loneliness leading to a 30% increase in risk of mortality on average. “Of course, being alone is not the same as being lonely,” Holt-Lunstad stresses. “Many people enjoy their solitude, and other people can feel lonely even in a group. The key is the subjective experience. If that experience is bad, that’s when health can be affected.”

More often than not, social media falls into the category of bad rather than good experiences. Even without being trolled or cyberbullied, people can suffer merely as a result of having replaced real relationships with virtual ones. Murthy does not believe social media is all bad, provided it’s often used as what he calls “a way station rather than a destination,” helping to establish real-life connections.

“Using social media as a way station might mean that if I’m traveling to a different city, in advance of the trip I look on Facebook or LinkedIn to see if I have any friends there,” he says. “Then I reach out to them and we get together.”

The exact mechanisms that make loneliness so physically damaging are not easy to tease out, but chemical markers in the bloodstream, like cortisol, a stress hormone, or c-reactive proteins, indicators of inflammation, are considered worrisome signs. “They indicate a weakened immune system and metabolic disruption,” says Waldinger. “This is when you start to see signs of illness like rising lipid levels and blood pressure.”

Residents of intentional communities also see another kind of benefit to health and happiness in co-housing: as a way of alleviating transitions that can be both stressful isolating. Stark, the Milagro resident, recalls that when his older daughter, Maia, was born 12 years ago, the Milagro community was still new. Unbidden, the neighbors pitched in to help the family, cleaning their house, making them meals, even doing their laundry so that he and his wife could have the luxury of doing what few parents can do: focus their attention exclusively on their new baby. Since then, the Stark family has returned the favor, making food for people recovering from surgery and offering to make a pickup at an airport.

“Everyone at some point needs someone else,” Stark says. Intentional communities, in their quiet way, are helping to make sure that powerful human need gets met.

Student researcher from the University of Amsterdam, Yannick Kiesel, shares the core findings of his Masters Thesis on life in a cohousing community. The research illustrates a new holistic view on cohousing and its complexities. Thanks for sharing Yannick!


My research focused on the sustainable and pro-social communities that tackle the adverse effects of growing urban areas, such as sense of anonymity, lack of adequate and affordable housing, as well as pollution, for which there is a growing need for energy efficiency and green solutions in light of climate change. The Netherlands is home to multiple intentional communities that fall within this category; a phenomenon that began way back in the 1960s. They vary in type, size and age and thus offer a plethora of opportunities for intentional community studies.

For my case study, I chose a comparatively large cohousing community called “De Kersentuin” (eng.: The Cherry Garden; figure 1) which is located south of Amsterdam in the urban area of Utrecht. This cohousing community is considered relatively old, and celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2018. “De Kersentuin” consists of approximately 100 households; two thirds of these are privately owned and the remaining units are rented out. Altogether, this cohousing project is home to approximately 200 residents.

The concept of cohousing is largely based on building a sense of community. Things like small hierarchies in the organization and increased self-reliability in the participation of custom-made solutions are key factors in fostering a sense of community among residents, and thus vital in successful cohousing projects. Additional characteristics like participatory processes in decision- making, extensive common facilities, exclusive resident management, and intentional physical design with private and collective ownership are other elements that make cohousing projects a unique form of an urban living environment. All of these elements are designed and brought to life through the ideas of soon-to-be residents, and therefore create an inimitable project tailored to the needs of its residents. The goal of my research was to investigate this living space using ethnographic methods to gain better understanding of what community characteristics create a successful sustainable urban living project.

During the course of my research, I spent three months conducting daily visits to the project, getting to know the community members, and achieving a primary level of integration. I participated in all kinds of activities offered by the project like regular communal gardening, coffee mornings, evening events and spontaneous encounters. During this time, I had interviews and informal talks with the residents about their community, and carried out a physical analysis of the infrastructure. In addition to objective observation, my research included description of my own experiences and impressions during my time in the cohousing project.

From the beginning, I was warmly welcomed into the community and it was very easy to get in contact with most of the residents. A sense of initiative and a helping hand are always needed, as I was told, so the residents were happy to have some support in their daily work. With time, I came to know most of the active residents by name and could easily spark conversations and interviews about their project. However, as “De Kersentuin” is a relatively big project, it was unfortunately not possible to meet every resident.

Based on my findings, I chose to organize the data collected into three district categories: values and inner structure, physical appearance, and time.

In terms of values and inner structure, residents value the organizational aspects of the community structure and acknowledge that rules are essential for the survival of the community. In this community, there is absence of hierarchy, meaning that resident decision making is consensus based. Due to the project’s size and total residents, this often leads to prolonged community meetings until an overall agreement is met. Although decisions often do not please everyone, residents realize that compromises must be made in order to maintain a positive development of the community. This organizational structure also gives residents the chance to organize events or workshops independently and thus share common values and interact on a basis of shared interests. Together with a strong sense of commitment, a do-it-yourself mentality, and willingness of the members to invest time, effort, and their own values and intentions, the community is successfully managed on a bases of equality and self- reliance, that allow both individualization and community-building at the same time. Additionally, environmentally friendly behavior defines a key value of the community members in order to create a sense of community. The connection to nature (e.g. through garden activities) and unified climate action (e.g. energy efficiency) are important elements in this cohousing project and many members can identify with it. The residents often insist on separating a sustainable community into two dimensions: the societal sustainability (age-development, interdependence) and the environmental sustainability (green behavior, climate action).

In terms of physical appearance, I found that the satisfaction with the physical appearance of the project contributes to increased social well-being, and possibly a higher degree of participation. The interaction spaces like the gardens and the common areas as well as the creation of symbolic space (giving the space a meaning by practicing a specific event, e.g. singing, playing cards etc.) give residents the chance to use these spaces in specific ways so that they are able to share their interests with other neighbors and outsiders. In this way, the space of De Kersentuin incorporates the common values and practices of the community. Additionally, “encroachment zones” (zones that are not clearly detectable as private or public space, e.g. benches in front of the house, open front gardens) inside the project blur the lines between public and private space, in which residents can decide to share their space with others or maintain their own privacy.

Time and different temporal dimensions are an especially important category, as these were found to define the boundaries of practices, activities and social interactions. To illustrate, consider time as a factor of organization. The residents created different timescales through their organizational structure. These timescales are regularity (e.g. regular events like the weekly gardening activity), daily interactions (e.g. spontaneous meetings and conversations), individual time scopes (e.g. time a new resident needs to integrate into the community), and seasons (e.g. yearly seasons, but also self- created seasons like the gardening season). Residents realize that time and regularity is key to the project’s organization and maintaining a shared schedule and social cohesion. Time can also be considered a measure of the project’s longevity as both the housing project itself and its residents age with time. This presents a certain degree of uncertainty and risk, wherein aging residents can demonstrate a decline in participation. A resident specifically stated that the “aging factor” is considered a serious issue, and even though residents are often joking about growing old together, they still don’t know how it will turn out or what problems could arise.

Together, the findings discussed here illustrate the complexity of cohousing projects and provide opportunity for a holistic view of factors that play into a successful development process (see figure 2). Every cohousing project is unique, however, defining characteristics seem to include the people that are living in said projects and their journey in creating this unique community that is able to

tackle the symptoms of anonymity and indifference in growing urban areas. Cohousing presents an interesting opportunity to combine city living with the sense of community often characteristic of smaller, rural areas. More importantly, cohousing has the potential to shift today’s city housing towards a more pro-social, environmentally friendly urban living. Cohousing projects such as the one described here demonstrate a successful and sustainable living alternative. It is my hope that shedding light on such successful projects will not only emphasize the importance of such solutions, but eventually influence the way we live and interact with one another, and eventually, gain the ability to influence urban policy structures and challenge the current urban living status-quo.

Following are several statements of interest from De Kersentuin residents:

“The thing that you know your neighbors, that you have shared interests, shared activities and most people have the same idea of how they want to live, respect for the environment, respect for social cohesion and what I like very much is that you have your own house and still you live together with other people so you have your freedom but you’re not alone.”

“I think that really keeps the community together and the fact that there are different kinds of activities also show, also gives an opportunity for people with different interests. Because not everybody is interested in gardening or not everybody is interested in music, sometimes they have something with books or something like that, so the variety makes that people can participate in the things they like, they can choose.”

“[…] It feels safe and it feels like a family I think, […] you have so many social contacts here, […] you can find everything here in our two streets and for me that’s great, because it’s difficult when you don’t have a car, it’s difficult to drive to friends […]. So my family, I don’t see so many times because they live too far away, but it’s okay because I have my second family right here.”

“Well, the fact that the inhabitants built it together, that this is really our, this is our neighborhood, our little village within the city, and because this whole process of planning and what will we do and what can we do and all kinds of groups have been looking at the technical side of things but also the social side of things and how we could communicate together and what will be the rules of De Kersentuin this has created this tightly knit group. […] They thought about everything.”

“[…] If I had to be friends with 200 people or a hundred people I would have become mad. For me, that wouldn’t work, […] that’s impossible. What I like here is that you that you have the opportunity to have connections on different levels. So some people […] have become like friends, others occasionally, you have something together, a feeling of connectedness, others you almost never see or you’re not really interested in , […] it’s those different levels. There is not an obl igation to be friends with everybody.”

