Communities #195
Summer 2022
Note: You can order a copy of this issue here.
Issue #195, “Place and Planet,” looks at how individuals and communities relate to their local places and to the larger world. Stories explore back-to-the-land experiments, restoring fire to local landscapes, the relationship of place to self and to culture, returning land to its indigenous inhabitants, and spreading lessons learned in place to the wider world. Authors also share reflections on intentional communities research, a new cohousing book, and the makings for community success. Please join us!
PLACE AND PLANET
Letters By Stephen Wing, Jenny Chapin, Anonymous, Amy Donohue
Readers contemplate living in the present, memories of Twin Oaks, dealing with challenging behaviors, and a novel use of the word “expeditious.”
Notes from the Editor: Place and Planet, Unplugged By Chris Roth
What are the distractions that keep us from connecting to both Place and Planet?
Standing in the Fire (actually, lighting it) By Abeja Hummel
The sad irony is that a bunch of clueless white settlers are here trying to bring fire back to a landscape that is painfully out of balance, because 200 years ago the native people were forbidden to burn.
● Notes from a Parched Land
Sense of Place and Land Back in a Transient Culture By Rachel Freifelder
What if settlers and refugees truly honored the sovereignty of the original peoples of this land, rather than of the conquering power? What if we imagine the land had it never been stolen?
Community Building in Paradise By Graham Ellis
Some changes are predictable; others we didn’t foresee. Over three decades our location has transformed in unimaginable ways that have severely affected our lives.
Back to the Land in Maniac Valley By Simon Fairlie
Maniac Valley was naive and often shambolic, but it left me in no doubt that having secure access to land is the best way to keep the rapacious treadmill of consumer capitalism at a distance.
Dandelion Seeds By Sylvan Bonin
“Weeds” are pioneer plants whose ecosystem function is to cover bare soil and revitalize depleted soil. Many of the people who come here then leave to go to the hard places to do the difficult work.
● Dandelion Seeds (poem)
● This Land Is Not Your Land
Building Bridges / Nishenanim nisek hum k’awi / This is our Homeland By Jacque Bromm and Deanna Bloom
When we step onto the pine-needle-laden creek trails so bountiful in our neighborhood, what steps preceded ours on this trail?
On Placemaking and Butterflies By Daniel Greenberg
I highly value living in place and creating deeper relationships with our land and our neighbors, and I also highly value living in places and building bridges and a sense of global citizenry.
My Story As Told By Land By Chris Roth
Is it possible that the land—meaning the entire ecosystem in which we are embedded—is the single most powerful force in shaping who we are and how we experience the world?
● Lessons in the Leaves
Finding My Place By Laird Schaub
Our lives used to depend on a well-developed sense of our local environment. Yet few people today are that aware of the place where they live.
A (Small) Step In The Right Direction By Jim Senka
A multi-year restoration project aims to preserve or reestablish the natural aspect of approximately one acre of Pacific Gardens Cohousing’s five acre property.
50 Years of Rainbow Gathering Neo-Tribalism By A. Allen Butcher
Even in the midst of bartered chocolate bars, Rainbow culture is a continuing re-creation of the gifting and sharing culture, available to anyone to observe and enjoy today.
Researching Intentional Communities: A Reflection By Kirsten Stevens-Wood
Allowing researchers into one’s community is an act of generosity and trust. It is a risk that intentional communities take surprisingly often, and one that (hopefully) benefits everyone.
Creating the Ideal Community By Sahmat
Some of the communities I’ve lived in valued highly the “Sense of Community,” and some did not—and that has made all the difference.
● Our Community Self and the Identity-Shift
● The Beloved Tribe Blueprint
● The Ideal Community Workshop
Review: Collaborative Happiness: Building the Good Life in Urban Cohousing Communities By Denise Tennen and Sharon Villines
Catherine Kingfisher’s stories from Kankanmori in Tokyo, Japan and Quayside Village in Vancouver, Canada offer vivid portraits of the plusses, potential pitfalls, and diverse approaches possible in the cohousing life.
REACH
Notes in Passing: Communities’ Place on the Planet, Five Decades On By Paul Freundlich
Contradicting the usual ethos of journalism, Communities was about participants documenting what worked and what didn’t; a journal of cooperative learning.
ON THE COVER: Photographer Graham Ellis’ daughter and her friend walk along the half-mile trail across the 1955 lava flow next to Bellyacres’ property. “It took pick axes, sledge hammers, hundreds of wheelbarrow loads of red cinders, and thousands of hours of back-breaking work to complete the project over several years. We built two platforms on the walk overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and conducted two weddings out there. The lava trail gives us and visitors a sense of place—right in the midst of Madam Pele’s creation.” (See article, p. 18.)