Commune Dramas

I often joke that all these utopian communities that I’ve heard folks dream up would work great if they didn't need to be filled with people. When someone can't figure out why it’s so hard to start communities or why so many fall apart, I want to just say, “It’s people!”  Communities are made up of imperfect people. It's the only kind of people I know of.

We recently had a visit from a leader in the communities movement. He and I spent a couple of hours going over some of the turmoil roiling through various communities. He made some remark about all the ‘commune dramas’.

Even more recently, I was on call with members of the Federation of Egalitarian Communities. (The good news is that our little commune, Cotyledon, is now officially a Community in Dialogue with the FEC. It was approved of with Guinea Pig noises. I’m not making that up! Who says that communards don't have a sense of humor?) We spent more than a half hour of that call talking about just some of the conflicts and problems that were going on at a member community dealing with some serious issues. When it was finally decided that we had talked through stuff as much as we could and figured out what kind of support the FEC could bring to the commune in question, we decided to turn to other business and the woman facilitating the call announced to a completely different community, “I should make you a certificate for being the ‘Community with the Most Problems, Spring, 2018’.  You could put it up on your wall.” (Again, humor. Very necessary.) We then launched into a discussion about some of the many difficulties that this other community was dealing with.

Commune dramas happen (and dramas happen at co-ops and cohousing communities, although not as often and intensely since people at those communities aren't as intimately involved) because you have lots of very imperfect people trying to work closely together to do some really tricky stuff.

On top of that, even the most isolated communes have lots of people going in and out and these people bring all of the problems of society (competition, scapegoating, racism, patriarchy, privilege, homophobia, intolerance, sensitivity, judgement, etc) in with them. Communes are always struggling with the question of who they will accept and who they won't and when to ask someone to leave and what behaviors can be tolerated (or not).  If you limited communities to only people who have it all together, they would be empty. As a result, there is lots of struggle and lots of drama at the communes. Given that, it's amazing, when you think about it, that a community like Twin Oaks could last more than fifty years (and it's still going). I think that’s an an incredible victory.

I have little illusions that  communes are all wonderful utopias.  I see the myriad problems that they deal with. I’ve seen the dark side of communal living.  It comes with the territory.

So, when you hear me go, “Rah! Rah! Community!”, know that it's because I believe strongly in what they are trying to achieve. Yes, in many ways they are poor vehicles for social change. But I don't know of anything better.

Quote of the Day: “Folks have found their own level after the first years of being overwhelmed.  Some of them have been disappointed with the lack of emotional intimacy, while others, especially teens, have felt uncomfortable living in a fishbowl.

“At times, most of us have probably asked ourselves, ‘What am I doing here?’--a question, I believe, that arises from a complex calculation of time and energy spent and one’s tolerance for conflict.  Sometimes I’ve asked myself, after a difficult confrontation, why I should put so much of my life energy into something that seems, at the time, to give back little. Yet I’m sure that at other times each of us has surely declared: ‘I can't imagine living anywhere else!’--a response to the very personal exchanges that make living in community so rewarding.” - Roberta Wilson  

Difficulties, Tragedy, Complexity, and Kindness

I generally try to be optimistic. Optimists live longer, for one thing. And they are more likely to be listened to, for another.

I know a man who launches into a tirade about mass extinction on very little provocation. It doesn't make others want to do anything about climate change; it makes others want to avoid him.

But, as much as I want to be optimistic, I try to be realistic as well. The world isn't going to be the way that we want it to be, the world is the way that it is and it is very complex. There are a lot of wonderful things going on and a lot of worrisome things going on and one doesn't negate the other.

I try to keep a fairly positive tone in this blog but lately I have been thinking about some of the difficulties with social change (social change being the focus of this blog) and I think it's important to talk about them.

As much of a communities booster as I am, communities are far from perfect and acknowledging that and pointing out the pitfalls and difficulties is part of showing what real community (not an ideal utopia) is, warts and all. Knowing the problems with communities doesn't make me want to give up on them, but it makes me appreciate even more how difficult building them is and some of the limitations of communities as vehicles for social change.  I will write more about this in my next post.

