A Bad Dystopian Novel

Found in the Daily Planet archives, dated April 31, 1984

USA 2020—a review

by Jim E Olsun

First time novelist, Peter Parker, has produced one of the most outlandish pieces of fiction of the year. While USA 2020 is certainly an imaginative work, it stretches credulity past the breaking point by throwing in disaster on top of disaster and imagines a year where the president of the United States is a failed businessman, casino operator, and former TV star who attempts to use the office to make himself into the type of dictator more often found in Latin American countries and spends his time sending crazy messages to the public who apparently carry personal computers in their pockets disguised as mobile phones. (I am imagining the author intends this as some type of satire.)

The book has five gigantic wildfires sweeping across California and three burning through Colorado, so many hurricanes cropping up in the Atlantic Ocean that the meteorologists run out of people's names and have to use Greek letters, and a derecho (I had to look that one up—it's a rare windstorm) devastating much of Iowa and Illinois. The book also has multiple killings of Black men and women by police culminating in over 10,000 protests throughout the summer. A whole novel could have been written about any of these horrors but to claim that they all occurred in one year is way too much. There is even the mention of something called “murder hornets”.

Yet this doesn't even approach the biggest disaster facing the various people caught up in this insane imagining of a year in this country. The author actually throws in a plague-like pandemic which virtually shuts down the nation (and most of the world) and makes it completely unlikely that half of this stuff would occur. Then the author throws in characters who claim that the pandemic is a hoax and refuse to take measures to ensure their safety even as hundreds of thousands die around them.

To top all of this off, there is a presidential election that is unimaginable, won by career politician who barely campaigns. Although he is your typical presidential figure, his wife is a college professor who insists on being called Doctor and intends to keep her career rather than settling into being a first lady, his vice president is not only a woman but born of immigrant parents from Jamaica and India, and her Jewish husband refers to himself as the “Second Gentleman”. (The author certainly subscribes to political correctness) Although they win both the popular and electoral votes, the sitting president (who comes across as an out of control narcissist) refuses to acknowledge this and incites his followers claiming that the election was stolen through voter fraud.

This leads to the most unbelievable part of the novel, as it ends with a mob breaking into the Capitol building wearing fur and horned helmets and carrying spears and a Confederate flag, running around trying to find the vice-president so they could hang him while members of congress hide under their desks. Just the idea that so many people could just break into the US Capitol, one of the most secure buildings on the planet, with that much ease is simply highly unrealistic.

I am giving this book a C+ rating, only because it is a first attempt and is so highly imaginative, if equally improbable. My suggestion is that the author focus on only one disaster at a time in his next book. A year that had that many things go wrong in it is obviously impossible.

 

The Wrong Kind of Darkness

 Yeah, unfortunately, I have abandoned this blog.  I was pleased to notice that I did post last year at this time and I am still at the farm, rather isolated, in rural NY.  The isolation has proven to be a blessing with the pandemic that arrived earlier in the year.  I'm with some wonderful people and we don't have to isolate with each other, since this farm is its own kind of bubble.

I have been talking, almost every year, about the life giving blessings of darkness, and I still think that it's true.  The dark frames the light and allows many wonderful things to grow and come to fruition.

But there is another kind of darkness--the kind that you use to hide nasty things in.  You can be blinded by the light as well as blinded by the dark.  It seems that there are more and more folks trying to use the darkness to hide their misdeeds, to obfuscate and confuse, to claim that reality is "fake news" and then claim that truly fake news is reality.  I don't need to say any more.

I often joke that this is the time of the year when the monsters and ghouls come out and when you don't know if you will get a trick or a treat--and, of course, I'm talking about election day.  I am hoping that this election day will begin a real change, but whatever happens, we will still need to continue doing the work.  The real change doesn't begin with voting--although that, hopefully, will remove a major obstacle to change--the real change happens with the work that we do to create another world.

Most of my work these days is on the Commune Life blog--and now, with a strong push from Theresa, on our Facebook page. (Ouch--I'm on Facebook.  Now that's scary.)  

Let's continue doing the work each of us is doing to build the world we know is possible, and that includes confronting the parts of the darkness (and the light) that impede transformation.  May the blessings of darkness be with you.

Into Yet Another New Year

While I haven't been posting here, I haven't been idle.

