Communities #186
Spring 2020
Note: You can order a copy of this issue here.
Following up on our Passing the Torch theme, our new issue highlights cases where intentional communities experience not so much generational shift as total or near-total collapse or disintegration and then rebirth in another form—or when individuals go through a similar process in relation to community. What brings communities and communitarians through difficult times, and helps them reinvent themselves (or not) in response to changing circumstances? How can we, individually and collectively, pick up the pieces once one shared reality disintegrates, and another is needed?
PICKING UP THE PIECES: NEW BEGINNINGS
Notes from the Editor: New Beginnings and Initiatives for Communities by Chris Roth
More Notes in Passing; Relaunch Heroes; Attention Subscribers!
News from Our Publisher: GEN-US
Lessons on the Road to Community Stability by Kara Huntermoon
“Oh, is her gun missing? Thank God!” Fortunately, over six strife-filled years at Heart-Culture Community Farm, lessons learned through such conflicts eventually led to structural solutions.
We Left Our Community but Our Community Never Left Us by Daniel A. Brown
For decades, former members of the Renaissance Community have struggled with often-contradictory feelings of betrayal, regret, nostalgia, and romanticism.
Picking Up the Pieces of the Love Israel Family: Dead or Alive? by Understanding Israel
The Love Family is a tale of caution and hope. Its foundation crumbled, but many of its ex-members are still linked by heart and social gathering and ceremonies.
Counterculture Crossover by Rachel Israel
Adult ex-members of the Love Family had pieces of their former lives to reassemble. For those born into the community, there were no pieces to pick up. Life as they knew it was gone.
Picking Up the Torch by Chris Roth
A collapse can be a blessing, allowing groups to incorporate both old and new lessons as they improve in their ability to address challenges.
Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (and Unpredictable) by Tim Miller
Never underestimate the power of an opportunistic scoundrel to consolidate power, loot a vulnerable community’s treasury, and put an end to its 100-plus-year-old history. The demise of the Harmony Society holds lessons for us all.
Putting the Hermitage Back Together by Johannes Zinzendorf
Following this modern-day Harmonist community’s breakdown, its founders realized that it was time to start afresh while making their original vision work in a new way.
Common Home Farm: An Interfaith Catholic Worker Community by Laura Lasuertmer
I spent much of the last year saying the words, “I can’t do this,” while simultaneously calling the planning department and organizing fundraisers. Doubt and determination wrestled for my attention.
Dinosaurs, Asteroids, Gardening, and Community by Chris Roth
How does one pick up the pieces when one’s most cherished activity and the circumstances that allow it are taken away?
The Hope in Breaking by Laura Killingbeck
When I left The Branch I no longer existed as a coherent person; but rather, as a group of fragments that didn’t make sense. So every day I wrote until the stories made sense again.
The Last Punks of Dupont Circle by Bryan Allen Moore
For someone whose home intentional community has disintegrated into a culture of apathy and disconnection, a larger sense of “community” can be the only redeeming grace.
Pondering Pareto: Understanding Group Population Dynamics by Walt Patrick
A community’s most productive individuals comprise a smaller minority the larger a group becomes. When its governance system fails to protect them, productivity plummets and the community dissolves.
● Seeking a Viable Alternative
Creating a solid set of bylaws makes it possible for a community to weather an organizational crash, pick up the pieces, and continue.
The Journey Home: From Ennui to Ecstasy by Josh Wolf
We each carry within us a unique history of unresolved traumas that we can only heal from, and learn to rise above, by letting them come to the surface and resolve.
The Land of Misfit Toys by Dan Schultz
What do we do when things fall apart? We keep practicing and living the principles that inspired us to want to become more fully human.
Personal Resilience for Community and Planetary Resilience by Hannah Apricot Eckberg
Our personal and collective traumas get locked deep in our bodies. Shared in a group, holistic mind-body healing practices can help us pick up the pieces and move forward again.
Picking Up the Pieces at Fiji Organic Village by Philip Mirkin
By 2017 our ecovillage was shattered—devastated by disaster, deserted, with only fragments remaining. How would we begin again?
The Future of Cohousing in America: The Case for Certification by Chuck Durrett
The success of cohousing rests on six definable principles. When a “cohousing community” fails, it has invariably failed to employ some of these principles.
Change, Challenge, and New Directions in Cohousing by Karen Gimnig
To overcome the barriers (financial and otherwise) that keep cohousing from being more widely available and accessible, it’s time to question our assumptions and embrace new approaches.
Why I Left Cohousing by Carolyn Schlam
Members of a cohousing community may have a shared wish to commune, but this does not mean that they will commune, will want to become friends, will be more than…well, just neighbors.
The House of Rebels by Cheryl Gladu
The genesis of La Maison des ReBelles, an affordable collaborative housing community for women 55 and older, shows that social justice issues require a systemic approach.
Belonging and a Life in Service: Remembering Nathan by Kara Huntermoon
The death of a community member gives an opportunity to mourn and celebrate a unique individual whose life was about family, place, community, social change, and love for others.
What Does It Take to Break with H(er)story? by Joan McVilly
My own story, my former community’s story, and the stories of so many people around me reflect what is happening and needs to happen for the Earth.
Excerpted from the Spring 2020 edition of Communities (#186), “Picking Up the Pieces: New Beginnings.”