Search

The article offers information on the sociocracy, a new method of governance and decision-making for communities. Topics discussed include requirements for learning sociocracy and effectively using the same; seven parts of sociocracy such as circles and double links, a clear domain and clear aims for each circle, and feedback loops built into every proposal; and requirements for sociocracy met by Rocky Corner Cohousing, a forming community near New Haven, Connecticut.

The article offers information on the Yarrow Ecovillage, a sustainable community located in Yarrow, British Columbia. It states that the community is designed to provide a combination of cohousing, sustainable living, and farmland preservation. Particular focus is also given to the design of cohousing site.

The article talks about managing unavoidable conflicts that rise within a community after interpersonal interactions among people . Topics discussed include ideologies of author Frederic Laloux regarding living in a community as given in his book "Reinventing Organizations", practicing the Zegg Forum in community, and taking advice from parties regarding whom the decisions are being taken.

An interview with young adults including Noah Davidson, Hunter Stevens, and Matt Kaplowitz who grew up at the Lost Valley Intentional Community in the U.S. is presented. When asked about their living conditions at the community, Davidson refers to going out and playing like magician Harry Potter, with their magical powers. Stevens mentions that he learned to communicate well with others while living in the community. Kaplowitz states that they had joined the workshops of skits and dancing. INSET: HUNTER'S RESPONSE.

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience of shifting into a house in nearby Eugene, Oregon from a community living.

In the article, the author reflects her thought on consensus practices in most of the intentional communities. She mentions that consensus practices can not be used as optimal governance or decision-making method for fostering greater harmony, trust and connection in communities. She suggests that systemic consensus the sociocracy governance and decision making system.

The article presents some suggestions, ideas and considerations to wealthy people for cultivating the neighborhood and building communities. It suggests an early and open discussion of class, money and power dynamics stories with others for community development. It reports that allowing others to make proportionately similar financial commitments is helpful in building community. It informs that it is important to get to know people over time in a community.

In this article, the authors discuss about the personal empowerment and responsibility in building a community living. They mention that in new culture people do not live together, but as a part of an extended tribe people need to be connected with intimate and powerful ways. They mention that the objective of new culture should be creating a sustainable world based on love, freedom and community. They further share their experiences of culture summer camps.

The article presents the author's views on the sociocratic governance system in Lost Valley in Maine which can be viewed as a form of social permaculture that has helped the community thrive both socially and economically. She mentions that the community has valued cooperation over competition, equality in decision-making and expressions of affection more than economic profit. She also notes that one of the aims of sociocracy is to encourage groups to apply self-regulation and accept feedback.

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experiences while other several elders within the Global Community Communications Alliance (GCCA) as the author commemorates her fellows who had contributed to the goals of GCCA in service among the elders.

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience while living in an international community of elders at the age of 53 at Lost Valley Educational Center in Eugene, Oregon.

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experiences way back in Ohio while the author had served in an assisted care facility for the elderly.

The article offers information on activities related to community organizations. It includes a forum for people who are considering funding or have helped fund community projects. Another is offers details about Entropy Pawsed, a nature-linked low energy living demonstration site in rural West Virginia. It also includes the search made by Terrasante Desert Community for resourceful people who want to build a community in a vegetated land.

The article discusses the challenges faced by progressive communities in the Rural South like the Spiral Garden in Tallahassee, Florida. The author mentions that the challenges they faced often comes from people who live and border their community in all directions which have different cultures and values. He affirms that their sense of security in the area is being threatened by incidence of theft, vices and killings in the area.

The article focuses on the community life of Hopi in Northern Arizona. It states that the Hopi occupied their traditional villages for almost 1000 years with familial and inter-familial ties spanning generations. According to the article, the Hopi family is known and connected to every other Hopi family, in which each clan has memory explaining each individual's place in the family, clan and even tribes.

The article offers information on the journal's "Reach," a column for all classified needs. It denotes the column is intended to help match people looking of communities with communities looking for people. The article also presents announcements and calendar of activities of various communities published within the "Reach" column.

The article offers the author's insights about the Currumbin Valley Ecovillage, a sustainable community located in Currumbin Valley, Queensland. The author talks about the community developer Chris who died in a freak accident in December 2013. Details about the community's land area, number of bird species, and awards received are provided.

The author talks about his experience of community living. He is the incoming executive director of the Fellowship for Intentional Community (FIC). He says his first experience of community was when he visited his half-brother at East Wind Community in Missouri. He cites that he started community living at the Twin Oaks cohousing community in Virginia with his father. He also talks about his recruitment for the FIC Board, and the evolution of the landscape of intentional communities.