“[…] we put it on our website, we said “it shows that you can leave a lot more to citizens than many municipalities think you can leave to them”. And we’ve done it, we’ve built a neighborhood and we’re maintaining it, and we’re already doing that for 15 years. So the power of the citizens is much larger than many municipalities dare to believe […] or don’t want to believe.”

“[…] one of the things we […] proof is how much you can do in a very small area, because we have playgrounds, we have meeting places, we have places to relax, we have places which are really maintained with meadows and with mowing every week but we have also a kind of wild nature where the nature goes its way and the only intervention is only limited. We have […] theatre, we have even a small forest, we have a lot of small and bigger fruits, so that there is so much variety, multifunctionality possible in a very small area which I think is proven very well here. “

“While my talk with a resident, we are sitting on a self-built bench, in the sunshine, looking at the garden we were working on the last hours and what we have created. We are watching the remaining neighbors engaging in the garden, interacting, laughing and having fun. A slight feeling of satisfaction spreads out through my body. Is this the ideal situation residents are aiming for in this community?” (own field notes)

Certainly not all results of this research could be fit in this article. For more information, please find the whole master thesis at: https://cohousing.org.uk/information/research/

Figure 1.: Bird eye view over De Kersentuin

Figure 2.: De Kersentuin’s characteristics for a sustainable community

Excerpted from the Spring 2019 edition of Communities, “Community Land”—full issue available for download (by voluntary donation) here.

For Darryl, Kate, Cassandra, and Jerry

When Herb, my husband of many decades, died almost four years ago, I was left with an inheritance just gracious enough to realize a lifelong ambition to buy a farm in order to give it away. That is, I have dreamed of removing land from the speculative market economy and putting it into the public trust in order to challenge our assumptions about what is called “private property.” The idea of owning pieces of the earth and doing with it whatever we pleased seemed crazy to me. I didn’t believe in it for a minute, so this windfall of discretionary money could be just the ticket to challenge it.

Our family home in Berkeley, California, where Herb and I lived our whole adult lives and raised our three children, is a funky brown-shingle house that we bought in the 1960s for $28,000 and is now worth millions in the current marketplace, meaning that most young families, such as we once were, could not afford to live here.

Frankly, that gives me a stomach ache.

So I wished to model something different with the money I’d been left, and help create an affordable, not-for-profit example of diverse community on protected land in perpetuity. As an artist and healer with little savvy about finance, I had no idea how to even begin.

It happened then that Eden, a young student of mine who lived in Sonoma County and could not find anything affordable to rent there, told me about a small farm in her area that was up for sale, and was I interested? Sure, I replied, but next year, maybe, after I’ve gotten through this first year of grieving and had my life put back together. The last thing I needed at that moment was a real estate deal!

But the farm was up for sale then, and Eden and other friends in the area needed housing they could afford then, and the seller, hoping to sell to visionary folks who would use that land well, was selling low—then. It was now or never. I seemed to have no choice but to go for it, so with my heart in my mouth, I did, figuring that if not now, then when?; if not me, then who?

That’s when the magic started happening; I learned that Darryl and Sara, old friends from years before, were also seeking housing they could afford in the area, so with them and Eden and her boyfriend Dan I had a ready-made community happy to move in as soon as possible. Sara is one of my favorite gardeners, Darryl is an alternative builder interested in affordable cooperative housing, and they were as enthusiastic to help found a Trust as I was. So the stage was set and in short order we were ready to go!

That is, they were ready to go; I was still in deep mourning and really not ready to go anywhere. I needed time to grieve. But the world was in a hurry and I seemed to have no choice. Really, I had little idea what in the world I was getting into!

Aside from all the legal details and hidden costs, the inspections and the taxes and the infinite paperwork, I had not begun to imagine that I would now be defined in people’s minds as a “landowner.” One person saw an opportunity to take advantage of the “rich widow,” nearly breaking me in the process; to others, I was regarded as a “white privileged lady”; some became shy, some fawning. I was now considered almost a different species from ordinary folks.

Yikes!

I was still very vulnerable—way too shaky to have to fight off sharks—and I considered just dropping the whole thing and letting the guy who wanted to use it as speculation just have it. But then I got mad. NO! I was on my own now, and would stand up for myself. So I put up my dukes and fought—and, in the end, won the day. The sweet little farm on a lane in the floodplain of the Laguna Santa Rosa, with horses nearby and badger holes in the field, with its creek bordered by big old trees, with its old barn and sweet farmhouse, and the old chicken coop now a modest studio—was mine, to do with as I wished.

And I would turn it over to the public trust! All I had to do was figure out how.

After the hiatus of high drama, and the inevitable fits and starts of a bright idea, the magic began to happen again.

It became clear that as we fit neither the parameters of ordinary land trusts nor of low-income housing organizations—our goal being to somehow combine the two—that meant we would have to create our own niche. So when Eden noticed a blurb in the newspaper about a gathering in a local café to talk about Community Land Trusts, we showed up. There we met, and quickly bonded with Cassandra, a real estate agent, Jerry, a retired lawyer, and Kate, a founder of a small ecovillage, all of whom were passionate on the subject of affordable housing and community.

By the following weekend we knew we wanted to work (and play) together—actually, we sort of fell in love with each other! Our first move was to have a gathering of everyone we knew who might be interested, asking them to come out to the farm for a conversation about affordable housing in the area. It was a lively, passionate afternoon, and from that group we chose five people who wished to go the course with us, forming a volunteer task force to create a bona fide nonprofit Community Land Trust.

A week later we got started, the five of us agreeing to meet every two weeks until we’d done the job. And we did. It took us less than two years to work through all the bylaws and legalities, the Articles of This and That, and eventually we got our 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. A great day! We put out the word for applications to the Board, got more enthusiastic people than we even needed, chose a name—CommonSpace CLT—created a website, and with a lick and a prayer we launched.

If I may say so myself, we were brilliant!

What is so wonderful about this kind of renegade activity in hard times is that the best and the brightest seem to show up out of the woodwork, ready to combine their strengths, smarts, and humor, bring in others who are perfect fits with energy to burn, and create new things on the old horizon. We truly had the best time and it worked!

Residents have a lease and pay rent, though our goal is to have a long-term lease arrangement. Residents’ rent cannot exceed 30 percent of their income and is protected, by the CLT, from uncontrolled escalation. The rents go to the nonprofit, but residents have input and some control of how the money is used. Portions of it go to support the CLT, a portion goes to insurance and taxes, a portion goes into a long-term repair fund for large items—like a new roof, for example—and the rest goes into maintenance, repair, and new projects on the land. The vision we are trying to advance in this project is long-term, stable housing with rents kept at affordable rates, with land owned by a nonprofit and cared for as a community asset.

Now that the CommonSpace Community Land Trust is a reality, I am hoping that our little homestead will provide a model for others to follow. I imagine other homesteads in the neighborhood becoming community with us, exchanging help and produce, eggs and honey, farm equipment and friendship. Already, classes on beekeeping are happening there, and a labyrinth-garden for medicinal herbs. Braids of drying garlic are hanging in the barn and a small orchard is planted. I am seeing community happening naturally there by the Laguna, starting with this sweet little place with the creek flowing by and the gardens thriving.

When it was time to dissolve our wonderful cohort who had done the work, and open it up to the residents and the community at large, we knew we’d bonded like family for good.

You can meet us—Darryl Berlin and Cassandra Ferrera and Kate Yates and Jerry Green and myself, Carolyn North—on our website: www.commonspaceclt.org.

Here is our mission statement:

  • To remove land from the speculative market in perpetuity, providing attainable access to land, quality housing, sustainable agriculture and woodland, cooperative communities, and cottage industries.
  • To develop practices that steward, preserve, protect, and heal the natural environment—its land, air, and waters.
  • To demonstrate this stewardship of the environment and attainable housing by providing information, resources, replicable models, and expertise to the general public.

Note that CommonSpace is made up of several words: Commonspace, Commons, Space, and Pace, meaning peace.

May all beings find peace.

With my deep thanks to Herb who made this all possible.

You can reach the author, CommonSpace Community Land Trust cofounder Carolyn North, at carolyn.north [AT] gmail.com. Find the CommonSpace website at www.commonspaceclt.org.

Excerpted from the Spring 2019 edition of Communities, “Community Land”—full issue available for download (by voluntary donation) here.

We would like to invite you to check out two upcoming events the FIC is co-sponsoring:

The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee will be Celebrating 45+ Years of Community with its Sustainability and Community Conference May 18-20, 2018.

And the New Economy Coalition will be co-sponsoring Common Bound to plan and inspire a better economic future for us all.

One of the FIC’s pioneering communities, The Farm Community’s  Conference has been one of our most important events over the years.

The New Economy Coalition is one of the newer, dynamic organizations we have been partnering with as the FIC expands its advocacy for social justice and equality.


Sustainability and Community Conference

May 18-20, 2018

at The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee
Celebrating 45+ Years in Community!

