In and Out of the Dark

My life has become so strange. I can't believe that I was a New York City resident for four and a half years, and I can't believe that I now live on a little farm in the western foothills of the Catskills. Instead of looking at street corners and skyscrapers, the view around here is of trees and hillsides.

I was a bit scared when I was coming out here that I would feel really isolated, so far from public transportation and urban amenities. I am a city creature, having spent most of my adult life in Cambridge and Somerville (aka Camberville) and most recently Staten Island and Queens. I spent quite a bit of the bus ride out here looking at my fears and trying to face them.

But it has been great being here.  I love the folks that I am living with and they have been helpful in trying to think about how I can get around.

I am living here to continue to live in community.  The tiny urban commune that I had been living in for nearly two years is no more.  The three of us finally decided that it wasn't working for any of us and dissolved it.  Ironically, the commune that I am now in is an outgrowth of the work that I did with Sarah and Kevin five years ago,  and Sarah has been a major support for me here.

And, yes, I have all but abandoned this blog.  I am putting all my energies into the Commune Life blog.  I have several ideas for posts here, but I am not sure when I will have the time or energy to write them.  But, since I have been most faithful about writing at this time of the year, I decided to put a little extra time and energy into at least writing this post.

I hope that anyone who reads this reaps the gifts of the darkness. May you face your fears and grow from them.  Happy (belated) Halloween.  Happy Samhain. Welcome to the darker days.

With darkness closing in

I haven't completely abandoned this blog, but close.

I am currently living in our very small commune in Queens, sharing income, cleaning, shopping, and cooking, going to meetings, and writing fantasy stories. (More on this in a moment.) And I am once again writing a post for Commune Life--once a month.

And waiting with fear and trepidation for the next election.

This is the time of the year that I almost always write a post.  Pagans call it Samhain, Mexicans and others call it the Day of the Dead,  and lots of other people call it Halloween, but under any of those names it is about darkness, decay, and death.

For me, it is a time to look at my fears and face the fact that things are always going to fall apart. That's just a part of life.

I should probably be doing more important things than writing fantasy stories, but doing it is very satisfying, even if no one is reading them.  I'm considering publishing them as a blog, the way that I did with Lagoon Commune.

And now that I am back with Commune Life, I want to see it grow, even if I am not the one running it any longer.  Maximus, who is running it is mostly using it to display his videos and the actual blog part of it has only had two posts in the last two months, both by me.  I have some ideas of how to change that, but I will need to run them by Maximus.

And our little commune will be a year old in less than a month, and there is still only three of us at the core.

Everything is uncertain but it seems like this is the best time of the year for uncertainty.  I am trying to embrace the darkness. It isn't easy but it seems appropriate. Not knowing is honest and just how things are. It's trying to pretend anything is certain, or that I can be certain about anything, that is the dangerous path.

I invite you to embrace uncertainty and enjoy the darkness of the season. It will pass, but right now it is closing in.

Quote of the Day: "It's not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share." - Pema Chodron

Ten Years!

Ten years ago on this date, I posted my first piece on this blog. To celebrate and to see how much I have changed in ten years, I want to examine everything that I wrote there and look at it in relation to how I am now.

First, it was the summer solstice; this year the solstice is tomorrow. It happens. I decided to go for the calendar date rather than the event to publish this.  Does that make me a bad pagan?

I said I wanted to change the world as a teenager and still did when I wrote that post. And now I still want social change. (The natural world works fine, as long as we work with it.  It’s society that needs to change.) But I wouldn't say I want to change society. I would say I want to be part of changing this society. It's definitely a group effort.

I am still influenced by all the identities I’ve been, and there is still a little of the teen in me (even at nearly sixty-seven), but I no longer identify as a revolutionary (partly for the reasons I outlined in my last post, and partly because, having studied history, I think revolutionaries seldom change more than the people in power).  As horribly new agey as it sounds, I’m more of an ‘evolutionary’ these days, a slow change person. I also don't think of myself as much of a theorist these days either. As to what I am politically, I’m probably mostly a communist anarchist or egalitarian communitarian or whatever the current equivalent is. I want sharing and equality and community.

And these days, I neither do co-counseling nor meditation. I sometimes do empathy sessions.   I am most influenced by Compassionate Communication (aka NVC) and permaculture, and live in a tiny income-sharing community in Queens, NY.  I suspect I couldn't imagine living in New York City ten years ago, but here I am. At least I’m finally doing the kind of community that I have wanted for a long time. I just wish I had more people to do it with.

I wouldn't change a thing in that next paragraph. “Any change… has to be built from the ground up and it has to be a cooperative, community effort.” Yes. Absolutely.