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience of visiting Sandhill Farm, an income-sharing community in northeastern Missouri.

The article discusses the author's experience of being a resident of a community who was instrumental in the formation of the Anderson Valley Foodshed Group to create a healthy, vibrant and local food system in Anderson Valley, California. She relates that she was part of the campaign to ban the growing of genetically modified crops. She narrates that the group organized programs to encourage people to eat food which was grown within 100 miles of their home.

The article discusses the author's experience of being a writer who traveled to various communities in the U.S. and experience living in an economically, sustainable community. She relates that she was able to sleep beside a wood-pellet stove in a homeschooling classroom during her stay at Oberon House in Kimberton Hills, Pennsylvania. She narrates that she also participated in various small business endeavors such as harvesting of lettuce and baking bread and cookies to be sold in community.

The article discusses the author's experience of being a resident at the EcoVillage in Ithaca, New York. She narrates that their community organized an energy task force who address issues of Peak Oil and emergency preparedness during disasters. She relates that their community built a root cellar with the use of earth bags for the stocking of bulk produce. She points out that for other supplement the residents make bulk-buying arrangements with local farmers for their eggs and meat.

The author reflects if work exchangers in communities are worth the effort. She asserts that work exchangers are worth the effort because her interaction with them helped her to be less judgmental, be in touch with her truth and improved her ability to communicate with her needs. She credits the community for the self-growth opportunities and life enhancing experiences presented to her.

The article features several experiences of temporary residents in different communities. Nathaniel Nordin-Tuininga, is enthusiastic on his interaction with Lost Valley and their personal growth program helped him learn more about himself. La'akea Community in Hawai'i helped Ron Laverdiere to be truly honest with himself in all aspects. Michael Tchudi of Emerald Earth community in northern California, finds the community's policies on interpersonal interactions challenging.

The article announces the sale of several real estate properties related to community living, in the U.S. For those who want to live in a small traditional village within a private park with acres of woodland, interested parties can help plan Caer Coburn, a traditional village based on cohousing and international community. The Eco-Farm located at Plant City, Florida offers a family farm working to create a sustainable community.

The article provides information about community organizations in the U.S. The Aquarian Concepts Community was founded by Gabriel of Sedona & Niann Emerson Chase in 1989 with 105 adults and children. Elder Family Community is looking for financially secure adults who had experienced with cooperative groups. The Enota Mountain Retreat is looking residents for service-based spiritual and educational retreat.

The article focuses on the impact of decline of energy resources on community life. Initiating an ecovillage is the primary and elusive challenge to get for the coming of energy decline. As the economy declines, a number of businesses will seriously shut down due to expensive services. Therefore living in an intentional community which makes the people less dependent on the distinctive energy resources and commercial products of normal life. INSET: Resources for Learning More About Peak Oil.

Presents answers to queries about conflict in community in the United States. Ways a group can create and maintain a strong structure and still have flexibility for changes of life energy to flow; Problem with a long-timg member who often blocked or threatened to block proposals which almost everyone else wants.

Focuses on the risks and rewards of joining a cohousing community. Sense of purpose, security, emotional support and sense of belonging; Aspect of the physical design or community life; Differentiation of site plans for cohousing communities.

This article reports on the architectures at the Beaver Run, a Camphill Community for children with developmental disabilities in rural Pennsylvania. One'll find some sculptures, for example, the one outside the schoolhouse which resembles the bones in the inner ear. A large labyrinth can also be found, which was created with stones and sand and mulch last May during a festive gathering with other Camphill communities. Music is the main goddess of the arts at Beaver Run, and it's usually live. The morning begins with a tune on a recorder or other wind instrument to wake everyone in each of the residential houses. People sing together at morning and evening circle time as well as before every meal, with seasonal songs during the many festivals celebrated during the year.

This article reports on the construction of wooden sculptures at the New View Cohousing community in Aaon, Massachusetts. The Owl peers out of the weeds a few hundred feet uphill from the entrance to the community. It has a heavy tree-stump body, yellow eyes, and wings of beige and light blue. It is simple, symmetrical, and looks almost Native American in design. Clutched in rusted steel talons is a carved wooden mouse about two feet long made by a local welder. The owl stump is the remains of an ancient maple that dominated the entrance when the community first built New View. That precious maple was dying, and had to be cut down so kids wouldn't get hit by falling branches while waiting at the bus stop.

This article reports that the primary focus of the Arts in Medicine (AIM) program at Shands hospital in Gainesville, Florida is to bring the arts, music, dance, theater, writing, and visual arts, to patients at this university-related medical center with patients from all over the southeast. The community spend so much time together, both at the hospital and supporting each other in a variety of social and artistic endeavors, that by all definitions, except that their houses are scattered throughout the county and beyond, the community might as well be considered an intentional community. When an AIM staff member or volunteer gets sick or suffers any loss, the community springs to life, home-cooked food is delivered, dogs are walked, aging parents or spouses are cared for.