I've been cleaning and cooking for and shopping for the commune I live in, getting involved with local groups, recovering from a stupid and scary injury that was entirely my fault, working on compost, helping with growing projects until the growing season was over, and I even wrote a three part fantasy story for which I am working on the last chapter. 

Most importantly, as of today, I am taking back control of the Commune Life  blog. I will return to the intensive schedule of having something out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

I just got back from an Assembly of communes in southern Missouri and it made me want to be more involved with the Federation of Egalitarian Communities.  And I visited East Brook Community Farm and that made me want to build connection between them and Cotyledon, our community.

So, I have much to do in 2019.  I cannot imagine getting bored with my life.  I just wonder how I ever did stuff and worked for a living, too.  I certainly don't think of myself as 'retired', it's that I no longer get paid directly for the work that I do.

And, yes, the times are challenging.   My wish for everyone who reads this is a new year that is better than the old. 

And I hope to write a little more in the new year. Let's see.  As they say, time will tell.

“We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives...not looking for flaws, but for potential.” ― Ellen Goodman

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

The light and the dark again

Yes.  I haven't written in this blog since February.  No.  I haven't died.

I've been busy.

I have been managing another blog,  Commune Life, and that has taken lots and lots of time.  I've also been part of a group that has just started a new community which we are calling Cotyledon.

A cotyledon is the embryonic part of a seed that holds the nutrients for the new plant and bursts out and sends up a tiny shoot with one or two little leaves.  We see ourselves as the germination of the work we have been doing over the past two years in NYC.

And just as the cotyledon develops in the dark and makes its way into the light, our fragile little community is determined to develop into an ongoing commune that will make a difference in the world.

I wish all of you who read this the blessings of both the dark and the light.

Quote of the Day:  "Every moment of light and dark is a miracle. "  - Walt Whitman

Questions

I've talked a lot lately about my view of strategies for social change.  (See my pieces on Strategy, 1/24/16, Now What?, 1/22/17, and TINA is the Enemy, 1/27/17.)  While I talk about the need for activism, I see a lot of my work as being in organizing alternatives, and I really see the importance of the education/consciousness shifting work.  While my work on the Commune Life blog definitely fits into this, I see a need for a lot more work in this area.  I think that education, in many ways, is the neglected piece of the triangle.

As I've been wondering how to work on the education piece, I realize that the real problem isn't a need for more information.  There's lots and lots of information out there.  In fact, maybe there's too much information out there--people complain of information overload.  (This blog, for example, has almost 450 posts.  That's a lot of information to deal with.)  The old rule is to show rather than tell, but I think even better than showing is to engage people's curiosity. If they have to find out the information themselves, they may be more interested and remember it longer.

A while ago, I came up with the idea of throwing out questions.  In this over connected age, it's not hard for people to find answers but my hope is that in looking for the answers, this might engage people better.

I've thought of several ways to do this.  One could be graffiti.  If someone saw a question on a wall, they might be curious about the answer.  There might be places online where you could post questions as well.  We could make these into memes.  There's probably several other ways to get these questions out.  But what questions?  What could we ask that would make people curious, seek out answers, learn and think.

So here's a list of some questions.  This is really only a beginning but may give you ideas about what you could put out there.  Feel free to put these questions out into the world and add others.  I think this could be a great way to engage and educate people.

Here are the questions I came up with:

Who was Audre Lorde?
Who was Emma Goldman?
Who was Sojourner Truth?
Who was Bayard Rustin?
Who was Rosa Luxemburg?
Who was Grace Lee Boggs?
Who were the Haudenosaunee?

What is Civilian-based Defense?
What is Nonviolent Communication?
What is Permaculture?
What is Ecofeminism?
What is the Federation of Egalitarian Communities?
What is Parecon?
What is Libertarian Municipalism?
What is Gross National Happiness?
What is emergence?
What is decentralization?
What was Limits to Growth?

When were the Rochdale Principles written?
When were the Diggers (both the English originals and the San Francisco activists) active?

What did Martin Luther King and Malcolm X have in common?
Were the apostles communists?
Were the Mbuti egalitarian?









What questions would you ask?



Quote of the Day:  "We awaken by asking the right questions." ― Suzy Kassem

Grateful

I'm back--for now, at least.

I've been way too busy with lots of other things and I'm just now having a bit of time. 

