by Raven
Here’s the weekly roundup of what we’ve been posting on Facebook.
Let’s start with what they are doing at East Wind to prepare for the fall.
This post did pretty good.
Meanwhile, at Living Energy Farm,
This didn’t do as well, and barely hit over a hundred viewers.
And at Glomus,
This did pretty well on Facebook.
Finally, when I was up in Maine, I got to see what one of the founders of a Missouri community was up to.
As you can see, this did very well on Facebook.
from MoonRaven’s Social Alchemy Blog, June 11, 2013
(Note, this is from four years ago and information is probably out of date.)
A week ago Monday, we got to visit yet another community, this one in La Plata, 40 miles away from Rutledge, called the Possibility Alliance (and also known as the Still Waters Sanctuary). I had hoped to visit it after I was done with my Dancing Rabbit visit because the train station I was being dropped off at is in La Plata. However, I was told the only time we could visit was in the middle of our DR stay (because they’re in a ‘retreat year’), so I figured it wouldn’t happen. However, it turned out that most of the visitors group wanted to check out the Possibility Alliance and a couple of people had cars so a whole bunch of us went off attend their community tour.
The tour was led by Ethan Hughes, their charismatic leader. (At least one person at DR warned me about him–but for our brief visit he seemed fairly easy-going.) He began the tour by citing the mission of the Possibility Alliance: “Living for the upliftment of all life and reaching for our highest human potential.” He also claimed that the PA was guided by five practices: 1) Simplicity–he said others called it ‘radical simplicity’ and he thought of it as ‘necessary simplicity’, 2) Service–many different kinds of service, but one that’s often associated with the PA is their ‘Superhero Bike Rides’ where people dress up as superheroes and ride into towns offering to help in any way that’s useful, 3) Social Engagement and
Nonviolent Activism, 4) Self Transformation, and 5) Silliness, Celebration, Gratitude, and Joy. Finally, after quizzing us on things like dying people’s regrets and what our most passionate wishes were, he led us on a tour of the sanctuary.
We got to see his house and the new timberframed/straw-bale home that they
were building, the very mellow draft horses that they own, the pond that they’ve recently tranformed, and the land and how they’ve been taking care of it.
Life at the Possibility Alliance is extremely low-tech. They don’t have electricity (they use candles, they also don’t have a website although they do have a phone). All the building done there is with hand tools rather than power tools. They try to apply permaculture principles to their work.
They also run on ‘the gift economy’–taking what is offered but not charging for all their courses and workshops, including a permaculture design certification course which other places often charge enormous amounts of money. We all enjoyed the tour and the place, although we were clear that this was only a taste of what the place was about.
For another view of the PA, see this post by leavergirl on her blog Leaving Babylon.
Quote of the Day: “What we would like to do is change the world. Make it a little easier for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do…. There is nothing we can do but love, dear God–please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy.” – Dorothy Day (as quoted in the Possibility Alliance newsletter)
by Raven
Last week, we published a piece on two income sharing systems called “Allowance Versus Box of Money” (which I’ve also heard called Dual and Unitary income sharing systems). Although I thought it was a really interesting article, I had a couple of difficulties with it.
One was that it seemed to claim that all income sharing came in “in two broad flavors”. I know of a couple of communities in dialogue in the FEC (the Possibility Alliance/Stillwater Sanctuary and Rainforest Lab) that are exploring using a gift economy exchange system, which involves neither an allowance or a box of money. The article also suggested that the box of money approach was the “more radical solution”. As someone who helped create an income sharing community, I found the allowance method an elegant solution to what we were trying to achieve. Instead of trying to figure out which is the ‘more radical’ approach, I think that it’s useful to know that there are at least three different ways to share income–probably more. (I heard someone talk about ‘punk income sharing’ where it’s not hard to share income if there isn’t any to share.)
I think one of the main reasons for creating new communes, is (as I also heard someone say) to create ‘new flavors’ of communal living. This is why there are five different income sharing communities in Louisa County, VA.