I am still filled with plenty of ideas. (I’m currently writing a fantasy novel and working on it every night.) And I am still looking for people. I am dragging myself out the door to the Ranch, to the urban farm in the neighborhood, to the composting operation in the city.  And I am trying to find the balance between doing too much and doing too little. These days I have faith that if I can keep going and can be patient long enough, I will find the right folks.

The rest of the post talks about what I wanted to do with the blog. Here’s what I want to do now. Recently I’ve been posting once a week. Now I want to take a break.

I’ve done ten years of posting and four hundred and sixty-one posts (including this one). I am not done. I still want to write about mushrooms (as opposed to simply fungi) and human physiology (hormones and kidneys and bones and blood) and whatever else that comes along which I think would be useful, and I think I want to reach five hundred posts.  But it’s summer and I want to do things. There will more later.

I ended my first post with a quote from the Dalai Lama, “My religion is kindness.”  In my last bunch of bleak posts, I’ve said again and again, the one thing we can do is be kind. Yes, I would say my religion is kindness. Kindness and compassion and love.

I used to have a word or phrase of the day and a hero of the day. My word of the day was ‘Relocalization’ and I still think it's a good one.  My hero was Audre Lorde and she is still a hero of mine. And so I will end with a quote from her.

Quote of the Day: “...I do think that we have been taught to think, to codify information in certain old ways, to learn, to understand in certain ways.  The possible shapes of what has not been before exist only in that back place, where we keep those unnamed, untamed longings for something different and beyond what is now called possible, and to which our understanding can only build roads...” - Audre Lorde

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

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

Doing the Work

Thomas Edison made the point with his quote:  "Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration." 

I'm sitting in a community now that is struggling with some financial issues.  A bunch of visitors and newcomers have all these great ideas for new businesses and making money.  They are more than happy to tell us what we should do.

The problem here certainly isn't a lack of good ideas.  The problem is (and I don't just see it in this community but in lots of places in communities and social change situations) that ideas are easy.  But things don't happen because someone has a good idea.  Things happen because there are people willing to do the work to make them happen.

I've heard a story from Twin Oaks about the solar panels that are near a community entrance.  The community gets a certain amount of its energy from them.  The story is that they are there because one member wanted Twin Oaks to have solar panels and proposed it, and then met with the people who had problems with this, and reformulated his proposal, and then dealt with those who had difficulties with the new proposal, and kept on and on doing this for months.  He finally came up with something that everybody was okay with and then they were able to get these solar panels. 

I've heard this called 'shepherding the process'.  You take responsibility for making it happen, you talk with folks, you work with folks, you do what you need to do so that it gets done.  This is a lot more work than just putting out an idea, but this is what makes things happen.

A related thing that I've noticed is visitors coming to dinner at the community that I'm in now and wanting to talk about how the community works as we're trying to clean up after dinner.  If you want to make a good impression on a community that you're visiting, offer to help.  They may not need it, they may not want it, but it will be noticed.

There are those who come up with the ideas, who can expound on how communities can work and how we need to change the world, and there are those working to build communities, to keep communities going, and to create a better world.  Obviously, I'm part of the former (this blog is an example of that) but I also try to be part of the latter group.  I want to see change happen and that means that I know I need to do the work to make it happen.

Nothing is going to happen without the willingness to work.







Quote of the Day:  "Grace happens when we act with others on behalf of the world." - Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown

Thank You Power

I’m currently working in a bookshop (part time, mostly to have a little spending money).  I’m not sure how good an idea it is; it’s a little like hiring a kid to work at a toyshop.  There are so many books and so little time.

I found this book, Thank You Power (by Deborah Norville), in the dollar bin at the store.  There isn’t a lot in it to distinguish it from a lot of similar books.  (I think Brené Brown is one of the better writers in this area and I should review her Spirituality of Imperfection someday.)  But it’s a great reminder of the importance of gratitude, has a bunch of scientific studies that back this (and all sorts of other positive stuff) up, and has some pretty good quotes.

Here’s one about how the best way to be happy is to do things for other people (and there are a lot of studies that show this):  “Happiness is a by-product of an effort to make someone else happy.”  (Gretta Palmer)  The converse of this is that directly pursuing happiness is a sure-fire way not to achieve it.

Another way to achieve happiness is to do meaningful work, especially stuff that inspires you.  The quote for this one is: “If you observe a really happy man, you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias or looking for dinosaur eggs in the Gobi desert.  He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that had rolled under the radiator striving for it as the goal itself.  He will have become aware that he is happy in the course of living life twenty-four crowded hours of each day.”  (W Beran Wolfe)  Pretty true (if you ignore the sexist assumptions in the quote.)  I think, of course, that the best way of all is to do meaningful work that makes a lot of other people happy.