This article presents information on the problem faced by Sophia Community, a small urban community in Chicago, Illinois, while recruiting its members. Sophia Community was formed in 1993 by four young women who had all spent a year doing volunteer work in inner city Chicago neighborhoods and living with Catholic nuns. For the first three years, every new member came after living for a year with the nuns and was known to other members through mutual friends. The community originally occupied two floors of an apartment building, but four years ago moved to a large old house owned by the Religious Society of Friends. The community offered to manage the building and its guest business without employees, in return for living in the house. However, several of the current residents of the house wanted to continue living in the house, so they applied for membership in the community. This was the first real membership challenge for the community. INSET: Sophia Community's Membership Requirements.

This article reports on the Art Night held at the ZEGG community, the Center for Experimental Culture Design, in Belzig, Germany. It was after midnight, and the huge sheets of white paper on the floor of the assembly hall are gradually filled with ideas and images. A bottle of wine is uncorked, three musicians improvise, a dancer joined them. Eighty people live and work together at ZEGG community. To fulfill their vision of a culture characterized by cooperation, trust, and love, they experiment with various forms of communication and interpersonal transparency. While they are not specifically a community of artists, art plays an important role. Art, music, dance, and theater are sources of joy for them.

This article presents instructions on art projects that one's community can do. Open community meetings with story-telling, like folks do at Mariposa Grove in Oakland. Invite a dance-experienced community member or outside dance teacher to offer waltz lessons, then waltz around the dining room to the tunes. Using melodies from favorite songs, write new songs with lyrics that embody one's community's history, values, and mission. Match up the arts and crafts that various community members can teach with those that other members want to learn, from knitting to whittling. One should sponsor an artist in residence to work with members to envision and create permanent art that is meaningful to the community's vision, values, or goals.

This article reports on how the Goodenough Community also known as the American Association for the Furtherance of Community, practices the idea that creativity is community. The community recently celebrated its 35th anniversary as a multi-residential community in the Greater Seattle area in Washington. The core membership is approximately 35 people with another 70-100 associates, members, and friends. The community believes that the core of creativity is to express one's self, especially through visual art, music, movement and dance, play, and ritual, including the so-called learning games. The community expressed all of these arts a few months ago in a learning game at True Holidays Festival, which the community celebrate every December as a way to unify the community and reach out to others in the area.

This article reports that at RoseWind Cohousing in Port Townsend, Washington, art in the common areas of the community is both a delight and a bone of contention. To outsiders, RoseWind seems very artistic. Visitors invariably comment on how creative, unique, and interesting the common spaces are. On the front porch of the Common House rustic tree trunks form columns, polished granite tiles line window sills, and the railings at the north end have whimsical cut-outs in the vertical slats, even recognizable silhouettes of certain residents. On cither side of the hearth in the dining room, green, blue, and amber bottle ends embedded through the walls glow with light from outdoors.

This article focuses on the roles people play in the community. Roles are being played out within the community all the time, but people don't usually think about them. Taking time to notice what roles people in the community are playing can bring more awareness and more peace into individual lives and the lives of the groups. Most people tend to interpret someone else's actions as due to their personality. But the reality is that roles or self-identities emerge at the intersection of individuality and groupness. Roles are an expression of individual psychology, but they are equally an expression of a particular group's culture, needs, and timing. A role occurs in the mix between the various identities people carry in themselves, and the social categories people move in such as race, age, social class, etc.

Describes the community life at EcoVillage in Ithaca, New York. Estimates on the total number of members in the community; Details of the community-supported agriculture farm, West Haven Farm; Activities for the family during summers. INSET: About EcoVillage in Ithaca.

Features the communal living at Lost Valley Educational Center in western Oregon. Strategy of members in balancing personal and work-related needs with the needs of larger group; Establishment of interpersonal atmosphere within the community; Kinds of concerns tackled during the Community Purpose Circle. INSET: About Lost Valley Educational Center.

Features the La Caravana, an international mobile ecovillage in South America. Efforts of La Caravana in teaching permaculture and sustainability in Latin America; Variety of challenges faced by the group on their travel to remote indigenous communities; Description of the daily life in the Caravan. INSET: About La Caravana.

Relates an author's experience in building an ecovillage in Marquina, Bolivia. Difficulties experienced in the process of starting the ecovillage project; Programs spearheaded to meet financial needs; Recommendations for those who are interested to start their own ecovillage projects.