The Farm Conference 2018

It was times such as these that led to the formation of The Farm Community in 1971. The country was embroiled in a senseless war, and under the control of a crooked President. There one solution in your grasp: Take control of your destiny and create a life that provides solutions to the chaos, and a life synchonous with your ideals. Now is the time to live your dreams, not tomorrow! Take the next step toward a life in community.

This gathering is a  unique opportunity to tour:

  • Green Homes of all types
  • Sustainable Food Production
  • Over 89 KW in Solar Installations

Learn about:

  • Alternative Education
  • Conflict Resolution
  • Land Trusts
  • Community Business
  • Midwifery
  • and so much more.

Registration $175 per person / Students $125

  • includes meals (Fri supper – Sun brunch)
    (Each registrant is asked to bring a specific food item to contribute.)

Register Now!

Lodging Rates

Accommodation Price
Camping $15/per night/per person
Dormitories $25/per night/per person
Other Accommodations available

Click here to register online or mail your check to:
Village Media Services / Douglas Stevenson
PO Box 259, Summertown, TN 38483

The Solar School

Bring some food to share, an open mind, ideas, and enthusiasm.

Change your life…Change the world!


It’s time to figure out HOW to build solidarity for a new economy!

Our biennial conference, #CommonBound is coming to St. Louis, MO on June 22 – 24th! Registration is now open, sliding scale and scholarships available: www.commonbound.org

Will you join 700+ new economy leaders, activists, and visionaries to help build what comes next?

Workshop tracks will take on some of the most pressing issues facing us today, and present paths toward a fair and more democratic society.  Here are just a few of the topics they’ll cover:

  • Cultural organizing and building a new economy for and by artists
  • Community organizing through the lens of energy democracy
  • Community-led tools for fundraising and investing to scale new economy institutions
  • …and many more!

Workshops will range from hands-on trainings, to panels of leading community innovators, academics and researchers, and dispatches from the leading edge of change.

Networks Gatherings include a mix of open and closed all-day sessions organized by volunteers who want to bring a group of 20-60 people together to increase the capacity of our movements.

CommonBound will also include plenaries, open spaces, and site visits. You can register, and learn about gatherings, site visits, travel, and housing on Eventbrite. A limited number of scholarships are available.

See you in St. Louis in June!


 

We hope you will enjoy both these events!

 

Susan Patrice has lived in and helped start a number of communities, and has been involved in various projects and support roles with the FIC. 

For more 30th blog posts click here.

Living in Intentional Communities radically changed my life. That is not hyperbole, it really did.  And of course, I, like so many others, wouldn’t have even known where to find intentional communities without the FIC and the many resources it offers.

My search for community began in 1998 after a failed experiment creating a community arts center. Feeling crushed and disappointed, I set out to find folks who were having more success. I found so much more.

My years of living in intentional communities, which I loving refer to as the boot camp years, prepared me for the work I am doing today as an artist and activist.  My years of living communally put me in contact with daring, radical, loving, and fiercely idealistic people. Each giving, in their own unique and imperfect way, to the best of their ability, in hopes of shaping and creating a better world.

In some ways, they, like me, were oddly doomed to fail in a world that was just barely learning how to combine empathy, compassion and sustainability with loving leadership. But I have come to see these so-called failures in a totally different light.

While I don’t currently live in a residential intentional community, all the gifts that living communally brought to my life touch my work every day. Consensus, while intensely inclusive and often maddening, taught me to listen deeply, to never make assumptions in advance about the direction that a real conversation can take. Living in close proximity to strangers, which is heart opening and sometimes infuriating, taught me to have greater awareness of my impact, both positive and negative on the people I touch as I move through my day. I learned how to love the other, when at first it felt impossible. And most importantly I learned that trust must always begin with me. I can’t expect to live in a disarmed world until I learn to hold my own fears, prejudices, and aggression with compassion and profound responsibility. There is not a meeting, creative project, relationship, or collaborative interaction that isn’t influenced positively by my years of living communally. I am still struggling to fully embody these ideals, but I am ever grateful for the values and tools I am still integrating.

And while some people see the experiment of residential intentional communities as too removed to make a significant difference, I think it takes radical and sometimes even extreme creativity to counter current culture. I see these communities as amazing and sometimes intense laboratories that send essential ripples of change out into the world. And while we don’t get it perfect, and sometimes our hard efforts seem barely noticeable in the current moment, over time the ripples are undeniable. And sometimes, even what we view as our biggest failures are creating the next necessary, imperfect, and possibly grace filled step on the path to a better world.

I think the best thing intentional communities create is the communitarian. And whether those folks continue to do the hard work of learning how to live together and cooperate at the deepest levels, or whether they move on to a different calling, the world needs more people dedicated to a deeply shared life and the creation of cooperative culture.

It is with great appreciation that I say thank you to the FIC for all that you do to keep communities alive, thriving and growing. And for training so many of us in the hard work of loving leadership. Happy 30th Birthday,  I wish you many, many more years of success.

The life which is unexamined is not worth living.

—Plato

My advice for creating longevity for intentional communities comes from my own experience living for over 27 years in a community I founded. It was a super fun but often bumpy ride and now my personal dream of living there for the rest of my life has gone.

If I knew what I know now would I have done things differently? YES! Do I regret my commitment to this experiment? No! My life is so abundantly rich with memorable experiences and great friends that I know it was all totally worth it.

Bellyacres Artistic Ecovillage was founded in 1987 and is located in the Big Island’s lower Puna District. It sits between the Pacific Ocean and Kilauea Volcano, which has been erupting ash and oozing or spurting lava for all of our community existence.

My motivation for living in community came after two residencies at Israeli kibbutzim and from cofounding a workers’ collective in Canada. I saw the opportunity to manifest an innovative community based on principles such as living cooperatively with a convivial and fair way of life, causing minimal ecological impact, and striving to become more socially, economically, and ecologically sustainable.

I made the huge assumption that my international busker friends whom I invited to participate also supported this as our vision but later realized that our common bond was a love for performing, partying, and independent living and not for intentional community. My belief that a group of anarchist jugglers could learn to live harmoniously in a Hawaiian jungle has been seriously compromised in many ways in recent years, leaving me with many lessons learned from this experiment.

Here are a few of those lessons:

Having a shared vision is crucial for any community.

We originally described ourselves as a jugglers “collective without thinking much about the meaning of the word. We entered a state that author Scott Peck describes as “community chaos” and so I focused on creating some structure within our anarchist gang. Slowly and painfully, we started having more engaging meetings, improving our communication skills, and even adopting bylaws, articles of incorporation, and the legal name “Village Green Society.” I strongly believed in the old adage that “it takes a village to raise a child” and, as a teacher, I was always focused on providing for kids.

Other members were not so enthusiastic; in fact, a majority at an early meeting voted to keep kids excluded from our land as much as possible because “they made too much noise.” I laughed knowing that it was impossible and predicted that these same troubadours would have kids of their own when they grew up; but, this proved only partly true.

Recruiting community members needs to be done very consciously and carefully.

We all have challenges learning to live communally. With very few exceptions, we have been raised outside of intentional communities and bring our deep-rooted conditioning based upon competition, scarcity, individualism, and personal ownership. Human nature itself has a predisposition to reject many of the compromises required for community and to under-appreciate the value of all that communities can provide. This was definitely the case with our group.

I erroneously held the belief that embracing diversity meant adopting the principle of total inclusivity and so our original membership was open to any of my juggling friends who wanted to join. The only financial commitment they had to make was a lifetime, non-refundable membership fee of $2,000. This entitled them to set up a campsite and maybe a jungalow. For an additional $4,000, they could build a full-sized house. I realize now how seriously naïve and flawed this model was.

We really should have adopted a carefully thought-out recruitment process including a detailed interview procedure; a contract outlining responsibilities, rights, and values; and a well monitored probationary system.

In 1990, after we already had 21 members, we established a new member recruitment procedure. It definitely reflects how alternative and inexperienced we were at the time by inclusion of questions like “What is your favorite Beatles song?” We increased our membership fee to a whopping $3,000 and house sites to $5,000. All new members were put on a 12-month probationary trial; however, this was flawed because most of them did not stay living on the land during this time. New members were accepted by consensus at our AGM, even though most had never lived with existing members for more than a couple of weeks.

Every member needs to fully embrace the decision-making process.

I introduced our group to the concept of consensus decision making, as I had two years’ personal experience using the method with a workers’ collective in Victoria, Canada. With our Bellyacres experiment, I learned for consensus to work it is imperative that everyone is committed to learning the process and be willing to donate the time and energy to practice it. No one in our group disputed our decision to have a consensus-minus-two process (until 2014); however, we never had any study sessions, training, or workshops on how to effectively utilize it in our meetings. Looking back, this was a mistake.

Two regular weekly meetings is a basic minimum requirement.

Our early meetings were hilarious with more of a party scene than community organizing—people would drink, smoke, and share jokes, so keeping conversations on track was crazy. I introduced the concept of rotating facilitators, agendas, minute keeping, and motions. We were on a steep learning curve and two members expressed their distaste for meetings by heckling randomly from the outside.

I would have liked to have had three weekly meetings: one for business, one for personal communication and check ins, and one potluck for food and fun, but this never happened. We functioned best when we had two weekly meetings and regressed when these connections lapsed.