Finally, perhaps the key thing that can really bring happiness is being thankful.  To everyone and for everything.  It’s an important and often neglected practice.  And that’s why I bought this book.  Even though it may not be the best written book I’ve read, gratitude is the main focus of Thank You Power.  

Being grateful, constantly appreciating others and life, changes us.  We can’t be reminded of that too often.

Quote of the Day: “What if… the secret to happiness was within each of us?  What if a lasting sense of completion, an enduring sense of completion, was possible--simply by changing the lens through which we viewed daily life? …

“Here’s the good news: you’ve got the power right now. … That power begins with two words: thank you.” - Deborah Norville

Back to Normal Time

A while ago I decided that the old year ended at the Winter Solstice and the new year didn’t begin until January 1st.  The period in between was, for me, a time out of time.  A special, magical time.  Not quite accidentally, this is the period of all the Christmas lights and holiday decorations.  This year it’s also my time away from Staten Island, NYC, Ganas, and Point A and my time back in the Boston area with my family and friends:  I left NYC on December 21st and I’m returning on January 2nd.

Interestingly enough, last year I left Massachusetts on January 1st, 2015, for Virginia and to join Point A, so this also marks the end of my first year working with Point A.  It’s been quite a year, including three months staying on the Virginia communes, hanging out with my Virginia cousins, and making Point A trips to Washington, DC, and Baltimore, as well as NYC--followed by nine months now living in NYC and organizing there for Point A.

The new year will bring a good many things and many of them, I’m sure, will be unexpected.  I’ve just started on my organizing in NYC and I’m hoping that some of that will come to fruition this year.

As a beginning to the new year and as a refresher for folks who haven’t read this blog from the beginning and might be wondering what Social Alchemy is and why I write so much about intentional communities (not to mention chemistry, systems theory, personal growth, spirituality, agriculture, survival stuff, ecology, and many other random things), I plan to spend my next few posts covering my take on social change theory and how it fits together with a lot of the other things that I cover.

In the meantime, I’ve had a wonderful time out of time and it’s time to plunge back into whatever passes for normal time for me.

Quote of the Day:  "This is a new year. A new beginning. And things will change." ― Taylor Swift

A Tale of Another Two Cities

I’m currently staying in Somerville, MA, my old stomping ground, instead of Staten Island, NY, where I currently live.  And I’m thinking about my life shuttling back and forth between two major cities on the east coast of the US.

I’ve talked a bit about my strange feelings about being a New Yorker now.  (See my post, The New New Yorker, 4/21/15.)  It’s a bit weird for me to go back and forth between the Boston area and New York City, but I still do it.  And each place is different.

Boston is what I call a colonial town with reminders everywhere about pre-revolutionary days.  NYC is skyscraper city.  I mean Boston has skyscrapers and New York has early Americana but history is much more predominant in Boston and gigantic new buildings are what dominate in New York.

Boston is The Hub, the ‘Athens of America’, filled with universities, and hospitals, and high technology.  NYC is the Big Apple, the largest city in the country, home of Wall Street and Madison Avenue, high finance and advertising and the fashion industry.  Personally, parts of New York really scare me--especially midtown Manhattan which seems to vibrate, where things are constantly flashing at you (especially, especially Times Square).  

Both cities are walkable and bikeable and have fairly good public transportation.  (Although the T in Boston shuts down at 1am.)  But Boston seems more human sized and New York can seem overwhelming.  There’s a lot to explore in both places and a lot to recommend both places and some pretty wonderful people in both places.

I like taking the Red Line across the Charles between Boston and Cambridge (or biking across the Mass Ave Bridge) and I like taking the Ferry at night and seeing Manhattan and Jersey City lit up--and, of course, the Statue of Liberty--and looking down the hill from Staten Island across the bay to Bay Ridge in Brooklyn.  Both places feel a little like home right now.

Even though I’m living in NYC now, I grew up around Boston and lived much of my adult life here and I imagine (although I can’t know) that someday I’ll come back and start a community here.  Meanwhile, I’m enjoying what both places offer.  I might as well take advantage of the situation.  It’s just what I have to deal with now.