I think it’s important that there are many options for income sharing, that some communes are high structure (say Twin Oaks) and some communes are low 
structure (say Acorn), that there are communities that approach a middle class lifestyle and communities (like Living Energy Farm and the Stillwater Sanctuary) that are already preparing for life beyond fossil fuels. I’ve heard some folks talking recently about communities of people of color. I’m not threatened by this, any more than I’m threatened by women’s communities. And as much as I’m an advocate for egalitarian, income sharing communities, I’m well aware and even happy that this is only a small percentage of all the communities out there–there are co-operative houses, cohousing communities, ecovillages, hybrid communities of all kinds, and many varieties of spiritual communities, to name the most common ones in the Communities Directory.
Again, we’re creating more options for people, not less. And I’m well aware that not everyone wants to live in community. The point is that I think there should be all kinds of communities (and particularly income sharing communities) for those that are looking for them, because different people will do better in different communities, just like the ‘box of money’ approach will work better for some communities, and the ‘allowance’ approach for others, and using a ‘gift economy’ for still others.
As David from las Indias said, in an article on diversity that we published a year ago, “The kind of diversity many of you are concerned about … will come by itself, but probably not to every community, but to the network we must build together.” While diversity within communities is important, I think diversity among communities is crucial.
by Raven
Sustainability is important to many people. Some of the newer income sharing communities, such as Living Energy Farm and the Stillwater Sanctuary/Possibility Alliance, focus on reducing their carbon footprint, but Twin Oaks, a large, older communities, has never been very concerned with this, and still uses almost 20% of the resources of an average American.
The reason is that Twin Oaks embraces what Paxus refers to as ‘Radical Sharing’. Twin Oaks has 17 cars for nearly 100 people. (To compare, a hundred average Americans probably have 67 cars.) They share tools and bikes and even clothes, not to mention books and musical instruments and, of course, income.
Truly, most communities, even co-housing communities which are sort of at the other end of the spectrum from income sharing communities, do some degree of sharing. However, most of the income sharing communities, by their very nature, do much more sharing than simply income.
Acorn also shares cars and bikes and tools and clothes, as does East Wind. And at new communes such as Cambia and Compersia the work of building the community is shared.
I have a button that I wear sometimes that says “Consume Less, Share More.” In the communes this type of radical sharing is a daily reality.
from the Living Energy Farm February – March -April 2016 Newsletter
In early April, Debbie and Nika attended a gathering at the Possibility Alliance in northeast Missouri. The gathering brought together about 80 activists and community organizers dedicated to fighting climate change by creating a network of Centers for Liberation: communities and sustainable living centers working for a just, equitable transition away from fossil fuels and towards community resiliency. Represented at the gathering were nine existing centers (including LEF). A few of them are established groups already living without fossil fuels, including the Possibility Alliance; Be the Change in Reno, Nevada; and the Downstream Project in Harrisonburg VA.
A few other urban projects focus on community organizing, education and social justice while working towards liberation from fossil fuels, including TILT (Taos Initiative for Life Together) in Taos New Mexico, Casa de Paz in Oakland CA, and Vine and Fig (formerly New Community Project) in Harrisonburg VA. Also represented were Carnival de Resistance, a traveling liberation center that sets up a fossil-fuel-free camp in different city every year, and two new projects in northern California and Vermont, which both have land and are working on establishing fossil-fuel-free infrastructure.
It was exciting and encouraging to tap into this network of dedicated folks who recognize the urgency of the climate crisis and the need to act now to create a just and sustainable future. This network will make all of our work more effective, by linking the experience and skill sets of folks who have been living off the grid for years, like the Possibility Alliance and LEF, with the outreach capabilities of the urban centers, which will make our work more relevant to people who will be most adversely impacted by climate upheavals to come.
from MoonRaven’s Social Alchemy Blog (Saturday, June 9, 2012 )
I’ve written about the Federation of Egalitarian Communities in my post [on my blog] on Egalitarian Communities, and about Twin Oaks in a post entitled Real Models 1:Twin Oaks. What I want to write about here is what is happening in Louisa County, Virginia, where Twin Oaks is located.