I created the tradition—and even made it a serious request—for all residents on the land to attend a Sunday potluck and a weekly campfire on Tuesdays. Despite our busy schedules and other events, many of us acknowledged the value and importance of getting together, with the work-exchange folks and guests, to talk story and deal with issues. Ironically, when more of our members arrived in the wintertime, weekly meetings often got superseded by party or vacation plans.

Expect and accept unequal participation.

Structure is important in any organization but participation is what determines effectiveness. Even though our original membership of 12 eventually increased to 35, we have never had more than six members living full-time on our land at any one time, for various reasons, and sometimes I was the only resident member.

While major decisions are made at our annual general meetings and attendance has varied from 12 to 22 members, we have had severe limitations on the possibilities for full participation in ongoing decision making. As technology has improved, we have used newsletters, telephone conference calls, and emails. However, without a clearly approved process and with a membership geographically dispersed across several countries and half a dozen time zones, it has worked only marginally for improving communication, but not much for decision making or for involvement.

The Bellyacres experiment has taught me to not expect everyone to be equally involved or to contribute the same amount of work. This fact of community life is not easy to accept but is necessary. It is also cruelly ironic that members who are only peripherally involved and contributing very little in work still often demand a full role in decision making.

From my two stays on kibbutzim in 1969 and 1973, I was introduced to the socialist concept “to everyone according to their needs and from everyone according to their abilities” and it fit my humanitarian ideals. As I brought together our collective, I tried to factor in the wisdom of a kibbutz founding member who told me that despite their egalitarian principles, when the annual elections of officers happened, the same 20 people always volunteered. This seems to be the situation in almost every community and inevitably results in power being concentrated within a small group.

Be honest and realistic about leadership.

Our transient membership and lack of resident members often resulted in decisions being made by me or just a few individuals out of necessity. As the founder, I was always the public face of the organization and originally accepted responsibility for the legal, financial, and physical-reality development of Bellyacres.

Personally, I have never desired to amass power and control, yet I found myself constantly playing the role of leader by necessity. I only ever wanted this to be temporary until other members began to take on more responsibility and become more involved in activities that moved us along. Unfortunately, this was not our reality and what I discovered instead was a serious case of Founders’ Syndrome, which came to a head in 2014 and contributed to me deciding to leave.

My studies of sustainable community development show that most have a hierarchical organization with a spiritual guru, a charismatic leader, or a group of “elders.” Secular egalitarian communities seem to have the greatest difficulty in staying together after the initial idealistic euphoria wears off. I know of a very few (Twin Oaks, Sandhill, East Wind, The Farm) that have survived more than 25 years, outlasting their founders and developing identities not dependent on particular personalities. The development of an egalitarian structure of governance is a huge challenge facing communities and one that requires commitment, training, and consultation with experts if it is to succeed smoothly. Regretfully, while our ecovillage still exists after 30 years, it did none of these and is now paying the price.

Share a common vision regarding children.

From our beginning, we were very divided about the desire to include children in our community and this has plagued us still today. During my two kibbutz visits and my workers’ collective experience, I was impressed that children were always a big part of the ideology and it led to my belief that children are an essential part of any sustainable community.

Unfortunately, when I gathered the founding members of Bellyacres, we never discussed this until after we’d started our settlement. A major factor I had seriously overlooked was that all my new partners were bohemians. They were in a phase in their lives where they believed kids would severely threaten their freedom to party hearty and to travel to the streets of busking cities worldwide.

My naiveté on this subject was clearly expressed one evening over dinner at our first encampment. A friend was visiting us with his girlfriend and a newborn baby. This little addition to our party was prone to get a little restless in the night and her sweet shrill cries cut through the jungle air. We had some late-night party people who expected to get a deep and undisturbed sleep when they eventually crashed. When we went around the circle, one by one everyone said how kids didn’t belong here and that was not what they signed up for.

How different this perspective was to mine—I looked around and reckoned that many of these same people would have their own kids in a few years and attitudes would change. I was only partly right on this and never expected that it would be the childless partners who’d end up living at Bellyacres while members with families would choose the better education and work opportunities of the mainland US or Europe.

I thought we failed really badly by never having an official policy regarding children. Over the years, I offered single-family accommodations, counseling, transport, and free circus classes for loads of kids. But when parents had expectations of finding a community with compassion that embraced their kids by providing supportive aunties and uncles and surrogate parents, they were generally very disappointed by many members’ responses. In most cases, there was a “clear hands-off approach,” coupled with the feeling that they were just “not a kids person,” or having worked entertaining kids for many years had an attitude of “I need to take a break while I’m on holiday.” I felt very differently, I was not on holiday, this was my permanent home and I wanted to have loads of happy, thriving kids around.

In all my years at Bellyacres, this issue alone caused me the most grief. My own daughter lived there from birth but never established anything close to the connection that occurs in blood families with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins sending birthday cards, Christmas presents, and checking in regularly about school grades, favorite hobbies, and bad colds. There are very few long-lasting bonding relationships between the different generations at Bellyacres, and sadly when the opportunity has existed the general membership has not embraced it.

Establish a clear pet policy.

Pet ownership has been another reoccurring issue for us, with the understanding that owners are responsible for pets’ behavior and some do a better job than others. Because of repeated bad experiences with neighbors’ unruly dogs roaming our land, pooping, killing our chickens, and even a goat, we adopted a “no dogs policy.” There have been controversial exceptions and some very heated debates regarding members who had dogs or renters who wanted to bring dogs. Not all dogs are alike and our decisions about which dogs and owners are acceptable have been erratic and often not rational and have had some severe negative effects on residents’ relationships.

Cats tend to be more benign, at least as far as humans go (impacts on wildlife are a different matter); however, they can be unbearable at times with wild cat fights and raids on neighbors’ homes for food, usually at night. Sometimes, with a cat population close to exceeding the number of residents, we’ve had to place household limits and insist on neutering. Not every owner willingly accepts community restrictions on pets, especially when pets are kid substitutes, but it is essential for the sake of long-term harmony.

Establish a clear drugs policy.

Drug policy is often a defining issue in the membership of a community and my understanding is that the longest-lasting spiritual communities are very restrictive. Being renowned for our amazing parties, we have had no rules and a very liberal attitude to drug use and our members have indulged, mostly very responsibly and without adverse consequences.

Drug use, both legal and illegal, is generally considered a personal and private issue; but, where communities do not create clear standards and boundaries, major problems can arise. We had to impose strict rules regarding the cultivation of illegal cannabis on our land until medical marijuana permits became an option. After a particularly bad experience, we insisted that illegal drugs are not stored in our communal spaces.

We have attempted to establish a culture of responsible drug use, like those of CBD joints, and have mostly succeeded given that Bellyacres is located in one of the marijuana capitals of the country and our modern society accepts tobacco addiction and alcoholism as socially acceptable. We adopted no-smoking zones and have taken car keys away from inebriated residents and guests wanting to drive. Apart from this, we have been extremely tolerant of drug use and some abuse. This could have been an issue we dealt with better when recruiting members, but people’s habits change over time so having a clear policy could really help reduce later issues.

Late in our development, I learned to ask work-exchange folks and interns if they were on or had been on any medications for mental health issues. Having lived for three years with one of our founding members going through severe manic depressive episodes due to a bipolar condition, I learned how crucial medication can be for stabilizing health. If answered honestly, this question enabled us to be more supportive and understanding when living with anyone mentally challenged. It’s very hard to enforce responsible medication practices but since we all are impacted, it is a respectful request to make.

Be prepared to deal with mental illness, depression, and withdrawal.

These problems affect many in our society at some point in their lives and will inevitably impact your community. After years attempting to support our bipolar member, we made one of the hardest of our group decisions and revoked his membership because we believed he would get better treatment and support if he moved back to North Carolina. It was a huge lesson in tough love but we were right because he regained control of his life and now appreciates that we were caring for him the best way we could.

Choose a location that suits your lifestyle.

Where your community is located will seriously affect your healthy development so think ahead and get a good picture of how your neighborhood will look 30 years into the future. You will need to have neighbors who accept you.

We bought 11 acres of Hawaiian jungle for $55,000 in an area where unpermitted structures and squatting were common practices. Our land was close to a beach, warm ponds, and lava adventures. It had lots of useful trees, a great climate, and adequate rainfall to fill catchment water tanks. It was also adjacent to an undeveloped subdivision with 933 lots selling for less than $5,000 and we envisioned our friends buying many of them and expanding our community.

We chose to live with the predictable mosquitoes and jungle critters, droughts, tropical storms, rocky terrain, etc. What we did not anticipate were new issues like climate change, fire ants, rat lung worm disease, invasive tree overwhelm, discretionary permitting enforcement by County and State agencies, and the build-out of three neighborhood subdivisions which brought a huge influx of people, including many supporters of our community development programs, but also a few opponents who managed to successfully impose a tyranny of the minority.

In our idealistic early days at Bellyacres, we studied and dreamt of living off the land. We put a great deal of energy, money, and other resources into a variety of agricultural projects that, for one reason or another, were incompatible with our membership, other projects, or the suitability of our environment and land. We had to constantly make compromises and adjust our perception of what was possible given our resources and location. Trial and error has its price.

