By Joan McVilly
More than ever I’m questioning the whole project of “intentional community.” What is the purpose? Maybe this is why I felt free to walk away from my community despite what I knew could be the consequence. Was I a lynch pin that now sees that community dissolving? What hubris is this?!
At this earth time I do believe that experimenting with different ways of doing things is desperately needed. There’s no point in saying, “This is the way.” Better to say, “Maybe this could be a way, let’s try it,” and then to be willing to learn, to hold lightly, and to LET GO when it’s required. How to know when letting go is required? Will it be a group decision? Unlikely. More likely it’ll be a personal knowing. Personally, this has relationship to The Shadow―what is the fluttering on the edge of my vision? Do I have the courage to look? Or is it the willingness to simply slow down, to consider what I may have previously experienced, to make space in my heart for something other than busyness to speak?
So now here is my story about my journey. I don’t know what relevance this has more widely. Maybe it’s simply a cautionary tale about flutterings at the edge of vision. I believe it’s a positive one although who knows? I’ll have to re-examine that in a few years!
I lived for a decade and a half in non-intentional community in a place that sang (and still sings) to my heart. It’s now threatened by unimagined fire in the “safe” rainforest of southeast Queensland, Australia. But that’s a separate story. Or is it? This is the reality of the huge shift we―humanity―has to make.
Back then, my own little story was simply that I was uneasy, starting perhaps half way through my life in that wonderful place. There was something that wasn’t sitting right with me and I was too afraid to really look at it. What if it was telling me I had to leave this sanctuary I had landed in? What if I had to discover another way of being in the world? I had a small view of what I was capable of, despite my external appearance of competency and contribution and achieving over the odds in managing chronic illness and disability. In finding a place where I could live and contribute to something worthwhile with a small group of like-minded individuals (at the environmental education centre where I worked), I initially felt I had landed in The Place where I would be settled and safe until death do me part.
Of course I hadn’t figured on life happening when I was busy making plans. With the small number of people engaged daily in our project, relationships with human beings, not human doings, ended up being my foremost necessary work, although I didn’t always recognise it then. However, it was early in this time that with my cohort I began my engagement with intra– and interpersonal work through a Gestalt organisational and personal counsellor.
Although in retrospect I can see a web of reasons for my growing discomfort in the (at first) idyllic situation, my response at the time was mainly filtered through fear which froze me where I was. So I kept just doing what I was doing, doing it well, and becoming increasingly miserable. Finally the place itself became suddenly unbearably inhospitable when a severe tick season kept repeatedly loading me with dozens of tiny tick nymphs, wearing down my immune response to the point of exhaustion. I had to escape the toxicity. The way I’ve reflected on it since is that I got “ticked off” the mountain, having not been able to respond to the more subtle messages I’d been receiving.
Whatever the greater meaning or message (perhaps none?!), I had to physically leave the place but retained the doing side of my involvement for some months, through the facilitating internet. After six months of looking, at the point of finding what I thought would be my next “place” in a leafy suburb of Brisbane (literally, two days after making up my bed there), I slipped on my backside and sustained a crush fracture of a vertebra. The shocking in-my-face yell to STOP, ensuing hospitalisation, operations, and long recovery meant I couldn’t avoid making a full break (pun unintended but applicable) from my previous activities. As well as slowing down (a physical reality), I could only partially distract myself from asking difficult questions, such as, “What am I doing?” or more significantly, “Who am I being?”
It was during this time of my back-braced recovery that I recognised anew my desire for community that had been an underlying theme in my travels since leaving my birth home. I cautiously considered living at a particular intentional community, figuring I’d do a few volunteer stints there whilst living securely in a shared (i.e., affordable) rental in Brisbane. Of course, this required an affordable rental in Brisbane to be available. As I tentatively began searching for the “right” place for me in the city, the calamitous 2011 floods hit Brisbane. Several thousand others joined me in the search for somewhere to live in the area.
I realised that my hesitation about applying to join the community was based on yes, fear―of not being able to recreate my shell of protection. Where would my “stuff” go? Thankfully, gratefully, in time, I recognised the short-sightedness of this and was accepted in my application to rent and hence be part of the community.
Making one leap and shift from an old pattern does not a new person make! I quickly managed to re–establish my previous find-value-through-doing spot to such a degree that within 18 months I had to take a three-month break. That was great for re–establishing my equilibrium but did little to change the ingrained habit of pulling in responsibilities simply because I could do a job. I still had to learn to say “No,” not just to others working on the “ask a busy person” principle, but in personal recognition of my own needs.
I needed to say “Yes” to another me: the me that deserves consideration, kindness, gentleness. That is only now happening with any consistency, after several more years, repeated almost-meltdowns, emergency self-prescribed recovery holidays, and finally a friend commenting on how well I looked on my return from the latest holiday and how that appearance of wellness disappeared within a couple of weeks!