Twin Oaks has been around for forty-five years as of this year and has a population of about a hundred people (adults and children). While this would be impressive enough, in 1993 some folks from Twin Oaks helped found a second community, called Acorn. (Yes, this is a spinoff reference.) Acorn is located in Mineral, a town over from Twin Oaks, and now has about 30 members. Last year, with help from Twin Oaks and Acorn, work was begun on Living Energy Farm. This will be a community, education center, and farm which will also be a demonstration of how it is possible to live without fossil fuels. Twin Oaks and Acorn are members of the FEC and Living Energy Farm is a Community in Dialogue with them. All are located close to one another in Louisa County. (Update: As of 2016, there are now five income sharing communities in Louisa County–not only Twin Oaks and Acorn and Living Energy Farm but also Sapling and Cambia )
…given the size and stability of Twin Oaks and Acorn, with their help, this (and Living Energy Farm) will probably succeed. In fact, at this point, Twin Oaks and Acorn both have long waiting lists of people who want to get into them. The waiting list at Acorn is at least six months and I suspect the waiting list at Twin Oaks is a lot longer.
Land Day at AcornI find what’s happening in Louisa County very inspiring. There’s a growing community of communities there within a few miles of each other, backed by the durability of Twin Oaks (and now Acorn) and an apparent real longing for community, as evidenced by the waiting lists.
But what’s really amazing is that Louisa County isn’t the only place this is happening. In Rutledge, a small town in northeastern Missouri (population 109) there are also three growing, thriving intentional communities that are working together.
Sandhill Farm is the oldest, started in by four 24-year olds in 1974, now at maybe eight members. That may not seem impressive, but the fact that Sandhill was there and supportive encouraged a small group of students from California who wanted to build an ecovillage to settle there in 1997 (incidentally, the group began to converge in 1993, the same year Acorn started). Dancing Rabbit now has sixty-something members, residents, and children. They are talking about wanting 500 to 1000, but even having sixty now is pretty good. Among other things, Dancing Rabbit wants to have a “Society of Communities”. One community within Dancing Rabbit is Skyhouse. Dancing Rabbit isn’t an FEC community but Skyhouse is (and so is Sandhill). Then, in 2005, Red Earth Farms, “an intentional community of homesteads” bought 76 acres of land adjacent to Dancing Rabbit. There’s now about seventeen adults and children living there. From what I understand, there is a lot of traffic back and forth between the three communities–and a lot of support for each other. And, not far away, in La Plata, Missouri, is the Possibility Alliance, very interesting community of nine folks that has some links with the three Rutledge communities. In addition, some students from Colby College are making a film about the three communities called “The Rhythm of Rutledge”.
Paxus has written a post called “The best parts of America” where he talks about all these communities as well as some of the other FEC related communities around the country. It’s a nice overview of this process.
What is so exciting to me is the building energy in Louisa and Rutledge. Far from the urban mainstream, folks are gathering (about 130–so far–in VA and nearing a hundred in northeastern MO) and supporting each other in building communities. The long waiting lists for the communities in Virginia shows the hunger for this and the durability of the communities. The fact that Twin Oaks has also been running strong since 1967 is an interesting answer to “Whatever happened to all those communes from the sixties?” I think it’s also significant that Sandhill has been hanging in since the seventies and has managed to attract and support two other communities in their small town. Building strong vibrant egalitarian community is possible, and even very successful, at least in two places in the US.
Addendum (6/12/12): I finally found a piece of info that I was looking for. I never really understood why the folks at Red Earth Farms decided to create something separate from Dancing Rabbit. From Laird Schaub’s (of Sandhill) blog Laird’s Commentary on Community and Consensus in a post labeled ‘Culture Forming in Northeast Missouri’:
“When some DR members were unhappy about the community’s adamancy about maintaining a high population density, they started the spin-off community of Red Earth Farms, on 76 adjoining acres in 2007. Red Earth is based on a more agrarian, homestead model of land development.”
Addendum (5/13/16): There are now five (5!) income sharing communities in Louisa County, the two newest being Sapling and Cambia.
Quote of the Day: “Why We Exist–Because we share so much, and because we are committed to a vision of community which transcends our individual groups, we have joined together to cooperate on publications, conferences, recruitment efforts, community support systems including health care, and a variety of other mutually supportive activities. Our aim is not only to help each other; we want to help more people discover the advantages of a communal alternative, and to promote the evolution of a more egalitarian world.” – from the FEC website
commune life 