Life as a garden
"Oh, you're building a commune!" Well, no... but there is a surprisingly large number of people who build and live in intentional communities, and for all sorts of reasons. Many have a lot to do with sustainability. Some focus on the practice. We've written about Gaviotas — an intentional community on the llanos of Columbia. The founder of Gaviotas — Paulo Lugari — set out to build a community from the ground up in the harshest place he could find. Decades later, Gaviotas feeds itself, has its own medical care and even its own orchestra. Dancing Rabbit, in northeastern Missouri, is another example. Dancing Rabbit builds straw bale and earth bag buildings, rammed earth floors, explores sustainable ways of producing food, and many other aspects of a healthier way of living. The Intentional Community Web site lists these major categories of community:
- Ecovillages focus on ecological sustainability.
- Cohousing communities generally incorporate both private homes and shared common facilities and support neighborly connections.
- Communes focus on pooling resources and income.
- Co-ops share expenses to reduce costs.
- Christian communities (and other communities with a spiritual focus).
We see intentional communities as "first cousins" of what we're building here. We love how such communities are able to build, play, learn and love in ways that would be too challenging in another setting. In a way, an intentional community is a garden — planned (to a degree), tended, and cared for in ways that can be truly beautiful. And once an idea has taken root and born fruit in such a garden, people like us get to see how they do in the big, wide world. But as we do, we carry with us a deep love and respect for the gardens — and the gardeners — where the things we're growing first saw the light of day.
Posted by Administrator on Friday, July 30, 2010