Quote of the Day:  “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” ― Jane Jacobs

Some ‘Software’ Tools

In my last post, I talked about the need for communities to deal with the ‘software’ (people and relationships) as well as the hardware.  I still hear a lot of people who are planning community worrying about things like money and property more than how they will find and keep community members.  But I think that many communities never succeed because they don’t have the people power.  In my last post I also mentioned a community attempt that had all sorts of great stuff, but basically consisted of two people, a couple.  I personally know of at least two other situations just like this, where a ‘community’ with great ideas was basically a heterosexual couple and having difficulty growing beyond this.  My sense is that there are hundreds of situations like this, where there is either one person or a couple (and I know of at least one situation where it was a gay male couple).  Lots of them have great ideas and even the know-how to do the hardware.  But how do you go from ideas to community?

I’ve recently been reading a book on Twin Oaks, Living the Dream, by Ingrid Komar--one of three books on the community and the only one not written by Kat Kinkade (a founder).  While this isn’t my favorite book on the subject, I did notice that Ingrid Komar devoted a chapter to ‘The Many Support Systems of Twin Oaks’.  One reason that I think Twin Oaks (and other long term communities) do well is that they provide support for their members, ‘software tools’ so to speak.

Twin Oaks has lots of support systems, as does Acorn (especially their clearnesses but they also use transparency tools and parties and games) and Ganas (which focuses on ‘feedback learning’ but also has lots of birthday parties and the occasional NVC or transparency tools group) and Dancing Rabbit (where they talk about ‘inner sustainability’ and have women’s groups and men’s groups among other things).  I will focus on tools used at Twin Oaks, Acorn, Ganas, and Dancing Rabbit because these are all places I’ve spent some time at and all of them have been running 20+ years and all seem to be going strong.  And they all use some of these tools.

Here’s a list of some tools.  This list isn’t comprehensive but it should give folks who are interested in building communities some idea of what’s available to help with people and relationships. Take this as a beginning, and know that there’s lots more stuff available.  Remember: you can’t build community without people.  It sounds obvious, but I have seen so many places where folks were worried about everything else.  And then they wondered why no community was happening.  Maybe the most important thing is to support and encourage people and to have fun.  If you’re dour and intense and discouraging, I don’t think you’re going to succeed.

• Listening  I think this is the first and most important tool.  I believe even that if you only are able to listen well to each other, it will take you a long way.

• The Clearness Process  I’m referring to the Acorn version where people check in with each other to make sure that things are okay between them.  Simple but very useful.

• NonViolent Communication   It’s more than the four step process that many people learn first and it begins with the desire to really understand and connect with another.

• Re-evaluation Counseling This is a good basic tool for peer counseling, although the organization behind it is rather strict about how you do it.  There are also alternatives.

    

• Twelve Step Groups  Again, a peer approach, this one primarily useful with addiction and dependency issues, but really looking at the human condition.  (Like it or not we are all more powerless than we care to admit.)

    

• The Seven Habits  I’ve written in extensively in this blog about the Seven Habits, ending with the posts Synergize!, 9/15/11, and Sharpening the Saw,  2/21/12.

• Transparency Tools  This is a collection of techniques for getting to know people better.  It may simplistic, but often it’s more revealing than expected.

 

• ZEGG Forum This comes from the ZEGG community in Germany and is a process that has influenced many communities, including Ganas and the Network For a New Culture.

• Conflict Resolution Not a tool but a variety of processes to work through conflict, including mediation, NonViolent Communication, Restorative justice, and Restorative Circles

• Parties/Dances  Having fun is important.  Parties, dances, etc, let people relax and interact--often to great music.  Why would you join a community where no one has fun?

• Games  Another way to have fun.  Games played as a group--both competitive and cooperative--can help build community.  These can include team sports, board games, and role-playing games.  Ultimate frisbee is popular at Twin Oaks and Magic and Dungeons and Dragons are often played at Acorn.  I think the game Pandemic is a great community building game.

• Team Building  Games (as above) but also specific exercises and particularly the experience of working on a project together can be very community building.

• Women’s Groups/Men’s Groups  They have these at Dancing Rabbit and Twin Oaks and are helpful building safety as well as cohesion.

• Other Identity Groups  Particularly for social category that’s a minority within a community (queer folks, people of color, etc) having a group restricted to folks in that category can, again, build safety and cohesion.  You want to avoid an us vs them mentality but use the groups to build strength to work within the community.  Sometimes fishbowls are helpful to help others outside the group learn what it’s like for people within the group.

• Spiritual Practices These include prayer, meditation, chanting, Sufi dancing, Jewish and Pagan Rituals, Quaker and church meetings and services, and even humanist/agnostic gatherings.

