Building the Community

It may not be there yet, but I've made the first step.  A sustainable community is in the making!  Better still, it's not just a vision from my own head.  I now have others who share the vision.  We're taking the first step of the way.  We've got an idea.  Now we just have to implement it.

Not so long ago I met a really great couple.  We got along really well.  Our families are very different, yet share enough similarities to make everything work.  They have no children, but they get along really well with our three.  Her husband gets along wonderfully with my boyfriend.  They play video games together.  She and I share a lot of the same ideas and can spend forever talking.  We've got a lot of the same ideas and a lot in common.  I'm not really surprised at the way things are turning out.

It wasn't long before we talked about starting a sustainable community.  We have some great ideas.  We're talking about trying to buy up land.  We want to work with green energy.  We want to focus on sustainable living, healthy habits, and teaching the outside community how to live in a way that is healthy for their whole family (pets included!) and is good for the environment.

This is the tragic thing about today's society, we don't know how to take care of themselves and the world around them.  The standard American diet is incredibly unhealthy.  Most Americans have very low and unhealthy fitness levels.  Many of the chemicals we put in our bodies through foods, medications, and that absorb into the body through cleaning agents and soaps and inhalation.  There are allergens everywhere, but often times go unnoticed because we don't know to look.  These allergens are so integrated into our society that we just get used to the way they make us feel and think it's normal.  Many families have problems with raising their children and can use some help finding techniques that work, which is why shows and books like Super Nanny are so popular.  The same goes with pets and training.  Very few people know environmentally friendly ways to care for their home.  Fewer still know anything about green living.  It would be good for families to have a chance to learn about all of that so they can develop a sustainable life of their own.

Our goal is to set up a whole community.  We would like to have an inner community of those who follow our vision and fit with the family, and a more extended community that lives outside our small family group.  We're looking to buy a substantial amount of land, if we can, including a plot of land that already has wind power.  We've also talked about planning to buy up some of the other local land to house other families from the community.  We hope to have a holistic healing center that includes everything from natural medicines to massage therapy and energy healing (reiki and chakra therapies).  We'll add a dance studio and hopefully that will turn into a full arts and movement center, including yoga and pilates.  If we can find people who are interested in running them, we would love to have a space for martial arts in more of a "warrior's center" and a birth center, but those will have to come in time, should we find the right people.  We want to set up a homeschooling group for the children.  Group discussions for parenting classes would be wonderful.  Lessons in the proper care and training of domesticated animals would also be an option.  Finally, we'd like to have a spiritual center where we hold rituals and lessons in spirituality.  Ideally, we would also have both a men's group and a women's group so each gender could explore spirituality with people of their own gender, with celebrations and classes that bring both groups together as well.  We could hold drum circles and bonfires.  Can you tell we've got a lot of plans?

Maybe this seems like thinking big.  This is a lot for one small family tribe to accomplish, but thinking big is where it all begins.  Field of Dreams had it right with the line, "If you build it, they will come."  I've noticed with every community I've been in, once you create a home for it, interested people will come from the most unexpected places.  If there's an interest out there, this community will come together, and there's always people interested in alternative lifestyles and means of living.  It sets a good example for the rest of the community.  If we can do this, others can too!  Besides, nothing ever got accomplished by thinking small.  It truly is the dreamers that change the world.

We're only able to take small steps and make plans right now, but it feels good to have a life dream finally coming together.  I'm finally feeling like I've found my home, somewhere I can be happy.  I'm finally starting to really build my tribe.  We're going to be capable of incredible things, since we've already put our minds to it.  Now all we need to do is make it happen.