I've just finished one of my other blogs completely.  I've ended the story at Lagoon Commune--with a display of gratitude--and a hokey ending. 

I've also been spending lots and lots of time managing a blog focused on income-sharing, egalitarian communities entitled Commune Life.  Since there are new posts every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I've been very busy making deadlines.  And this continues.

And, today is a day to be thankful.  So I want to say what I'm thankful for.

First of all, I am thankful to be alive, to be able to enjoy my life, to be here and experience life's joys and sorrows.

I'm also very glad to have so many people to share my life with.  I'm grateful for close friends, here in NYC and in New England and Virginia and California.  You know who you are (I hope) and I love you all.

I'm grateful to be living in community.  I will be celebrating the day with the many folks I live with.

I'm grateful to be part of building community--particularly through Point A and Commune Life.

And I'm very grateful for this earth, for the changing seasons, and the trees that send me oxygen, and the compost that builds and renews the soil.

And I'm grateful to be able to work and write and make compost and walk and bike and be physically active.  I hope it will continue for a few more years at least.

I hope to be on this blog a little more frequently now but if I'm not, I hope it's because I'm busy doing stuff that (maybe) will make things a little better.

Quote of the Day:  "Joy is a heart full and a mind purified by gratitude."  - Marietta McCarty

It's alive! And communal!

So, just to make my life more complicated, I am taking on one more blog.  In addition to this blog, and my very silly blog about a fictional commune in an unnamed Green Mountain State (which may give you some idea about how silly the blog is), I will be part of a crew that will start a blog focusing on egalitarian income sharing communities, called Commune Life.  I am going to be one of the main editors.

The scope of the blog is on anything about living in income sharing communities.  The structure of the blog is that we will have a new article focusing on communal living every Monday, a photo essay featuring an income sharing community every Wednesday, and a previously published article (from various blogs--including mine) every Friday.

If you follow the link above and go to the blog now (like anytime in April, 2016), you will find a note saying “NOTHING FOUND”  (their caps).  The blog doesn’t start until May 2nd.  But please come over and check us out in May.  Here’s your chance to learn all about communal living.  And there will be pictures.

Quote of the Day:  “Communards are not immune to the range of human experience of birth, death, love, loss and the like. People have still ended up hurt, sad, and lonely. We are far from perfect. It is important to remember that perfection is not the goal. Progress is.” - Cel Free Farm

Social Alchemy, Social Change, Social Transformation--A Review

I want to start the new year with a look back and make some clarifications.  For people new to this blog, I want to explain what Social Alchemy is, why I write so much about communities, and why I sometimes veer off into things like chemistry and spirituality.

First of all, Social Alchemy, as the title of this post implies, is another way of saying social change or social transformation.  I think that there are lots of problems with this society and believe there are better ways to live.

I’ve joked to people that my hobby is “rebuilding the world from the ground up.”    I started this blog, as I point out at the top of the sidebar, to offer “Some Tools for Creating a World that Works for Everyone”.  I view, as I’ve mentioned several times in this blog, intentional communities as laboratories for social change.  And when you’re thinking about rebuilding the world, looking at everything, from chemistry to spirituality, makes sense.  As it says at the bottom of the sidebar, “It's all connected... it's all connected... it's all connected…”

Much of what I’m going to write from here (in this and in the next few posts) is a rehash of stuff I wrote about early in this blog--some of it, back in 2008 when I started the blog.  (You can also find this stuff in the two zines that I published if you want--see my note at the very top of the sidebar about Bodhisattva Revolutionaries and Social Alchemists.  I still have a few copies available if you’d rather read this stuff in print rather than online.)

So how do we create social change?  How do we transform a society?  I don’t think that there’s any one answer but the most useful framework I know is what I learned from being in the Movement for a New Society in the 1980s.  There we began by looking at Analysis, Vision, and Strategy.

During the 1970s I was involved with a lot of personal growth stuff--including something called Neurolinguistic Programming.  I remember John Grinder at one point saying something like he thought that you could anything if you only could see clearly what was going on, had a very definite picture of what you wanted, and were willing to try many different things.  When I thought about it, I realized this was an example of analysis (analyzing the situation),  vision (picturing what you wanted), and strategy (trying different things).

