I have dreamed of living in intentional community for many years. I had visions of a tribe of likeminded, earth-based folks with shared values – a chosen family with whom to live and raise children. As an urbanite, this involved living at an Eco Village and in communal houses that were anomalies in the huge cities in which they were located.
Living in these chosen communities, I encountered all the expected challenges to my ideals – the intrusion of capitalism and hierarchy, urban busyness and overextension, and deeply seated fears of interdependence and intimacy outside of romantic partnership. I met thousands of other urbanites who shared my visions and felt equally frustrated and jaded about our inability to realize these dreams together, dreams which reflect the powerful yearning of the human spirit for a tribe called home.
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| Downtown shopping area advertising local artisans, collectives, and farms. |
Now, I find myself in a place where interdependence, mutual support, and reverence for the earth are a way of life.
While there are many folks here living in officially labeled intentional communities and who otherwise identify as back-to-the land "alternative" folks, this whole town is deeply interconnected - farmers, ranchers, permaculturists, new-agers and all. People buy local not only for political ideals, but because they know the farmers, craftspeople, and merchants they are buying from.
People tread gently on the earth because the land is what sustains them – the water they drink comes from directly below their feet, and the food they eat from their gardens. Even with those folks whose politics diverge from mine, the rhythms of our daily lives are aligned.
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