Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Off to Missouri

As I said a couple of posts ago, I won't remain settled in Boston for long.  (See Life Erupts, 5/1/13)   I've gotten into the visiting program that I applied for at Dancing Rabbit and I'll be leaving Boston Sunday, May 19th (less than two weeks from now) and getting to Missouri the next night.

While I've talked about this before (see my post on Communities of Communities, 6/9/12), I'm going to recap my community info so you don't have to look so hard.  If you do want more info on this, you should look up that old post. Dancing Rabbit (DR) is one of three intentional communities in the small town of Rutledge, MO--Sandhill (a small income sharing community that's been in Rutledge since the 1970s) and Red Earth Farms (a homesteading community that split off from DR and is located right across the road) are located nearby.  But DR, with 70 or so members, is by far the largest.

I'm going to DR, first of all, because I want to learn how it works. Along with Earthaven in North Carolina, it's one of the best known rural ecovillages.  I also want to see and understand the connections and cooperation between the three Rutledge communities.  What I've seen makes me think of the way that Twin Oaks, Acorn, and Living Energy Farm work together.  I've seen that first-hand, now I'm going to get to check out how they do it in the 'Show-Me' state.

While I'm out there, I may also visit the Possibility Alliance, a community forty miles away in La Plata (which is also where the train station is).  I haven't arranged that yet so we'll see if that happens.

Meanwhile, I'm learning to take life as it comes and not plan too much, because I'm never quite sure what comes next.  And so the journey continues...


Quote of the Day: "...it seems to me that knowing where we are going encourages us to stop seeing and hearing and allows us to fall asleep....
"Not knowing where you are going creates more than uncertainty; it fosters a sense of aliveness, an appreciation of the particulars around you....
"The truth is that we are always moving toward mystery and so we are far closer to what is real when we do not see our destination clearly." - Rachel Naomi Remen

2 comments:

Turil said...

I wish you well in your journey (both the mental one and the physical one)!

I was looking into some of these places, since I'm getting desperate and really don't want to be homeless again. But I just don't think I could deal with other people telling me what I can and can't do. I'd want to be there at the start the community, so I'd know that our goals were shared and in line with my own goals.

For example, most places aren't vegan, and one (the one down South) kills rabbits as a part of their business! Also, many seem to be focused on money, rather than health.

And that's just for starters. I have spent so much time researching healthy growth, that I really know pretty well what it takes to make a healthy community, and these places probably wouldn't be open to changing to be better, at least not dramatically.

I am definitely looking much more seriously for a farm that's been abandoned, either due to death or some other reason, to be donated so that I can start a non-profit community resource exchange space, where there would be artists and scientists in residence working directly with the local community to serve everyone's needs and improve everyone's lives, freely. It's a great idea, I just need to connect with the right people! :-)

MoonRaven said...

Good luck to you as well in your community search. Please keep me up to date on how it's going.

May you find what you're looking for--and soon!