Recently, I was looking at The Transition Handbook, by Rob Hopkins.  The book is divided into three parts which he labels Head, Heart, and Hands.  Head is an analysis of the situation we find ourselves in, in this case focusing on peak oil and climate change.  The Heart section is subtitled “Why having a positive vision is crucial”.  And the Hands part is focused on the Transition process, ie, their strategy.  Again, analysis, vision, and strategy.

So, this social change process is going to be the focus of my next three posts, one each on Analysis, Vision, and Strategy.

Quote of the Day:  “What does the global justice movement want?  What is our vision, our picture of an ideal society and economy?  When we say ‘Another world is possible,’ what kind of world are we talking about?

“The global justice movement is diverse.  It ranges from union leaders who want to secure a fair share of this economy for its members to old-line Marxists, to anarchists, to indigenous communities struggling to preserve their traditional lands and cultures.  No one picture of the world can describe all the different viewpoints.  No one vision may actually serve this tremendous diversity.”  - Starhawk

My Top Four Learnings

So what have I learned from all these communities?

If I was going to build a new community (and I do hope to build a community here in NYC soon), I would love to have a place that combined the Radical Sharing from Twin Oaks, the No Blame Philosophy of Ganas, the Clearness Process that they use at Acorn, and the attitude of Openness to Experimentation that seems to hold at Dancing Rabbit.  I think that using these four things could help start an awesome community.

I know that there’s lots of other useful stuff on these lists, and I’m not sure that’s all that I’d use in creating a new community, but that’s where I’d start for community building.

I hope that you’ve found these lists useful as well.  As I said, each of these communities has been around for over twenty years (and in the case of Twin Oaks, almost fifty), so I’m sure there’s a lot that can be learned from each of them

As far as I’m concerned the most useful part of this exercise was focusing what I could learn from each community rather than worrying about what didn’t work.  Every community has some things that don’t work but I think it’s important to focus on what we can learn from each one. It’s easy to get caught up in the negatives of a situation, and not notice all the good things that are being offered.

Quote of the Day:   "The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn is unconditional love, which includes not only others but ourselves as well." - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Dancing Rabbit: Ten Learnings

I was only at Dancing Rabbit for one three week visit, but there were a bunch of things that impressed me.  Here’s my list of things anyone could learn from DR:

1. Commitment to Ecological Living Everyone at DR follows six Ecological Covenants and they’re pretty strict about it.
2. Openness to Experimentation They have a wide variety of housing from immaculately constructed strawbale and earth-bermed houses to fanciful domes and old school buses and grain silos.  They talk about the fact that they are “housed in a variety of living arrangements, eat a variety of foods, and work on varied projects.”  They also talk about being flexible, and they are.
3. Land Use Planning  I attended a workshop on their land use planning (see my post on Land Use Planning, 5/31/13) and it was fascinating.
4. No Flush Toilets At least no water based ones.  Although almost all of the toilets at DR are humanure (see my post on Humanure, 1/10/13), the The Milkweed Mercantile (see #10) has a more conventional looking toilet that is actually a composting toilet.  At DR nothing goes to waste.
5. Skill-Based Classes in Visitors Program  The numerous workshops (see my post on Thoughts as I Leave Dancing Rabbit, 6/14/13, for a list of them) were all focused on things you need to learn to build an ecological community.  Great for anyone who wants to become a member there, but also really good for anyone interested in building community anywhere.
6. Women’s and Men’s Groups  Important and helpful.  I participated in a men’s group while I was visiting DR and found it very useful.  I mentioned this in my post on Some ‘Software’ Tools, 10/23/15.
7. Work Parties  In addition to all the skill based classes they hold for visitors, they also have work parties where, in addition to practicing skills, you help build needed stuff there.
8. Four Communal Cars  That’s it.  Four.  For 70 people.
9. Connections with Very Different Local Communities It’s cool that Dancing Rabbit, an ecovillage with a variety of lifestyles shares the small town of Rutledge, MO, with an agricultural income-sharing commune from the 1970s (Sandhill Farm, see my post of 6/8/13) and a community that is basically a patchwork of homesteads (see Red Earth Farms, 6/4/13).  The three communities cooperate and work with each other and they are only 40 miles away from another, quite different community: the Still Waters Sanctuary (also known as The Possibility Alliance, which I wrote about on 6/11/13) which they also occasionally cooperate with.
10. Ecological Inn  The Milkweed Mercantile is a strawbale constructed building powered by solar and wind with a café and general store and a couple of very friendly inn-keepers.  Since Dancing Rabbit hopes to eventually be a small town, this inn is one of their early businesses.