I discovered over time that a subtropical jungle and climate was not the most conducive place to live as we grew older. Perceiving ourselves as eco-warriors, we originally removed a minimum of trees to accommodate our basic needs. Eventually we realized that air and light and distance from bugs and creeping foliage was essential for our healthy living. Removing more trees around houses also became a safety issue and a necessity to prevent leaves contaminating catchment water systems. If we had originally made a lot more clearings and cut down more trees we would have saved ourselves the huge amounts of work required later. The jungle never sleeps or takes a vacation!

In striving for a high level of sustainable living, we also committed ourselves to lots more hard work with off-grid power, catchment water, and organic farming, and are only now realizing how challenging this is for our aging membership.

Learn to love the food that loves to grow where you live.

While our group officially committed to increasing our level of sustainability, I’m not sure if members understood the implications of this. In terms of food, my view was that we should be growing locally appropriate foods that were suited to our subtropical climate. Having lived in the tropics for over 40 years, I found it easy and preferable for my staple foods to be breadfruit, avocados, bananas, citrus, and exotic fruits, etc. I estimated that 70-80 percent of my food was grown on the island.

By comparison, my partners preferred to maintain their temperate-climate diet and struggled to grow lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, and cucumbers, etc. in our greenhouse. While the crops I was eating were drought-resistant and required virtually no maintenance, the greenhouse crops need watering twice daily by hand. This practice placed a huge burden on our labor pool when other work needed to be done and could have been more efficiently resolved by members’ eating the food that grew easily on our land and/or purchasing temperate crops from our weekly farmers’ market.

Define what sustainable living means to your community.

In my view, sustainable living goes far beyond permaculture systems, organic gardens, fruit trees, and animal husbandry. It has to include membership, community service, buildings, transport, recycling, energy, and more.

Wherever you live, raise worms and rebuild your soil, for continuum.

Living on lava rock, I was very motivated to experiment with soil production and eventually learned the importance of earthworms. Aristotle called them “the intestines of the earth,” Charles Darwin wrote a whole book about them, and for the organic gardener, they are the single most important element in the program of building a rich, healthy soil. Using manure from our two horses to feed the worms, I was able to produce enough worm castings and worm tea to feed all our crops without needing to purchase any imported fertilizers for the last seven years l lived there.

Have a clear exit strategy.

This is most critical for community members who invest large amounts of time and energy. Our original exit strategy did not take this into account and I now realize it needed to be clearer and more detailed to allow for the changes in people’s relationships, values, and beliefs that inevitably happen over time. Many communities fold because they cannot survive the impact of founding members’ pulling out and needing to get repaid. I ensured the future for Bellyacres by buying the land outright and putting it into a land trust. However, my own future has now been compromised due to complications in selling the two houses I own on the land.

Stay legal if you want an easy ride.

If you want to challenge laws and bring changes, be prepared. Recruit a good lawyer as a member. For details on this issue, see my article in Communitie#168 (Fall 2015), “My Struggle to Legalize Sustainable Living.”

I’m presently working on a book entitled My Sustainable Community Experience: 27 Years Living with Jugglers in the Jungle. It’s an autobiography with lots of juicy personal stories that I hope will serve to make the community experience relevant, important, and more successful for present and future communitarians.

Here’s a sampling of a few additional lessons from the book:

Be prepared to deal with disasters by keeping your whole group committed to staying united.

Start by building an amazing communal kitchen—it’s your most important structure.

Do not try to live out of sight of your community members.

Do not build anything temporary.

Don’t share cars, houses, or partners.

Celebrate the financial successes of other members.

Don’t let the bookkeeper run your organization.

Be open to different spiritual practices and beliefs.

Develop rituals for meals, meetings, and celebrations.

Have group projects.

Be patient with those who work slower or work less than you.

Don’t permit passivity and non-participation.

Review your group vision every three to five years and get 100 percent buy-in.

Post bylaws, rules, minutes of meetings, vision, and community events prominently.

Recruit a community archivist.

Have a clear enforcement policy.

Celebrate weddings, births, birthdays, etc. together.

Give priority to your community members over other outside friends.

Be hospitable—invite guests.

Identify the talents and weaknesses of your fellow members.

Don’t assume smart people have learned basic life skills.

Have flexibility, compassion, and forgiveness. Be human.

Do not expect people to be perfect all the time.

If you want community longevity, build a cemetery.

Have a sense of humor and always remember this old English saying: “There’s nought as queer as folks.”

In 1987 Graham Ellis founded Bellyacres Artistic Ecovillage on a 10 acre jungle lot with a vision to experiment with sustainable community living practices. By 2007 Graham had raised $500,000 to build the Seaview Performance Arts Center for Education (S.P.A.C.E.), which in 2010 was described as “perhaps the most sustainable community center in the USA.” His article “My Struggle to Legalize Sustainable Living” appeared in Communities #168, Fall 2015, and he is currently writing a book, My Sustainable Community Experience: 27 Years Living with Jugglers in the Jungle. As we prepared this issue for press, we learned that Graham was deported from the US on July 19, 2017 for an expired visa under the stricter immigration enforcement protocols put in place by the Trump administration. He, his wife, and their five children had already been planning to relocate later this year to the UK, where he hopes to serve as a community consultant—but uncertainty remains about when or if the rest of his family will be granted the visas necessary to join him. See www.civilbeat.org/2017/06/a-big-island-juggler-with-leukemia-faces-deportation.

Together Resilient:
Building Community in the Age of Climate Disruption
By Ma’ikwe (Yana) Ludwig

Real hope comes from looking unflinchingly at our current circumstances and then committing wholeheartedly to creative action. Never has that been more urgently needed than right now, with the climate crisis looming larger every day.

Together Resilient is a book that advocates for citizen-led, community-based action first and foremost. Why wait for the government when you can take action today, with your neighbors? From small solutions to the full re-invention of the systems we find ourselves in, this book mixes anecdote with data-based research to bring you a wide range of options that all embody compassion, creativity, and cooperation.

Intentional community is a viable model for a low carbon future. While looking realistically at the state of the world and the realities of climate disruption, this book finds hope in examples of communities that already live high quality lives that the planet can sustain. It also looks at community as an essential element for surviving the coming (and already present) changes with more resilience and grace, and offers concrete examples of building community as a tool for reducing carbon emissions, outside the context of residential intentional communities.

ISBN:9780971826472
Paperback, 2017, 166 pages


About the Author 

Yana Ludwig has 25 years of cooperative living experience, including four community start-ups. She serves on the board of the Foundation for Intentional Community, and as a trainer and consultant for progressive projects.

Yana has been awarded the Communal Studies Association 2017 Book of the Year Award for Together Resilient. She is the former Executive Director of both the Center for Sustainable and Cooperative Culture at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, and Commonomics USA, an economic justice organization. She is also the author of The Cooperative Culture Handbook, in collaboration with Karen Gimnig.

Her 2013 TEDx talk, Sustainable is Possible! kicked off a new era for her as a public speaker and advocate for communities. She is a founding member of the Solidarity Collective, an income sharing community in Laramie, WY. Yana currently lives in Bellevue, WA where she is the Executive Director at Leadership Eastside.


Starting an Intentional Community: The Self-Paced Course

If you dream of creating an ecovillage, cohousing, coliving and permaculture community, this course will show you how to make it happen. Get ready for the experience of a lifetime as you join participants from around the world who are endeavoring to create communities.

With the guidance of Yana Ludwig, and the ability to take the course at your own pace, you can avoid the common pitfalls of community building and set your group on a path towards success!
Learn More…

 


Reviews of Together Resilient

“When people ask me where to move to escape climate change, I tell them there’s no escape and that the thing to look for is a strong community. This book explains how to build that kind of community anywhere — it’s a manual for the future.”

Bill McKibben, author and environmental activist

“Is it possible to jettison our current system of exploitation and environmental destruction, and create a new system, that is not only sustainable but affords us a comfortable and fulfilling life? The answer is a resounding yes. Ma’ikwe Ludwig eloquently reminds us how the way is fraught with challenges and shows us how to conquer them. This is a must read for anyone who cares about the future of the human race.”

Chong Kee Tan, founder of Bay Bucks

“The future of the planet lies in the creation of small groups that allow for personal growth and efficacious action at a larger scale. Ma’ikwe Ludwig is a veteran of this movement and Together Resilient provides the latest report from the front.”

Dr. David Sloan-Wilson, Author of Does Altruism Exist?

 

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I’ve been a part of many communities in my life, many of them ephemeral: summer camp staff teams, wilderness trail crews, and urban houseshares with an ever-changing parade of roommates. Four years ago I moved to the tiny rural village of Worcester, Vermont, and found a unique and vibrant community that welcomed me immediately. After a decade of subscribing to Communities and scheming to start an intentional community one day, it struck me that I’d just stumbled into one by accident—one that was cleverly disguised to outsiders as a regular small town of just under 1,000 people.

