Well, turning off my brain seems to have helped my panic levels about bread winning and my obsessiveness about becoming 5 year stable. With a little distance from the emotional turbulence, I have been able to stop and talk with God'dess about the whole thing. I asked for clarity about what comes next, and was shown an image of all the possibilities that are standing wide open right now, like so many open doors.
It is true, I have a lot of different leads for how to accomplish different goals in front of me, like strings that run into the future, and if I follow the right bit of yarn at the right time, it will take me to what I am manifesting. The problem is knowing how to play them in harmony, like a concerto, instead of yanking at them all at the wrong time, like a cat walking on a piano.
I asked God'dess again what to do, and was shown 3 particular leads: one to a possibility of land, one to a possibility of a co-creator of community, and one interpersonal connection that shows promise. Following up on those leads will be on my priority list for this week. In the meantime, I will brainstorm on how to expand the business I am already trying to grow (my energy healing practice), instead of scrapping it for a new and more involved dream.
Showing posts with label intentional community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intentional community. Show all posts
Monday, May 17, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Boomerang Magic
I am often amazed how it is when we let go of things that we get them. I saw this in high school with lovers. There were people then that I had huge crushes on. Several times, I gave up on my crush of months, moved on, forgot, and then a year or so later, they would fall into my lap with the perfect timing, perfect situation, and I would have what I had longed for so many months before.
My former housemate, apparently, has a variation on the theme. In her life, she will work for something, strive to manifest it, be frustrated, get stubborn, and then finally leave for greener pastures. Right after she leaves, it comes to fruition without her. Perhaps it is her Aries nature. Perhaps, to make a fully astrological metaphor, she has to leave the Piscean imminent completion of a cycle to go butt heads with a new beginning because she is Aries.
Either way, I don't know. But I do know that she and I were the ideologues behind this living in community thing and she was always so frustrated that we were not, well, communal enough to satisfy her longings. Now that she has left for pagan communities in the Smokies, I find myself wrapped in community. I often spend hours a day talking with my housemates and the vast majority of my socializing is at the house. We share meals sometimes and talk about philosophy and magic and sex. We now share wine together, have even designated a communal wine cabinet (the box stuff really isn't all bad).
My former housemate, the one who wanted this and left, still comes back some weeks and is glad to be here for a couple days. She has moved on to other things she really wanted. At the same time, I wonder a bit about what would happen if I did let go of my yearnings, what might come. It seems sometimes that Time does pry them from between my fingers, little by little, as they grow well-worn.
My former housemate, apparently, has a variation on the theme. In her life, she will work for something, strive to manifest it, be frustrated, get stubborn, and then finally leave for greener pastures. Right after she leaves, it comes to fruition without her. Perhaps it is her Aries nature. Perhaps, to make a fully astrological metaphor, she has to leave the Piscean imminent completion of a cycle to go butt heads with a new beginning because she is Aries.
Either way, I don't know. But I do know that she and I were the ideologues behind this living in community thing and she was always so frustrated that we were not, well, communal enough to satisfy her longings. Now that she has left for pagan communities in the Smokies, I find myself wrapped in community. I often spend hours a day talking with my housemates and the vast majority of my socializing is at the house. We share meals sometimes and talk about philosophy and magic and sex. We now share wine together, have even designated a communal wine cabinet (the box stuff really isn't all bad).
My former housemate, the one who wanted this and left, still comes back some weeks and is glad to be here for a couple days. She has moved on to other things she really wanted. At the same time, I wonder a bit about what would happen if I did let go of my yearnings, what might come. It seems sometimes that Time does pry them from between my fingers, little by little, as they grow well-worn.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Living in Community: Pros and Cons
For the last five years or so, I have lived with other adults in a cooperative/intentional/community household. (We have never agreed on the language or our exact definition.) I got started when I was in a time of intense life transformation and met a friend who shared many of my ideals. We instantly clicked, found a place, and set up house. We added another housemate, that house got sold out from under us, and another friend in the community bought a house and moved in with all of us as a "package deal." Since then, the roster of housemates has changed and the number of people in the house has grown. We started with four, and we are now up to 6 residents, ages 15-62. Last night, 8 people slept under this roof.
