"whatever makes a house into a home
makes a game into play
and makes culture come to life.
but home, play and culture,
strain to grow without a structure."
makes a game into play
and makes culture come to life.
but home, play and culture,
strain to grow without a structure."
We are striving for a culture of love and respect for each other. We want a balance of togetherness and privacy, labor and celebration. We are currently, and probably forever will be, working on the "firmware" of the culture we want to be a part of. We are seeking the help of experts in the social sciences to help craft our structure. We are willing to implement clear expectations, and space time designation to both diminish ambiguity, reduce inequality in efforts, and to build a sense of community, we just aren't sure of the details yet.
Equality: We strive for equality but understand that people have differing needs. Labor: We want to accomplish a lot, but we value balance in our lives more than we value increased income beyond our needs. Aside from income, we'd rather focus our labor on infrastructure that will continue to serve us in the future, (e.g: perennials vs. annuals, passive solar designs rather than just burning more firewood, etc.) We also want our livelihoods to be an art in which we can continually increase our skill and creativity. Whether farming for our seed company, teaching kids about sustainability, leading team-building games and activities, or doing research about happiness in community, all our businesses have the potential to be meaningful work and facilitate individual growth. |
Daily Life: We want to have times of working together, learning together, celebrating together, as well as room to have alone time and privacy, meditation and spiritual practices. The amounts of each activity will likely be based on the income needs of the community, the urgency of projects, the need for balance, and the emotional needs of our members. See our schedule. Food: We currently grow a large majority of our own produce, some of which is a byproduct of growing seeds for Commonwealth Seed Growers. We grow cucumbers, tomatoes, summer and winter squash, lima beans, spring and fall greens, watermelon, okra, and a lot more. We've planted fruit and nut trees, which are producing an abundance of pears, grapes, blackberries, and goumi berries and some apples, peaches, persimmons, and hazelnuts. We have chickens who graciously fertilize our land and provide eggs. We harvest, can, dehydrate and store seasonal foods. We hope to soon experiment with growing more gourmet mushrooms and insects for protein source, like mealworms. Our common kitchen is vegan plus our farm-fresh eggs, and we do not support factory farmed meat and dairy. Diet outside of our communal meals is up to the individual. |
Children: We are a family friendly community. We want all our members, even those without their own children, to respect that children are a part of life. We completely respect and encourage those who do not want their own children to not procreate, but in trying to create a large intentional extended family we will assume those who join us want to take some part in the children's lives. Co-parenting is hard. We've had quite a bit of experience co-parenting with mixed results. We'll work it out. It seems obvious to us that children need to take part in the labor and the culture of the community, and the community needs to provide for their needs in things like building magnificent playgrounds or simply not being too busy to play. We strive to raise happy, loving and lovable children that would continue the cooperative movement. We don't subscribe to the individualist drive for indoctrinating children into career or other forms of excellence. But chances are, we would have very little influence on determining who they will grow up to be, and that's fine too. |