Why do some towns and neighborhoods seem to embrace you in the arms of community, while others don’t? Let me share a few of the things that make my village feel this way:

1. Community Lunch

Every Wednesday I head down the hill to the Worcester Town Hall for Community Lunch, as does just about everyone else who’s in the village at noon on a Wednesday: young mothers, senior citizens, the local loggers, and people who work from home. While the meal is officially sponsored by the Vermont Food Bank, people from every economic class attend enthusiastically. This is where you see your neighbors every week, talk to the guy you want to buy your firewood from, find a friend who can lend you their truck, wish someone a happy birthday, and hear the local news. A core group of volunteers does the cooking every week, and they always lavishly decorate the hall for every major and minor holiday they can think of. Community spirit is palpable, and every newcomer is welcomed in without hesitation. Before you know it you’ve learned everybody’s name and feel right at home.

2. Gathering Place

Worcester has a tiny gas station, a post office the size of a closet, and a little café that closes at noon. This “commercial district” (two small neighboring buildings) is home to the morning banter of all who rise early and work hard. You can find tradesmen grabbing coffee, commuters gassing up, and local hunters displaying their take. When it’s not yet time for Community Lunch, this gathering place is where you go to see your friends and hear the latest news.

3. Online Forum

Vermont is the home of Front Porch Forum, a local online discussion board for each town. You must have a valid local address to be a member, and a summary of the posts lands in your inbox every day at 6 p.m. Whether you are selling a chest freezer, renting your cabin, announcing an event, or reporting a lost dog sighting, you know your neighbors will hear your words and respond.

4. Volunteers

Worcester’s sense of community is founded on the village’s volunteers. Community Lunch, the Fire Department & Fast Squad, the After School Play Group, the Community Garden, the twice yearly Clothing Swap, and the Fourth of July Committee are all run entirely by unpaid community members. These labors of love allow residents to serve their town and be proud of what they achieve together.

5. Long-time Residents

People tend to come to Worcester and stay. Many folks who started as renters love the community so much that they buy a house and settle down. When friendships and alliances form, they get to deepen and ripen over time. This is something I really missed in high-turnover communities, and it gives the town traditions deep roots.

6. Economic Interdependence

While plenty of people commute to work in the nearby capital city, lots of folks make their living right in our town. The loggers supply everyone with firewood while being thoughtful about forest sustainability on the small private woodlots they manage. The ladies who run the café give us a place to meet and connect. I’m proud to live on one of Worcester’s two community farms, where CSA members often volunteer in the fields to harvest the vegetables. Worcester is big enough to provide a living for those serving the community, and small enough that we all know these people by first name.

7. Celebrations of Community Pride

The Fourth of July is Worcester’s day to celebrate itself. The town proudly puts on the best fireworks display for miles around, and everyone lines the street for the tiny parade. The winters are long here, so at the height of summer we come mingle on the public field in the center of town and smile giddily with community pride.

8. Direct Democracy

Like many New England towns, Worcester is governed by a town meeting. All registered voters may attend to elect town officers, approve (or challenge) the town budget, and discuss the school board. Even if it’s only one day per year, this participation in direct democracy reminds us all that we collectively decide what Worcester will become.

9. Accepting Our Differences

Worcester has a very rural character, but it’s close enough to Vermont’s liberal capital city that values of acceptance prevail. It’s very okay to be gay (thank goodness, because I am!), neighbors of differing economic classes tend to rub shoulders with relative comfort, and the United Methodist Church co-exists peacefully with the Green Mountain Druid Order. We’re a very white town, but racial diversity is embraced when it finds its way here. Since the ’60s and ’70s Vermont has faced an influx of back-to-the-landers who sought a place in the traditional rural communities, and here the integration seems to have enriched both groups. It’s as if everybody has decided, “Well, you choose to live in our wonderful little village, which shows good sense, so I guess you must be alright.”

Reading over this list, I recognize many of the core traditions that support the success of most intentional communities. Indeed, aren’t many of our intentional communities seeking to reclaim the lost small-town solidarity of yesteryear? So I suppose Worcester is an unintentional community that has partially retained its rural heritage of community traditions and partially been enriched by fresh ideas from beyond its borders.

These nine methods of community-building could be applied to any small town or city neighborhood where the residents are willing. If you’re a communitarian soul living in the non-communitarian world, give one of them a try in the place where you live and see if the seeds of community take root. While intentional communities are crucial laboratories that teach us so much about how the human social fabric can work, the art of creating community spirit within mainstream towns and neighborhoods has at least as much potential to change the world for the better. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go to Community Lunch!

Murphy Robinson is a wilderness guide and hunting instructor. When her wandering years came to an end she founded Mountainsong Expeditions in the wild forests of Vermont, where she helps people learn to be in deeper relationship with the land and each other. Your can learn about her work or send her a message at www.mountainsongexpeditions.com. She has also published Communities articles in the past under her former legal name, Mary Murphy.

France --- Forest with Sun Behind --- Image by © Ocean/Corbis

Now I greet you from the other side of sorrow and despair, with a love so vast and shattered, it will reach you everywhere.” —Leonard Cohen

The first question we must ask is: Why? Why is it time for mass civil resistance? As you read this, many of us are building strawbale structures on lands stolen generations ago from indigenous people; 64 people own more wealth than the poorest half of the planet (3½ billion people!); 90 percent of the planet’s fish populations are gone; and 150 species will go extinct today—a rate 1,000 times higher than Earth’s natural background rate. Forest fires rage across huge swathes of our taiga, temperate, and tropical forests every year; the US has more people incarcerated than any other country on Earth—the majority of those unjustly incarcerated being people of color; Donald Trump has a chance to become the next president.

If we glance forward just 30 years, our future outlook is shocking and unbelievable. The United Nations estimates that, due to carbonic acidification and rising temperatures (both driven by burning fossil fuels), there will be no fish in the oceans by 2048, over one-quarter of humanity will be displaced or dead due to sea level rise, war, and violent weather; there will be 50 percent less fresh water available; and significant portions of the Earth will be uninhabitable due to extreme temperatures.

People of color, indigenous people, and other oppressed and marginalized people will be most impacted by all of this—a double injustice because they are the least responsible for the environmental and social breakdown we face. Murder, genocide, slavery, mass incarceration, rape, and untold other atrocities have been heaped upon Native Americans and people of color for hundreds of years, and these abuses continue today. The ancestors of America’s white majority stole 1.5 billion acres of land from Native Americans and claimed it for themselves between the years of 1736-1887. The unpaid wages of the forced labor of US slaves from the period of 1776-1865 would today equal, by recent estimates, up to $14 trillion. Privilege, inheritance, land, and resources have come from theft. It is this same privilege that has us biding our time in ecovillages, sanctuaries, and permaculture centers.

One of the shared world views of this new coalition is that all oppressions are one and the same. There will be no life-sustaining society without massive atonement, reparations, and healing. There will be no heart-unity between all peoples without the end of extraction industry and the pillage of the Earth, cultures, species, and ecosystems that humbly and majestically sustain all of us. Katy Chandler, of Be the Change in Reno, Nevada and a member of our new coalition, wonders: “What if the earth cannot be restored until the captives are set free? What if the captives cannot be set free until the earth is restored?”

With our hearts attuned to these and other devastating questions, members of 15 projects gathered for several days in April at the Possibility Alliance and Peace and Permaculture Center in rural Missouri. The wisdom of Dominic Barter, “You must feel the world to be changed by it,” guided our broken hearts to find one another and to try to collectively respond to this crisis in new, powerful, and creative ways. In the words of Naomi Klein, we feel “There is just enough time left for the impossible.”

Part One: “No problem can be solved by the same level of consciousness that created it.” —Albert Einstein

Questions we must ask: How do we respond to our current crisis in a way that does not reinforce or recreate the crisis? How do we develop a new consciousness? Where lies a consciousness beyond white supremacy, patriarchy, and lifestyles that contribute to theft and ruination? What is that consciousness like, which transcends repeat cycles of shame and denial, and develops self-honesty hand in hand with self-esteem and self-love? Can we embody a consciousness that leads us to wholeness? We will need all of our gifts and capacities for what lies ahead. As Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi says, “Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

We have decided, for better or worse, that the path to this expanded consciousness is described in an archetypal map, previously sketched by the civil rights/freedom movement, India’s independence movement, and many other groups and movements. Joanna Macy describes the map in The Work that Reconnects.

In three parts, the course consists of:

1. Holding actions in the defense of life (nonviolent direct action);

2. Transforming the foundations of our common life (creating a life-enhancing society);

3. Fundamental shift in perceptions and values (self-transformation).

Joanna Macy and Molly Brown give our moment in time on Earth a name: “The Great Turning.” The Great Turning is a shift as major as the Agrarian Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, is going to be intentional and deliberate, and must happen within a few years. The archetypal map urges us to embody all three actions into our lives, knowing that all three support and reinforce one another. Our coalition refers to this map as Integral Nonviolence, and everyone in the coalition is committed to trying to embody the world we wish to live in.

Part Two: “The mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it.” —Sri Nisargadatta

Who or what will this coalition be serving? The coalition hopes to serve the converging movement of all movements seeking to address and confront the crises of our world. The Movement of Movements is manifesting as a decentralized, spontaneous global uprising of resistance; it is confronting on all sides the extractive, exploitative, and oppressive industrial-economic-military-academic-complex.