• Discussions  Acorn has two meetings a week, the business meeting, and an evening discussion where they pick a single topic and discuss it but make no decisions.  Ganas has had some success with a Residents Dinner where folks ask questions and the group tries to answer it.  What’s important is that these aren’t business meetings.   People just get to hear each other talk about things they think are important.

• Intentional Community Organizations  There are a bunch of these including the FIC, FEC, the Cohousing Network, GEN, NASCO, and Point A.  I’ve also written about the phenomena of Communities of Communities, 6/9/12.  Because even communities need social networking.

• Group Works  A deck of cards with each card giving info on a different group process.  You can use them systematically to learn a whole lot of group techniques or randomly for inspiration.

As I said, this is far from all of the possibilities.  Perhaps it’s only a beginning.  But I’m hoping it’s a good place to start, particularly if you have a group focused on all the ‘hardware’ of community building and ignoring the ‘software’.  

Quote of the Day: “The biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation -- or a relationship.” - Deborah Tannen

Quoth the Raven

I know.  I’ve been neglecting this blog.

I’ve been focusing on other things, some useful (doing work here at the Ganas community and work on the Point A project for example) and some sort of useful (reading even more about chemistry and biology) and some not so useful (reading webcomics like Girl Genius, Skin Horse, and the awesome Kimchi Cuddles).  I've also been keeping my other blog (Lagoon Commune) going but I’m about to put that on hiatus for a while (or perhaps indefinitely) both because of low readership and because I want to focus on other things--like writing for this blog.

Meanwhile, my name has been mutating.  While I’m still officially MoonRaven, I’ve been going more and more simply by Raven.  It sounds a little less outrageous--at least to my ears.  (A friend informed me today that Raven still sounds weird.)

All in all, life is good.  I’m happy (I think of that as a decision), I’m enjoying life here, and I’m doing the work I want to be doing.  What more could I ask for?

Quote of the Day: "To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else." - Emily Dickinson

The New New Yorker

Well, I’ve settled down.  In New York City, of all places.

I was talking with my brother on the phone and he was wishing me the best with my new community life at Ganas in Staten Island.

“Just promise me one thing,” he said.  “You won’t start rooting for the Yankees.”  (I think he was kidding.  I think. It wasn’t hard to promise though--I can’t imagine rooting for a team that wears pinstripes.)

I’m having trouble believing that I’m now a permanent resident of the Big Apple--the city that never sleeps, the largest city in North America.  It wasn’t where I planned to be and a big part of me is still wondering what I’m doing here.

I was involved several years back with someone who grew up in Brooklyn and I listened to her stories which to me seemed a mixture of the exotic and the familiar all at once.  Familiar because so much literature, so many movies, so many TV shows reference New York geography.  Now many of those places are part of my life.

I’ve been traveling all over the city. A few weeks ago we were doing stuff in Long Island City (sometimes abbreviated LIC--and LIC is part of Queens).  Then a couple of weeks ago, I met with a woman in East Harlem that wanted to buy property in the South Bronx.  Last week I met with another woman over in Bushwick, which I now know is part of Brooklyn.  After that I visited a food co-op in the East Village in Manhattan.  And this week I’m planning to visit a co-op house in Bed Stuy, which is also part of Brooklyn.

Daily I walk up the hill here  on Staten Island and look down on St George/Tompkinsville and across the Upper New York Bay over to Brooklyn.  The night sky of Virginia has been replaced with the lovely lights of Staten Island, Brooklyn, and once in a while, Manhattan.

And I get to take the marvelous Staten Island Ferry, passing the Statue of Liberty and with views of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Governors Island, Jersey City, Bayonne, and Staten Island.  The few times I’ve taken it at night is when I’ve gotten to see the the lights of all of these place reflected in the dark waters.

I’ve learned or figured out all sorts of strange things.  There are five boroughs here--most people know that--but only one of them, the Bronx, is part of the mainland.  Manhattan is an island, Brooklyn and Queens are part of an island, and, of course, Staten Island is an island.

One morning we were talking about a part of the Bronx even many folks here hadn’t heard of: Spuyten Duyvil, the place where the Hudson River meets the Harlem River.  Someone said it meant “Spitting Devil” in Dutch. (Wikipedia says, “Spouting Devil” or “Spewing Devil”.)  It’s strange things like that that make living in New York so interesting.

And now, one of the things I’m doing is that I’m busy figuring out how to establish a New York City residency.  It turns out I live here.  I really do.  Go figure.

Quote of the Day: “Other places may give you a sweet and soothing sense of level; but in New York there is always the feeling of ‘Something's going to happen.’ It isn't peace. But, you know, you do get used to peace, and so quickly. And you never get used to New York.” - Dorothy Parker