I call what we do "living in community" or being a part of a "community household," so that is the language I will use here, though again, we never collectively agreed on language or definition. Living in community has never been easy. Just sharing one kitchen and two bathrooms can get messy because we rub elbows so often. There are plenty of opportunities to have misunderstandings and miscommunications because someone didn't clean an iron skillet a certain way or left a personal item out in a public space for too long. Our conflicts have been almost exclusively about the mundane, petty details of sharing space, but they represent larger issues like respect, personal boundaries, emotional safety, artistic expression, social justice, gender/age/race/differently-abled equality, and more.
Just because it has not been easy does not mean that it has not been worth doing. I believe firmly in sharing resources and systems of support. Living more densely in the housing already available, sharing the costs of energy and communications utilities, sharing the chores, conserving, recycling, composting, and supporting each other interpersonally has been immensely rewarding. It is worth the struggle to me because I believe so strongly in living gently on the earth, experimenting with solutions that build resilience and sustainability in my world, in being strongly connected with chosen family, and being able to keep my overhead expenses low so that I can work on projects I care about without having to stress as much about the cash flow.
I have learned a lot from living in community. I have learned that regular, unstructured communication time (i.e. hanging out in the kitchen and yammering) resolves a lot of tensions without having to enumerate and process them one by one. I have learned to always check in before drawing conclusions because what to me looks like blatant and gross negligence or provocation is often really a harmless and logical step (that has nothing to do with me) to someone else. I have learned to be more patient (never my strongest virtue), more generous with my time, resources, and food, less territorial, and more publicly expressive and artistic.
We also went through a Non-Violent Communication workshop as a household, and that has been an invaluable resource to me personally, regardless of how well we as a household have managed to employ it or teach it to new housemates.
I bring all of this up because the household is changing. That original friend that I started with is leaving, and there is more room and less art on the walls because of it. The housemate who is also the landlord has decided that he no longer wants to live as equals, but would prefer to be a "benevolent dictator" (his words, not mine). The philosophical mindset of the household is now different due to the changing cast, and we will soon be looking for another new housemate on top of that. Plus, my partner and I will be moving in 6 months or so because there is literally no space for raising children in this household.
The ideals and values that made this living situation worth the effort for me are no longer givens in this household. Many of my personal deal-breakers have been triggered. And yet, this extra space and time of transition is working to give me more perspective on what it is we were trying and what I was seeking and working towards. After working on it for so many years, I now have the chance to turn around and also see what it is not, and that is good.
I will continue to ponder this one.
I call what we do "living in community" or being a part of a "community household," so that is the language I will use here, though again, we never collectively agreed on language or definition. Living in community has never been easy. Just sharing one kitchen and two bathrooms can get messy because we rub elbows so often. There are plenty of opportunities to have misunderstandings and miscommunications because someone didn't clean an iron skillet a certain way or left a personal item out in a public space for too long. Our conflicts have been almost exclusively about the mundane, petty details of sharing space, but they represent larger issues like respect, personal boundaries, emotional safety, artistic expression, social justice, gender/age/race/differently-abled equality, and more.
Just because it has not been easy does not mean that it has not been worth doing. I believe firmly in sharing resources and systems of support. Living more densely in the housing already available, sharing the costs of energy and communications utilities, sharing the chores, conserving, recycling, composting, and supporting each other interpersonally has been immensely rewarding. It is worth the struggle to me because I believe so strongly in living gently on the earth, experimenting with solutions that build resilience and sustainability in my world, in being strongly connected with chosen family, and being able to keep my overhead expenses low so that I can work on projects I care about without having to stress as much about the cash flow.
I have learned a lot from living in community. I have learned that regular, unstructured communication time (i.e. hanging out in the kitchen and yammering) resolves a lot of tensions without having to enumerate and process them one by one. I have learned to always check in before drawing conclusions because what to me looks like blatant and gross negligence or provocation is often really a harmless and logical step (that has nothing to do with me) to someone else. I have learned to be more patient (never my strongest virtue), more generous with my time, resources, and food, less territorial, and more publicly expressive and artistic.
We also went through a Non-Violent Communication workshop as a household, and that has been an invaluable resource to me personally, regardless of how well we as a household have managed to employ it or teach it to new housemates.