We are reaching out to, building trust with, and—when requested—serving women, people of color, and indigenous peoples who are part of this emerging movement. Taking honest account of the limitations of our perspective, we sense that white-led environmental efforts to confront climate change are coming up short of addressing, at its roots, the racism, sexism, and gender coercion, economic inequality, theft, genocide, privilege, addiction, and belief in industrial technology that are fundamental to the agents of climatic destruction. We trust that, to truly serve, our thus-far predominantly white coalition must go out and deeply listen to those people, cultures, and species most oppressed. It is from this respectful attunement, we believe, that we will begin to hear answers to all these questions.

We are also trying to open up to hear the voices of nonhuman species and ecosystems that are also being destroyed and oppressed. During the gathering, we held an all-night vigil in the woods, accompanied by barred owls, coyotes, evening bats, gray tree frogs, and each other’s silence. Many prayed, meditated, listened, opened, and struggled from dusk till dawn, sitting on an unraveling planet, hoping to hear Creation’s wisdom.

Part Three: “I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense that once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with their own pain.” —James Baldwin

How do we enact a grassroots movement for reparations and atonement to begin healing our history of genocide and theft?

Two women reported to the gathering, having just returned from a Black Lives Matter action in Minneapolis with support from the Catholic Worker movement. The first important challenge we received to our risk-it-all impulse was that the Black Lives Matter movement is interested in not risking lives; it is interested in the protection and preservation of lives.

We were shown that we must really present ourselves on the actual battlefronts of racism and oppression, on the terms of the oppressed, rather than our presumed affinity with their struggle, if we want to truly embody solidarity and build trust. During the action in Minneapolis, a black man walked by as a white woman was being arrested for her participation. He said, “God is smiling today. Whites are getting arrested over the murder of a black man, after hundreds of years of white silence and oppression. Amen.”

How do we support one another to take bigger risks on behalf of our families, all peoples, and life? Heavy with grief, we agreed that the best permaculture design was not going to save us, and could even very easily contribute to further inequality, privilege, and unequal access to resources. If the world becomes untenable for humans and many other species, will you be able to look your child in the eyes and say, in all honesty, that you tried everything, risked everything, to prevent it? Most of us gathered realized we were not able to say “yes” to that question, to our heartbreaking dismay. We are called to do it all: tend gardens and confront our privilege; ride bikes and launch massive disruptions; turn off the electricity and go to jail; heal our spiritual wounds and restore what has been stolen; reckon with our calamity at every level.

Part Four: “Don’t forget love, it will bring all the madness you need to unfurl yourself across the universe.” —Mirabai

How do we make all of these visions, conversations, and ideas tangible for all peoples and all of life? On day eight part of the coalition headed to St. Louis to participate in a direct action led by Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment. M.O.R.E. invited elders from the Hopi and Navajo Nations to participate in a joint action against Peabody Coal. Peabody Coal has been occupying and extracting from Navajo and Hopi lands for decades, leaving watersheds, soil, and ecosystems destroyed. The first action of our coalition was to offer ourselves for red-level risk during this direct action: an imperfect and incomplete offering from a predominantly white coalition, to show up and risk on behalf of Native American and African American Justice—but a beginning.

Another group from the coalition headed to Des Moines, Iowa to train with members of the Lakota Sioux to learn about and hopefully contribute to the ongoing resistance to the Bakken pipeline—a pipeline being engineered to go under rivers, streams, and waterways. Other coalition members joined a 10-day peace march with Voices for Creative Nonviolence ending in Iowa at a supermax prison being built to include over 1700 cells for solitary confinement—considered torture by the UN and Amnesty International. Still others joined the Break Free actions to shut down fossil fuel infrastructure, which included blocking coal trains and using over 1,000 kayaks to obstruct an oil tanker. I believe that only through action do we become; thus our coalition moved out into the world becoming something real. Imperfect, but real.

Epilogue: “Have wings that feared ever touched the sun? I was born when all I once feared—I could love.” —Rabi’a

As I conclude this essay the train sways from side to side. I am headed to a SWARM training led by Carlos Servada of the Cosecha movement to learn about the power of decentralized movements and organizations. We go to listen, to be disrupted, to be changed.

The Indigenous Women of the Americas, in their Treaty Compact of 2015, ask all of us to:
● commit nonviolent acts of civil disobedience where destruction is occurring until it is stopped.
● continue these acts until “business as usual” is halted and life on Mother Earth is safe for generations to come.

These courageous women ask much more than this in their challenging and inspiring cry for action and justice. How can we get everyone in the communities movement to respond to this call? What does it mean for the rest of the western world if the communities movement does not respond—a movement which extols such values as justice, equality, and peace?

Everywhere we turn people are wrestling with this crisis. The Movement of Movements is reaching out into many communities, like our own, and drawing us out of our old, progressive lives, to take extraordinary risks and roles in this final opportunity to defend life. What shall become of this coalition I do not know. I can say that each new day I get closer to being able to look into the eyes of my two daughters and say I tried everything, I risked everything for this beautiful world and for you.

If you are interested in learning more, joining a direct action, attending trainings involved in the coalition, call or write The Possibility Alliance, 28408 Frontier Ln., La Plata MO 63549; 660-332-4094.

Most of the statistics in this article are from The Gandhian Iceberg: A Manifesto for the Great Turning by Chris Moore-Backman.

Ethan Hughes likes to listen to the songs of frogs in northeastern Missouri. He enjoys collecting magic pebbles in the creek beds with his two daughters Isla and Etta. He hopes to participate in the Nation’s largest mass arrest in history with his family. His wife Sarah has a very loud laugh that he cherishes and hopes to use as a secret nonviolent weapon to make the police smile.

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The Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) and its many ecovillage communities have long striven to be good planetary citizens and to live in ways that are as sustainable, nurturing, and harmonious as possible. We are now working to help achieve the United Nations’ new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to fulfill the Paris Climate Agreement; and you can help too. The SDGs were adopted by the UN last September. Many describe them as the most ambitious and inclusive set of goals to which the UN has ever agreed.

The SDGs include 17 primary goals and 169 more specific targets. They encompass such objectives as achieving full and productive employment and decent work for all; ensuring access to adequate, safe, and affordable housing and basic services; doubling agricultural productivity and the incomes of small-scale farmers; implementing resilient agricultural practices while strengthening capacity for adaptation to climate change; doubling the global rate of energy efficiency; ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all; and sustainably managing and efficiently using natural resources—all by 2030.

These intentions are certainly challenging, but achievable if we set our hearts and minds to it. Ecovillages are already showing how these goals can be met.

GEN and the UN

I have represented GEN at the United Nations for the past 15 years. I have lived in an ecovillage community, and in my career as an educator and activist visited many more. During that time I have come to recognize ecovillages as among the most sustainable communities on earth. I have also become familiar with the UN’s new SDGs, having participated actively in the meetings at the UN that developed them and evaluated how they could be achieved.

GEN and our ecovillage communities are already well on our way towards helping the UN and the world’s people to reach these targets and goals. For example, many ecovillages are leaders in developing and using organic farming, regenerative agriculture, biochar and carbon sequestration, biological waste treatment processes, natural building practices, and innovative means of producing renewable energy.

I joined a GEN delegation that participated in the UN’s Climate Summit in Paris in December, and helped to put together a special website for it, looking at how ecovillages are helping to address and prevent climate change. I want to share with you some of the many ways that ecovillages around the world help create a more just, equitable, and sustainable world and ways in which you and your community can participate.

Transitioning to Clean and Renewable Energy

Goal 7 of the SDGs calls for ensuring access to and substantially increasing the share of renewable energy. The world community is finally taking notice and investing in the transition to a truly renewable energy future, but we still have a long way to go. According to REN21’s 2014 report, renewables contributed 19 percent to our global energy consumption in 2012, but almost half of this still comes from burning fuel wood. More than a billion people still lack access to electricity. And an estimated seven million people die each year from indoor air pollution from cooking and heating fires—mostly women and children. It is thus a challenging goal but one that can definitely be met.

Dyssekilde Ecovillage in Denmark provides one example of what we can do. Almost all of the houses have a greenhouse built in on their south-facing wall. Passive solar heating is particularly efficient in houses with brick or other dense walls that absorb the heat, shortening the active heating season by a month both in autumn and spring.

When the ecovillage first started, wood was a popular fuel as it was relatively cheap, easily obtainable, and, when sustainably harvested, CO2-neutral. Many of the older houses are therefore heated by wood-burning mass ovens—heavy brick or stone ovens in the middle of the houses. They are fired once a day to very high heat, which gives a cleaner combustion and less pollution. The brick or stone then absorbs the heat and slowly releases it during the day. These ovens typically utilize 95 percent of the biomass energy and are thus ideal for home heating in Scandinavian and other cold climates. Many also have built-in ovens for baking and cooking.

When the Dyssekilde community built their communal house they decided to heat it with geothermal energy. This system works by absorbing heat from the ground via long tubes dug approximately 1 meter into the earth. These are filled with water and an anti-freeze solution. Electricity provided by wind power runs a compressor that boosts this relatively low heat to 30-40 degrees C, which is then used to heat floors, radiators, and tap water. Many houses also have solar water heaters on the roof. Finally, in order to be self-sufficient they built the first windmill in the area in the mid-1990s. Communally owned, it produces two and a half times the electricity needed for houses in the village. (See www.dyssekilde.dk/uk/node/126.)