Even more difficult to look at is climate change and the ways we are destroying the earth.  This, indeed, is tragedy. The man I spoke of could be right, we could be headed for extinction, or, at the very least, one poisoned planet. And we need to look at that as well--and I intend to in a future post.

And then there's population, which I want to talk about.  And the slow pace of social change, which I may also devote a post to.

There are just so many problems in the world.

I don't plan on tackling all of them in this blog, but I will say that I am grateful for anyone working on any of them.  I do want to acknowledge three in particular that I don't intend to write a post on at this point, but I think are particularly difficult and troublesome.  These are racism, male domination, and economic inequality.

More than fifty years after the civil rights movement began, black men are still being shot by police, and being incarcerated at horrendous rates.   Recently, two black men were arrested at a Starbucks for asking to use the restroom and, even more recently, three African-American women were stopped by the police as they were moving out of an Airbnb because a white woman in the neighborhood saw them and was afraid there was a burglary in progress.  It turns out that there was also a white woman with these women, but she wasn't seen as “suspicious”. Unfortunately, I see articles like this on a regular basis.

Women are finally being heard about the abuse and harassment and exploitation they receive from men, particularly rich and powerful men. Unfortunately, that continues as well. The #metoo movement is exposing a fault line in sexual relationships that has been needed to be looked at for a long time. The communes have been pushing consent culture even before this, but even in the communes, there are a great many problems. As long as men have more power than women, this is going to continue, and changing power dynamics is far from easy, especially when men don't want to give up power.

The point of income-sharing communities is to reduce economic inequality, but I don't see that changing in this society any time soon, either.  In fact, with the current administration, I suspect economic inequality will be increasing. And even if we got it under control in the US, our lifestyle causes poverty and hunger around the world.  And that's hard to change as well.

My question is always, what can we do?  At the very least, we can care. We can live simply and treat others well. Above all, we can be kind--to others and to ourselves.   It's not accidental that my first two Quotes of the Day on this blog were about kindness. As Kurt Vonnegut said, “There's only one rule that I know of… you've got to be kind.”

Quote of the Day: “Love and kindness are never wasted.  They always make a difference.” - Barbara De Angelis

Compost Tea

I made compost tea many years back (probably close to a decade ago now), after reading Toolbox for Sustainable City Living by Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew. (See my post on RUST for a bit about the book.)  I was reminded of this a couple of weeks back when I arrived to do an urban agriculture work day and walked into a mini-workshop on compost tea. The woman providing the information gave the best summary I’ve heard for using compost tea.

“Think of it as probiotics for plants,” she said.

Compost tea is derived from compost but it is used differently.   The main purpose of compost tea is to build up life in the soil. And, depending on what kind of life you want to build up (fungal or bacterial), you brew it differently.   All this is explained in the book, Teaming with Microbes by Lowenfels and Lewis.  Both this book and Toolbox have good descriptions of how to brew compost tea.

On the other hand, the method for compost tea described by Stephanie Davis in her book, Composting Inside and Out, (I talked about the book in my last post) doesn't involve aeration and so it creates an anaerobic ‘tea’, what Lowenfels and Lewis call ‘compost extract’.  If you want the right kind of microbes, you need to aerate it. (For a detailed, fussy description of how to brew compost tea, see this page by ‘The Soil Guy’.)  One way to get aeration is to use one of  those pumps that you aerate fish tanks with.   That's what I used, so many years ago.

It's not something you will need all the time, but if you really want to add life to your soil, compost tea will do it.

Quote of the Day: “The simplest definition of compost tea is: A brewed, water extract of compost.

“Properly made compost must be used…  Compost tea is therefore, a ‘cold brewing’ process, allowing growth of the organisms extracted from the compost.” - Elaine Ingham

The Joys of Compost

I realized at some point that most of my favorite things in the world began with the letters C,O,and M--communes and community, naturally, but also compassion and communication, and,of course, compost.

I sometimes joke (but I’m more serious than you might think) that compost is my religion.   I point out that Hindus and Buddhists think that when you die, you are reincarnated, Christians and Muslims believe that when die, if you are good, you go to heaven, and I believe that, if I’m very good, when I die, I will be composted.