I bring all of this up because the household is changing. That original friend that I started with is leaving, and there is more room and less art on the walls because of it. The housemate who is also the landlord has decided that he no longer wants to live as equals, but would prefer to be a "benevolent dictator" (his words, not mine). The philosophical mindset of the household is now different due to the changing cast, and we will soon be looking for another new housemate on top of that. Plus, my partner and I will be moving in 6 months or so because there is literally no space for raising children in this household.
The ideals and values that made this living situation worth the effort for me are no longer givens in this household. Many of my personal deal-breakers have been triggered. And yet, this extra space and time of transition is working to give me more perspective on what it is we were trying and what I was seeking and working towards. After working on it for so many years, I now have the chance to turn around and also see what it is not, and that is good.
I will continue to ponder this one.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Enthusiasm for a Rural Intentional Community
I went to a recent event of like-minded "let's make the world a better place through personal transformation and green activism" folks, many from a meetup.com group. It was hosted by a friend of mine and I went to support her and her work. The focus was mostly on envisioning this year and releasing anything that no longer serves us so that we are free to manifest what we want and need. There was a good turnout, maybe 20 people. The house felt quite full in a friendly way.
Over our potluck supper some of these like-minded folks began talking about how they wished there were an intentional community close by where they could live. As far as I could tell, these were people who are not very close to each other, maybe have met once or twice, but these half-dozen people were all expressing this same desire. There was even a bit of implied "where we could all live together." Several people volunteered information and enthusiasm about various green building techniques.
I am a little taken aback. My ultimate dream is to have pagan sacred space and community on rural land close to the city (and its resources and jobs). I have thought about and studied the logistics of how best to do this for several years now, and it is ultimately this dream that underpins the Time Bank and Incorporation initiatives of this year. If there is to be property, it needs to be bought and owned collectively. Unilateral action leads to authoritarianism, as I have personally witnessed repeatedly. In order for a group to invest in a property, there needs to be a legal structure under which to buy it (recognized 501(c)(3) religious organization, 501-something collective, land trust, etc.) and enough wealth, community spirit, and interest in the community to fund it.
I did join the conversation and offer many of my ideas. I got the impression that most of the people I was talking with are more at the "wouldn't it be awesome if" or "someone needs to" phase of dreaming, and that is fine. I am excited that there is that much latent interest at all. It shows me that there is a resource of interest there that can be tapped and developed.
Yes, I am mostly committed to working in the local pagan community first, and that is because it is my community. We are a (somewhat persecuted) minority together, and I would love to see us thriving. However, I now know that there is interest and enthusiasm among the "let's make the world a better place through personal transformation and green activism" crowd, and that adds depth and ambition to my own visions for how this could all happen.
Over our potluck supper some of these like-minded folks began talking about how they wished there were an intentional community close by where they could live. As far as I could tell, these were people who are not very close to each other, maybe have met once or twice, but these half-dozen people were all expressing this same desire. There was even a bit of implied "where we could all live together." Several people volunteered information and enthusiasm about various green building techniques.
I am a little taken aback. My ultimate dream is to have pagan sacred space and community on rural land close to the city (and its resources and jobs). I have thought about and studied the logistics of how best to do this for several years now, and it is ultimately this dream that underpins the Time Bank and Incorporation initiatives of this year. If there is to be property, it needs to be bought and owned collectively. Unilateral action leads to authoritarianism, as I have personally witnessed repeatedly. In order for a group to invest in a property, there needs to be a legal structure under which to buy it (recognized 501(c)(3) religious organization, 501-something collective, land trust, etc.) and enough wealth, community spirit, and interest in the community to fund it.
I did join the conversation and offer many of my ideas. I got the impression that most of the people I was talking with are more at the "wouldn't it be awesome if" or "someone needs to" phase of dreaming, and that is fine. I am excited that there is that much latent interest at all. It shows me that there is a resource of interest there that can be tapped and developed.
Yes, I am mostly committed to working in the local pagan community first, and that is because it is my community. We are a (somewhat persecuted) minority together, and I would love to see us thriving. However, I now know that there is interest and enthusiasm among the "let's make the world a better place through personal transformation and green activism" crowd, and that adds depth and ambition to my own visions for how this could all happen.
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