Next: My top four learnings from this series…

Quote of the Day:  “Dancing Rabbit is an intentional community. That means that we are a group of people working together toward shared goals. … The communities movement is a rich subculture, emphasizing creative approaches to living, cooperative systems and culture, and deliberate consideration of the impact on others (and often the planet) in how we live our daily lives. - from the Dancing Rabbit website

Acorn: Ten Learnings

I’ve been to Acorn several times during the last three years, for two or three weeks at a time, and I’m always impressed with the energy and creativity of the place.

1. The Clearness Process This is related to but different from the Quaker process.  At Acorn this is a way to make sure that people are ‘clear’ with each other by checking in with every member.  I think it’s pretty effective.
2. The Seed Business  Acorners run Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, which is a company focused on selling heirloom seeds and ecologically grown seeds.
3. Young Energy  While there are some folks there in their forties, fifties, and sixties, there is a significant clump of folks in their twenties who bring a lot of ideas and enthusiasm and willingness to try new things.  
4. Consensus Decision Making  I’ve heard folks complaining that consensus is difficult to do in groups larger than a dozen and that it’s not done in newer communities (they’re talking about anything not formed in the sixties and seventies).  Acorn has thirty members and was formed in 1993 and makes all decisions by consensus--and has done very well with this.
5. The Rec Collective  A cute little building where someone put six bunks on the wall to house short term folks.  (See my post on Becoming MoonRaven, Sleeping Submarine Style, and Other Tales from the Communes, 3/21/15.)
6. The New Seed Building  This houses SESE and has all the offices and packing and picking facilities.  Plus it has a gorgeous mural that was created with help from members of the Little Flower Catholic Worker house. I think it’s a great looking building (and the photo shows the building, mural, and a bunch of Acorn members).
7. Goats & Pigs & Chickens & Dogs & Cats & Rabbits  If you like animals, they have them at Acorn--all of the above plus a lonely cow that wandered into the place and they house with the goats.
8. Using Bamboo  They planted bamboo as a privacy screen and it got out of control (as it often does).  As a result, they’ve used bamboo to create all kinds of structures, from canopies above stages to bike sheds.
9. More Options for Non-Members   Where most places just have visitors, and Twin Oaks has two categories: Visitors (who are in a structured visiting program) and Guests (who are people hosted while they’re there by members), Acorn has both of these plus Interns (who stay for longer periods) and Associates (who are semi-members that are at Acorn part time)
10. More Open to Non-Member Involvement  Acorn is also more flexible about what non-members can do.  For example, at Twin Oaks, only members are supposed to be able to use ‘Commie Clothes’, but at Acorn, it’s open to visitors, guests, etc.

Next, ten learnings from Dancing Rabbit

Quote of the Day:  "An egalitarian, income-sharing, secular, anarchist, feminist, consensus-based intentional community. Supporting radical sharing, positive communication, compassion, consent culture, sustainability, and anti-oppression activism. Living free of hierarchy and coercion." - Description of Acorn Community from their website

Twin Oaks: Ten Learnings

I’ve been through two three-week visitor programs at Twin Oaks and then guested there for nearly a month.  I’m almost always inspired by all that they’re doing.

Here’s ten things I think any community could learn from Twin Oaks:

1. The O & I Board This is a set of hanging clipboards which is one of the main methods of communication at Twin Oaks.  Someone puts out a proposal and other people comment on it.  Members read these faithfully to know what’s going on and these highly influence decision making.
2. Radical Sharing  If it can be shared, Twin Oaks will try to figure out a way to share it.  Income, cars, tools, workshops, musical instruments, clothing, bicycles, among other things.  
3. Public/Private Options   For clothing and bicycles at least, TO allows you to share or not share.  If it’s public, it’s maintained by the community.  If it’s private, you need to maintain it.
4. Separate Building for Visitor’s Program  At Acorn and Dancing Rabbit, I stayed in tents when I was visiting.  TO has a building (Aurora) just to house visitors, so all visitors stay together in comfortable quarters
5. Visitors as Small Living Group  The visitors all arrive together and are encouraged to see themselves as a little mini-community.  Many of the houses at Twin Oaks are thought of as ‘Small Living Groups’ (and a couple of the houses have two different SLGs), so TO suggests visitors form a temporary SLG while they are there as a way to experience community.
6. Lovely, Big Dining Hall  TO has a spacious central dining facility known as Zhankoye (or ZK).  They also use it for parties and celebrations.  It’s a focal point for connection at the community.  They try not to do too much business stuff there and have one table devoted to having fun conversations (also known as ‘the fun table’).
7. Diversity of Businesses Unlike Acorn (with its seed business) and Ganas (with their thrift shops) TO has a true diversity of ways they bring in income: hammocks, tofu, tempeh, indexing, ornamentals, wholesaling seeds for Acorn, and contracting services (and probably a few I’m not aware of).  They started off dependent on hammock but have really decided not to put all their eggs in one basket.
8. Music!  TO also supports member’s creativity.  As far as music goes, I mentioned that they have public instruments anyone can practice on.  They also have many bands and groups, including lots of rock bands, singing and choral groups, and (until recently) even had a community klezmer band.
9. Organized gardening  The community has many greenhouses and gardens and has regular gardening crews.  They grow a large percentage of their food.  Pam (the garden manager) has written a book on Sustainable Market Farming.
10. It’s the oldest, most successful secular egalitarian income sharing community in the US  I often start talking about TO by mentioning the myth that all those communes from the 60s are long gone.  Started in 1967, they have around 90 adult members and 15 children and a waiting list to get in.  I think they are an example of what a community can look like after nearly fifty years of evolving.

Next, ten learnings from Acorn.

Quote of the Day: “Bumper Sticker for an Income Sharing Community:  ‘My other car isn't mine either’ “ - From the Twin Oaks website

Ganas: Ten Learnings

This list was the start of this series.  I was thinking about what positive things you could learn from Ganas (after living here for a bit over six months) and without thinking too much about it I came up with ten things.  Here they are:

1)  Openness to Dealing with Conflict and experience doing it Conflict is going to happen at any community but I’m impressed with the fearlessness they have about dealing with it at Ganas.

2)  A No Blame Philosophy Ganas likes to think about problems and solutions to them, rather than trying to figure out who’s to blame in a situation

3)  Abiding by just four rules On the Ganas website they claim: “Since we deal with problems daily in open discussion, we are able to limit ourselves to only 4 rules:

1) Non-violence to people or things; 2) No free rides (everybody is required to work productively or pay their expenses); 3) No illegality (including illegal drugs); 4) This rule requires that people bring their complaints about the community or people in it to the group, where the problems can be discussed and resolved with the people involved. The reason for Rule 4 is that the community suffers when negativity is presented as non-negotiable fact in private or public venues.

People breaking one of these rules will be asked to leave.”

4)  Visitors Dinner  Every Friday night they invite visitors to come and talk about themselves and ask questions about Ganas

5)  Residents Dinner On Wednesday nights, Ganas holds a forum during dinner where people can talk about issues.  They often use a ‘question bowl’ where people write down a questions they have and one is pulled randomly from a bowl and discussed.

6)  Regular Birthday Celebrations  This is a major fun activity at Ganas.  When it’s your birthday, you can design the festivities and Ganas will try to accommodate.  (Limitations apply, naturally.)

7)   Food Chain  Every Tuesday night dinner is interrupted by this community building activity.  It makes me really feel part of a cooperative effort.  (For more on this, see my post Food Chain! on 4/27/15.)

8)  Courtyard/Gardens/Inter-house Layout  From the street, the Ganas buildings don’t stand out, but there are non-obvious walkways between them in the front and a big shared yard and gardens behind them.  It’s very well done.

9)  Businesses  The clothing, furniture, and book stores are all pretty different from one another and yet very similar.  As someone pointed out, these all focus on recycling as they sell donated and used items.  The businesses are part of the commercial area of the ‘North Shore’ of Staten Island, and so connect Ganas to the larger community.

10) Most successful community in NYC New York is the largest US city and while it has many little collectives and cooperative households in it, as far as I know this is the largest, longest running secular community in the city.  They’ve been here 35 years, have more than 70 folks, have a long waiting list, and seem to be going strong, all in a challenging urban environment.

Next, ten learnings from Twin Oaks.

Quote of the Day:  “Our purpose is to bring reason and emotion together in daily problem solving, in order to create our world, with love, the way we want it to be.” - from the Ganas website