I’ve talked a bunch about composting in this blog, particularly in my posts, Compost Happens!  and Waste. And I’ve written about the reasons composting is so important in my post on Thinking in Circles. When we compost, we mimic the way that the world works.  And there are lots of different ways to compost.

In my “Compost Happens!” post I talked about there being two main ways of composting. I wrote that eight years ago, I wouldn't say that now.

I got out a book from the library called Composting Inside and Out by Stephanie Davis. The subtitle of the book is “14 Methods to Fit Your Lifestyle”.  What's strange is that, even though it also says on the back cover, “Step-by-step instruction for 14 different composting methods”, there is no listing in the book of the 14 methods.  I had to tease them out by trying to look at all the options she provides. As far as I can tell, the 14 methods are:

1. Compost bins
2. Tumblers
3. Three bin systems
4. Digesters
5. Piles or heaps
6. Barrel tumblers
7. Bins
8. Wire mesh
9. Trench
10. Lasagna
11. Humanure
12. Nature Mill Auto Compost Bin
13. Bokashi
14. Worm bins

The first eleven methods are outdoor methods, the final three are for indoor composting.  Also, numbers 6, 7, and 8 cover DIY ways of composting as opposed to several others where you purchase a finished product.

Smiling Hogshead Ranch, where I am now helping out, lists six different ways to compost in their explanation of what the compost committee does (you have to tap on the word Compost), saying, “How much do we love compost? Let us count the ways…”

1. 3-bin system
2. Windrows
3. Leaf mold
4. Vermiculture
5. Bokashi
6. Mushroom composting

(Vermiculture is using worms.  Worm bins basically.)

I’m sure that, even between these two lists, they don't cover all the different ways of composting. The joys of composting are endless.

And, best of all, for me, I get to do a lot of it.

Quote of the Day: “Compost has rewards beyond our imagination. We benefit specifically in our gardens and, less obviously, within our thinking.   … Can composting encourage you to see the world differently? Many compost converts have told me that it has done so for them, and I have to admit it has changed my perspective as well.” - Stephanie Davis

High Spring

It’s the eve of May, a time the pagans in the US call Beltane.

I have written about this before often spelling it Beltaine.  (Which the internet says is the traditional Celtic spelling.)  Whatever the spelling, this is the time of year when everything is bursting into bloom.  It’s high spring. If Samhain, which I’ve written more about, is a time of acknowledging darkness and death, this is a passionate celebration of light and life.

It was a fairly mild winter here in New York City, but it was also cold, raw, damp, and dark.  Spring has been oh so welcoming. As I’ve written, with the collapse of Point A, I had been wondering what to do with myself.  That's not a problem anymore.

Our community, Cotyledon, is connected with a bunch of urban agricultural projects, like Smiling Hogshead Ranch and Hellgate Farm.   There wasn't much to do with them in January and February. Now I need to be careful not to do too much. (See my last post.)

Spring won't last.   One of the reasons I follow the pagan calendar is the reminder that the seasons flow into each other.  Spring will become summer, summer will become fall, and fall will become winter. Beltane is just the opposite pole from Samhain.   Life and death are intimately connected, as are light and dark.

The point is that I am going to enjoy all this while it's here.  Everything is in bloom and it won't last. And I am not getting any younger. I want to enjoy each season fully while I am here to enjoy it.

I hope you are enjoying your spring.

Quote of the Day:  “The most dramatic part of the Beltane celebration was the community bonfire.  People would gather around it, often bringing chairs or stools in order to ‘sit out the wake of winter.’  … The fire was usually lit on May eve - fed by whatever a village could spare - and was kept going until sunset on May 1st.  In general, most people extinguished all fires in their homes on May eve. … In keeping with the old ways, ‘new fire’ had to be brought back into the house from the Beltane flames.” - Bridget Haggerty

Self Care

I guess we all need this kind of reminder once in a while.   I got mine recently.

The first and most important piece of social change is taking care of yourself.   I’ve heard this as the oxygen mask strategy. When you fly in a plane, they inform you that in an emergency, an oxygen mask will descend from overhead, and when it does, you are to put on your own first before helping anyone else.  Really, you can't work on changing anything or helping anyone if you aren't able to function. You are one of the most important parts of social change--whether you are building a community or out in the street committing civil disobedience--and you need to be in decent shape to do this.

