Thursday, May 19, 2011

A tale of two communities...

It was the best of times. It was the…..   Well actually both of these places have been pretty kick ass.   
We're a week into our trip now at East Wind Community, and what a beautiful week it's been.  One thing that immediately sticks you at this place is the astounding beauty of the environment here.  East Wind as a community owns over 1000 acres of land tucked in the foothills of the Ozark mountains and it is absolutely breathtaking.  Most of the land is forest filled with dogwood, oak, cedar, and various other types of trees that I still need to learn the names of. There are creeks, a small lake, and plans for a pond in the future to use as a catfish farm.  Today I worked with the manager of East Wind's forestry team where we selectively harvested cedar trees that were encroaching on a road to use for lumber.  The weather was absolutely beautiful and if made for a great day in the great outdoors.  We've had many similar days so far and that's the best excuse I have to give you all for our absence of blog posts.  We're just having too much fun to sit in front of a computer and write. Sorry :)
In our last post, I explained our decision to come to East Wind after waffling back and forth on whether or not to come at all.  We definitely made the right choice in coming here - I'm almost certain East Wind and not Dancing Rabbit will be our home for a long time to come.  Both are wonderful groups of people who are each in their own way tackling some of our society's greatest problems with thoughtful and intelligent solutions.  Neither are perfect and neither are utopias, but the last month has definitely shown me that living in community beats the shit out of trying to live on our own.  There are many more similarities between the two communities we've visited than there are differences,  and I feel that it's important to state that before moving on.  Both communities are filled with people who genuinely respect each other and have a compassion not often seen in our outside consumer culture.    Both are living in a much more environmentally friendly way than I've ever done, albeit they do it in different ways, and to different degrees.  Both are very much less interested in television and the advertising and social conditioning that come along with them.  Children in both communities grow up with "siblings" that are unrelated, and many in both are home schooled, unvaccinated, and fed organic healthy food.  Any of our readers out there who are interested in these things - start sending emails now,  and get yourself a visitor period in a community that interests you. www.fic.ic.org is a great resource with a searchable database that can help you find a community that fits for you, and most likely they will share many of the great qualities that I listed above.
  Intentional communities may share a lot of traits,  but there are many, many, different types, and our two visits have been to two vastly different models.  Dancing Rabbit, as we've documented, is an eco-village, where a set of environmental 'covenants' hold their members to a strict standard in order to reduce their ecological footprint.   Members of DR have independent finances, and most telecommute as to not violate their covenant requiring personal vehicles and a strict reduction in the use of fossil fuels.  East Wind on the other hand is an income sharing community where all members have agreed to work together in common, own possessions and land in common, and to create a high standard of living for all through the simple act of sharing.  The main source of the shared income at East Wind is their nut butter business where they make some of the best crunchy peanut butter that I've ever tasted.  The factory for the business is quite industrial and would stick out like a sore thumb in an ecovillage.  All members of East Wind have a labor quota which requires them to work 35 hours a week, and a small portion of that, currently three hours a week, is required to be done in the factory.  Where at Dancing Rabbit our family was struggling to find the unfilled niche where we could fit in and begin making a living, East Wind is filled with opportunity to work and contribute on day one.
 At DR, the question was what can we do; at EW it's what do we want to do?  There are so many 'jobs' here at East Wind that I'm interested in , and all one needs to do here is to go start working.  There's no need to see if there's a market to sell a good or service that is worthwhile.  There is ranching, gardening (food and herbs), food processing, cooking, child care, construction, woodworking, factory working, sandal making, laundry, dishwashing, and so much more.  All of these tasks are labor creditable and can go towards a members thirty five hour labor quota.  It's a system designed to allow people to be able to do things that interest them and that they have an aptitude for,  while ensuring that there is an income available to share, and that people's basic needs are met.    There is an extremely high degree of freedom here where people are doing the work they want, when they want.  There are people up at 4 am and people waking at 4 am.  People who are not interested in slaughtering pigs,  don't ever have to -  but are still able to eat bacon thanks to the people who do.  And the pig slaughtering folks who aren't into washing clothes, can get their clothes cleaned by those who find that to be their way to contribute.  It is a remarkable thing that is going on here, and in my mind this is how I'd like to live. 
Again, sorry for the long delay between posts.  I'm just having a blast with my time here and will try to share more soon.  We've extended our one week stay into two thanks to the people here,  and we'll hopefully be right back to EW after another short break into the outside to move out of our apartment.  Thanks for reading, more to come.

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