Increasing Productivity and Income with Solar Dryers

Hakoritna Farm in Palestine has had great success with solar dryers. In Palestine, farmers cannot export their products because of the checkpoints and separation wall. Given the nation’s minute size, farmers’ livelihoods are compromised as fruits and vegetables of the same variety ripen simultaneously, often flooding the market and driving down the price farmers can ask for their crops. Farmers therefore reap insufficient profits to cover their input and labor, especially when the produce is organic. But by installing solar dryers they are able to preserve vegetables and fruits for the winter, thus getting a much better price and increasing food sovereignty.

People used to put produce on rooftops to dry but would have to take it down at night; and if it rained all could be ruined. The solar dryer makes things easy. It is essentially a plastic sheet tunnel with solar-driven fans to maintain the right humidity. The fruits can dry in just a day.

(You can read more about Hakoritna Farm in Palestine, along with many other ecovillage success stories, in GEN’s new book Ecovillage: 1001 Ways to Heal the Planet, available on the GEN website at www.ecovillage.org/node/5746 and on the FIC website at www.ic.org/community-bookstore/product/ecovillage-1001-ways-to-heal-the-planet; it is also reviewed on page 80 of this issue.)

The Tamera ecovillage in Portugal has also been using a solar dryer that has proved itself many times over. Similar solar dryers are also used by fishermen in Bangladesh to dry fish, farmers in Togo for bananas, and merchants in China for spices. One half of the floor of the tunnel-dryer is painted black and serves as the “collector.” Here, solar radiation is transformed into heat. The air is heated and thus has a lower relative humidity. A fan then blows the air across the goods to be dried, where it absorbs moisture. The sunlight falling on this drying area helps to vaporize moisture in the food. Because the fan (in the far triangular end of the tunnel-dryer) is powered by a photovoltaic (PV) module, the interior temperature can be kept constant. (You can find a detailed guide on constructing a solar dryer at www.solare-bruecke.org/Bauanleitungen/Tunneltrockner_dt.pdf.)

Biogas Digesters Can Be Cheap and Easy to Build

At Tamera, they have also built several biogas digesters that run almost entirely on kitchen and garden scraps from the community. With biogas from the first two they are able to cook on one burner for 10-20 hours a day. They estimate that this type of a system is 400 times more effective than a system using cow manure. With biogas, the kitchen can remain in service through the rainy winter season, during which time direct solar power is not sufficient. They are now planning to power a refrigerator and a generator with biogas. (See www.tamera.org/project-groups/autonomy-technology/biogas.)

T.H. Culhane from SolarCITIES helped Tamera construct and install the digesters. He has worked for years with the local people in the poorest neighborhoods of Cairo, Egypt and in other African countries to develop decentralized solutions for energy supply. They use what is available—buckets, plastic canisters, hoses, old gas cookers—to assemble a whole system: the biogas digester, an attached gas reservoir nearly as large as the digester, the inlet for kitchen waste, the outlets for gas and liquid fertilizer, and the cooker and other devices that use the gas. (See solarcities.blogspot.com.)

Cleaning Up Charcoal and Creating a Mini Grid in the Developing World

The European Union provides funding for a number of highly successful ecovillage climate projects in Tanzania that utilize multi-sectoral interventions. Zanzibar Community Forests International has assisted villagers in using a new method to produce charcoal, replacing the traditional earth mound technique with a low-cost retort kiln, doubling production efficiency. It takes half as much wood to produce the same amount of charcoal—and in turn consumes only half as much forest. This process cuts production time in half and reduces emissions up to 75 percent. (See forestsinternational.org/innovation/post/can-we-answer-tanzanias-charcoal-question-one-small-answer-at-a-time.)

In Tanzania, only 14 percent of the people have access to electricity. So they set out to design an electricity system for the island of Kokota in Zanzibar, spanning the entire island and empowering every single inhabitant. This meant providing electricity to over 80 homes and three public buildings. With no previous access to electricity, Kokota’s energy demands were simple: people wanted electric lighting so they wouldn’t have to keep buying and burning kerosene, and to charge their mobile phones. They figured out that a week’s worth of energy to meet basic demands for a single household could be stored in a small motorcycle battery. So the community generates renewable energy collectively at a central location and then distributes it via a fleet of small carry-home batteries—a “portable” microgrid. (See forestsinternational.org/innovation/post/how-do-you-build-your-own-portable-microgrid.)

Sequestering Carbon and Improving Soil Health with Biochar

A number of ecovillages have also been experimenting with and offering workshops on making and using biochar and on building biochar pits, kilns, or wood stoves. Not only can biochar dramatically cut down on carbon emissions, it can also help to sequester vast amounts of carbon in our soils, while restoring soil health and increasing productivity.

In regions as diverse as the high mountain valleys of Costa Rica and the agricultural fields of western Kenya, biochar cookstoves are now being used to both clear the air and enrich the soil. Biochar is a type of charcoal produced when biomass burns in an oxygen-free environment. It can boost water and nutrients in dry, depleted soil while serving as a vehicle for burying the carbon that contributes to global warming.

At The Farm ecovillage community in Tennessee (US), they have been regenerating and replenishing depleted topsoil by putting biochar and compost tea into the soil using a keyline plow, which cuts into the soil surface without turning the earth. A rich loamy soil, up to a meter deep, can be restored in a matter of years.

In Germany’s ZEGG ecovillage, the soil is sandy so they decided to use biochar (terra preta) to improve the soil quality in their gardens. Terra preta (literally “black earth” in Portuguese) owes its name to its very high charcoal content, and is made by adding a mixture of charcoal, bone, and manure to the otherwise relatively infertile Amazonian soil over many years.

They built and use a Kontiki steel kiln at ZEGG to make the biochar, and have figured out an ingenious way to charge it. Biochar is extremely porous. It absorbs water and nutrients and can thus deliver them to the plant root zone. But if it is not charged by soaking with either liquid nitrogen or a compost tea, or being mixed into a compost pile, biochar soaks up, holds, and thus depletes the land of available nutrients.

At ZEGG they wanted to lower the nitrogen and phosphate levels in their wastewater to improve the quality of their outflow water. They discovered that urine has the highest content of nitrogen and phosphorus, much more than human feces. In fact, 80 to 90 percent of the nitrogen we shed and 50 percent of phosphorus are in the urine. So they started soaking biochar with urine from their waterless toilets in barrels for approximately four weeks. They then use composted leaf earth, clay, bokashi, grass clippings, and charged biochar in layers to set up a compost stack and let it sit covered for a year before putting it into their gardens. (See Terra Preta Production, Part II: Waterless Urinals—Charging Terra Preta at ZEGG, sites.ecovillage.org/article/terra-preta-production-part-ii.)

You will find many articles, videos, and instructions on making and using biochar on the GEN climate website at www.ecovillage.org/COP21 or more directly at ecovillage.org/node/5998.) Numerous organizations and businesses are also listed on the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves website that sell biochar cookstoves or help communities make and install them. See cleancookstoves.org (enter biochar under search).

According to a National Geographic news article entitled “Biochar Cookstoves Boost Health for People and Crops,” three billion people worldwide rely on highly polluting open-fire cookstoves. The article goes on to say that a Seattle, Washington-based company, SeaChar, is testing a new style of clean cookstove that produces biochar. It can be built using local materials: a five-gallon steel paint bucket, some corrugated steel roofing material, and half of a one-gallon tomato sauce can.

In addition to wood, the stove burns garden debris, dried animal dung, corncobs, and coconut husks. A family cooking a pot of beans will use 40 percent less wood with this Estufa Finca stove than with an open-fire stove, while showing a significant reduction in exposure to harmful smoke. These stoves reduce particulate matter emissions by some 92 percent and carbon monoxide emissions by 87 percent. SeaChar offers a biochar buyback program too, through which households can earn an extra $15-20 per month by selling the biochar produced by their cookstoves—a huge boon in the developing world. (See news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/01/130129-biochar-clean-cookstoves.)

So by making biochar and investing in cleaner energy production we can achieve many of the UN’s SDGs: improving soil health, increasing agricultural productivity, reducing hunger, reducing water pollutants, and improving human health; while reducing carbon emissions, sequestering carbon, and reducing deforestation.

These are just some of the best practices and success stories being carried out in ecovillages that can help us deal more responsibly with the climate crisis while also achieving the SDGs. You can find many more examples and details under Success Stories at www.ecovillage.org/cop21.

Rob Wheeler has represented the Global Ecovillage Network at the United Nations for the past 15 years. He has participated actively in the global Earth Summit Conferences in Rio de Janeiro, in Johannesburg, and the annual meetings of the UN’s Commission and now High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in New York. Rob used to live at the Heathcote Ecovillage Community in the US, and has worked for more than 25 years as a teacher and environmental educator. He co-organized and led a Sustainable Community Campaign in Santa Cruz County in California for five years in the 1990s and has been a peace, environmental, and political activist and organizer for most of his life. Every year he joins millions of people around the planet in celebrating his birthday, or rather Earth Day, on April 22.