My own reminder came after several hours of working hard with others on a compost project--mostly shoveling compost out of piles and into bags.  Like I said, I worked pretty hard and was happy with the job I did, but the next morning I was in rough shape. For anyone new to this blog, in spite of my name, I am not a young woman, I am an old man.  I’d like to pretend that I am thirty but I am well over twice that. And I don't know exactly what I pulled, but I was hurting.

As I said in my last post, I have stopped doing things like Point A and Commune Life--a lot of which was internet work.   I spent much of the winter reading or on the computer. Now that spring is here, I want to be outside doing stuff. But not having done much over the winter, I think I overdid it.

Usually I get away with things like this because I stretch every morning. So there are certainly things that I do to take care of myself. Obviously I need to do more. I need to slow down and pay attention to how I move when I am working. I have not had a very physical life and now there is a bunch of real work that I want to do, and the only way I am going to get to do any of it,is to be careful and take care of myself.

I often support others in focusing on taking care of themselves, first.  Now I get to follow my own advice.

Quote of the Day: “If I wished to defeat those who wanted to use their lives to make a difference, this is exactly the way in which I would go about it.  Few such people would be tempted from their purpose by fame, or power, or even wealth. … I could use their own dedication against them, driving them to work until they became so depleted and empty that they could no longer go on.  I would make certain that they never discovered that blessing life is about filling yourself up so that your blessings overflow onto others.” - Rachel Naomi Remen

The Trip Gets Longer and Stranger

The title of this post is a play on the title of a previous post, A Long Strange Trip, which in turn was taken from the lyrics of a Grateful Dead song, Truckin’.  And I have been putting off writing this post for quite a while now.

One reason is that there are delicate and personal issues involved with the direction my life has been moving in and this limits what I can say here.

What I can say is that I really didn't expect to find myself quite in the situation that I’m in.

On the positive side, I am now living in the income-sharing community that I came to New York City to build and I am building it with a couple of wonderful people (DNA and Gil) who I have known for almost three years now and who are every bit as committed to this as I am.  On top of this, we just got a fourth member who also seems really interested in our community. We're calling the community Cotyledon and it is a real joy being here. (And if you follow the link, you can see pictures of the place, DNA and Gil and me, and Smiling Hogshead Ranch--which I will write a bit more about later.)

The first strange piece is that I came to NYC solely because I was doing this work as part of Point A--and now I am not involved at all with Point A. (This is the difficult and very personal part of the saga that I can't go into.)  I'm also (for related reasons) no longer managing or in any way part of the Commune Life blog--which, sadly, seems to be floundering a bit since I left.  (Or, at least, the posts seem a lot more sporadic.) I would still strongly recommend looking at it, since it has an enormous amount of information on what communes are, how to build them (and how not to build them), and a bunch of information on particular income-sharing communities around the US and around the world (or at least in Canada, Spain, and Israel).

Leaving Point A and Commune Life has been a real loss for me, but with spring here, I am preparing to dive into several urban agricultural projects, some of which are connected with Smiling Hogshead Ranch, which I’ve been slightly involved with for nearly three years (and DNA and Gil are very involved with).  So, in a real way, my losses have opened up space for me to take on these new things.

Another strange thing is that I started working on this community project in New York City after I left working on a rural community farm project in upstate New York back in 2014.  But there are plenty of connections between the two. The guy that I had difficulty with ended up at Ganas while I was living there.  The community farm project did happen and is now called East Brook Community Farm and we have talked about building connections between our community and them.  And, in another strange interconnection, our newest community member is someone I knew from the upstate project.

This may be the strangest part of this trip.  I think I am done with something and yet I find myself reconnecting again and again. I'm learning that I can't say I am completely finished with something. I just don't know. So who knows, I may yet reconnect with parts of Point A or Commune Life.   I’m absolutely not planning on it, but I am learning that I can't know.

Quote of the Day:  “Collaborative groups that last over time reinvent themselves periodically. They may need to change their structure, organization and ways of working as they grow and develop.  They are not static, but dynamic, not artifacts, but living organisms.” - Starhawk