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East Wind’s August Music Fest 2018

Ah, the pre-COVID days. Here’s some excerpts from a music fest that East Wind held in 2018 (from their YouTube Channel):

Income Sharing: Enticements and Fears

by Raven Glomus

I am still learning about Facebook. I put two very similar posts on Facebook, two days in a row and I think that I got punished for it. The first post got an lot of views and quite a few comments. The second, similar post got few views, no comments, and no likes (or even dislikes). Compare 401 people reached vs 86 people reached. (I’ve had seen lower–we’ve had posts that only got sixty-something views, but 86 is fairly low for us and 401 is fairly high.) I also thought that the comments to the first post were pretty good and I am including most of them.

Here’s my original post:

Quite the interesting selection of responses and I was very happy with it. Compare that with what happened the next day:

Similar question, but it sank like a stone. Oh, well, I guess I learned something. I won’t put two posts that are that similar two days in a row.

And I am glad to have heard so many different feelings about income sharing from the first post.

A Long Winter at the Communes

by Raven Glomus

We have had snow for months here at Glomus Commune and we are still waiting for it to clear, but there is snow and ice at all the communes. Here’s some pictures of it from our Facebook page and various Instagram accounts.

First, here at Glomus:

And at East Wind, they are very excited about the Ice Pillars that have formed:

Twin Oaks contributed a video of one of their creeks in the snow:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Commune Life (@communelifelife)

And at Acorn, they are having fun on a snow day:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Acorn (@acorncommunity)

One more month until spring!

The Birds of East Wind’s Lick Creek

Lick Creek runs through East Wind Community and videographer Sumner has documented the birds that hang out there. This is the second in a series about wildlife at East Wind. Here’s the first in the series.

A Newborn at Twin Oaks

Twin Oaks is a long-term (almost 54 years now) multi-generational community that has an age range from newborns to folks in their eighties and has its share of births and deaths. A birth at Twin Oaks is always exciting and a birth just happened there. Here’s the announcement:

There were some pictures of the birth floating around and I contacted the photographer for permission to publish one of parent and child sleeping peacefully. She not only gave me permission but sent an additional adorable photo of Xena.

There’s something incredibly lovely about bringing a child into the world and I personally believe that communes are a wonderful place to raise a child. – Raven

Mysterious Popularity

by Raven Glomus

Okay, here’s a mystery. I’ve been posting on Facebook daily for over a year. Part of what we try to do is to reach as many people as we can. I’ve had posts where we had less than 70 people reached and posts where I was able to reach over 500. When I posted about Ira at Acorn winning an award, we got well over a thousand views–but Ira is amazing anyway.

Recently I was desperate for a Facebook post and thought of a question to ask. It was a decent question but not particularly interesting–I was really more interested in comments that I was expecting than the question itself. By early the next morning we had gotten a couple of comments–but for some reason, over 600 views. By now it’s gone up to six comments (one of which was from me), which really isn’t a lot of comments, but for some bizarre reason, it now has over six thousand views! I didn’t think that the question was worth it and it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the comments, so I am frankly mystified. I really don’t understand Facebook anyway, but this really makes me feel like it doesn’t make any sense.

I will share the post and comments with you. Maybe someone out there understands better how Facebook works.

Here’s the original post. Note the numbers of People Reached and Engagements, vs Likes and Comments and Shares.

The comments were interesting and here they are below. It’s just that I don’t think that they are 65 hundred views interesting.

East Wind Interview: Joston

Yet another East Winder interview–45 minutes of questions and answers on aquaponics, tattoos, nutbutters, egalitarianism, and other things about life at East Wind Community

The Birds of East Wind: Video #1

People aren’t the only residents of the communes. Here Sumner presents the first in a series of videos about wildlife that is found around East Wind. This one is about common birds that hang out around the community.

Validation Day

by Raven Glomus

I just wrote a post on Communal Culture.  Here’s another example of the difference between mainstream and communal cultures.

The communes have decided to reappropriate many of the holidays.  This weekend the mainstream world celebrates Valentine’s Day.  East Wind Community decided years ago that this holiday was too much about traditional couples and they wanted something that would celebrate everyone.  Thus Validation Day was born.  Validation Day is celebrated in many of the communes now instead of Valentine’s Day–and we just decided to have a small version of it here at Glomus Commune.

On Validation Day, cards are made up for everyone in the commune and positive messages are written in by many folks.  Each card is filled with lovely messages–as someone said, it’s a natural antidepressant.  Often folks work on the cards for weeks and pass them around so lots of folks have a chance to write something.

Working on Validation Day cards at Twin Oaks, 2007

I think that it’s an amazing way to take a holiday that has been commercialized and that elevates traditional couples and uses it to create good feelings throughout the commune.  It’s one more thing that society could learn from the communes.  Of course, making homemade cards wouldn’t benefit the economy, but that’s the point.  We are building another world in the communes.

East Wind Interview: Jim Adams

East Wind is now publishing weekly video interviews with current and former members. I will republish them on Wednesdays, the day we have often posted videos. You can see the first interview, with ex-member Zan, here.

Jim Adams is also an ex-member, who lived at East Wind from 1977 to 1987 and this interview is a deep history of East Wind, including the history of East Wind Nut Butters and the building of Rock Bottom, East Wind’s dining hall. Jim Adams also lived at Twin Oaks and talks about differences and similarities between the two communities.