I recognised the hints that were getting louder in half the time that it took before I took the precipitous tumble from my previous overcommitment. It was still a long time but with no more backs to break I at least knew I had to do it differently.
So without a plan I just quit. It was so different from the way I’d always proceeded, but completely appropriate for the urgency I was feeling. For nine months or more I travelled without a plan, housesitting, accepting invitations to visit friends, including overseas. This was so very unlike how I’d previously travelled and I was quite deliberate about it. I had a feeling that something was shaking loose and all I could do was follow and wait. It wasn’t (and still isn’t) particularly comfortable. Waiting (shall I say “patience”?!) has never previously been a strong suit for me. But when I allow myself time I begin to hear my muffled voice, albeit hard to discern.
Perhaps that waiting was also what allowed me to make my decisions differently. Instead of moving to the next item on the planned to-do list, I thought about my deeper motivations in deciding where to go next. Seems obvious, doesn’t it? Sort of Life 101. But until I seriously slowed down I think it has been to easy for me to think about values and purpose but get easily sidetracked by the “urgent” items.
And this is what I think I’ve habitually done for much of my life. Going deeper in those slowed–down nine months, where I wasn’t seeking (or able!) or needing to justify my existence, I saw clearly how actually I’ve been driven by my search for self–value and how I believed that this was the way for others to recognise and respect me. That hasn’t worked for me, if my discomfort has been true to me. So back to basics.
Following my personal edict of the three Ps of place, people, and purpose, I do need to be where they can coincide (i.e., community!). It’s getting hotter where I live (true everywhere and very noticeable in Australia) and I don’t function well in the heat. So number 1., is there somewhere appropriate that is usually a degree or two cooler than where I’ve lived in recent years, where I can function better? Number 2., community is vital; potential for connection is as important as temperature. Number 3, I do NOT want to drive my car to get around, so my community needs to be large enough to be self-sustaining in terms of facilities, and small enough to be walkable.
In life I have realised the huge importance of social capital and don’t intend to jettison that which I’ve been able to build up over years. I’m not a frequent user of social media and highly value face-to-face connections. So this means that wherever I am I want to put effort into participating in the community without over-committing myself as has been my pattern.
Following these self-directions I chose to move to a small town on the elevated (hence slightly cooler) range fairly close to my previous intentional community and indeed where some individuals have familiarity with that community’s history. The town has all the services that befit a long-established rural community that has had its challenges of cycles, influxes of hippies, gentrification, and inevitable population growth. At the same time because of its relative remoteness it has remained reasonably self-contained and doesn’t bleed off in casual commuting “off the mountain.”
I truly love the rainforest that was the location of my home of the 1990s and 2000s. And then I absolutely loved the little home I had at the intentional community. Neither of them were all that I needed and I’m not kidding myself that all my apparent needs can be answered here either. But at least I’ve approached it differently and who knows what will emerge? I’m living in a stable and quiet shared house one block from the main street. It partly answers my desire for reducing my impact with some shared facilities. In the wider community are many opportunities for meaningful engagement and contribution with a variety of folk, and my challenge is to not over-commit!
On the other hand the forest and open space that I’ve been immersed in for many years are not immediately at hand. The deep sense of belonging in place is only just beginning for me and it’s to do with a different bandwidth of my human experience. I don’t know what it will feel like in one year, five years, 10 years. But I don’t know what the world will be like either.
I’m profoundly sad about the deteriorating state of our beautiful planet and here I find many others to grieve and act with, all within walking distance…if it’s not too hot to emerge from the shade.
It seems to me that my own story and the story of the intentional community I lived in and the stories of so many people around me―of an unravelling, a questioning, a doing it differently―are a reflection of what is happening and needs to happen for the Earth. Should we even consider taking forward old patterns? We certainly need to examine them carefully! Surely so much of what has led to our human predicament (inextricably linked with all other beings) needs to be renewed! There are parts of our life that can still transition gracefully and there are a growing number that require courage, resilience, and more community than ever.
Community is where I can act with kindness and grace, with awareness, with discernment, with support. Listening to myself and those around me, I hope. And always being open to doing it differently, whatever “it” is!
Joan McVilly lives in South East Queensland, Australia and her abiding interest is in community—small “c”—and what makes it. Over four decades she has explored this through direct environmental action, membership in a religious group, an environmental education centre, and Intentional Community. She currently lives in the Sunshine Coast hinterland and can be reached at joan.mcvilly [at] gmail.com.
This is an online-only article associated with the Spring 2020 edition of Communities (#186), “Picking Up the Pieces: New Beginnings.”