Would you like a permanent vacation?
Author’s note: I orginally published this on December 14th, prior to my posting “Solutions for Communication Conflicts in Intentional Communities” but I’m new to blogging and I deleted it by mistake. So here it is, not in the order I intended, but at least I had a copy!
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Have you noticed how a vacation changes your perspective on life? I don’t know about you, but for me, when I go camping and get away from the usual patterns of daily living, I’m a WHOLE lot more relaxed. Life seems timeless, and care-free, at least for the duration of my camping trip. And if I take a wilderness hike, where I leave behind my cell phone, TV, radio, computer and car, I feel tremendously free. All the problems associated with those devices (not to mention the bills) are left behind.
Now, imagine a permanent vacation. One in which you’re on a forever camping trip, with the same camaraderie you experience around an evening campfire. Because you are together everyday, working towards the same goals, you feel a deeper bond with your fellow hikers. You share daily discoveries of nature’s wonders: new insects you’ve never seen in your entire life; new vistas that inspire and sometimes take your breath away; amazing rock formations; new plants you’ve never noticed, growing in places that seem impossible places for anything to grow.
Well, I’ve experienced that sort of “permanent vacation”. It was when I young man. I was a hippy at the time, traveling with a genuine gypsy from Poland and his two women. He had built a wooden gypsy wagon on the back of his pickup truck, complete with the gingerbread house, lace-like facade so familiar to the Victorian era and painted with all the colors of a rainbow. He traveled when and where he desired, selling trinkets he created with his own hands to pay his way. One day we traveled to the end of a dirt road that looked out onto a large lake with an island in it’s center.
It’s hard to explain what happened next, but it was awesome in it’s intensity and certainty. As I was gazing on the other side of the lake I had this premonition. I knew, I mean I knew with absolute certainty that I was to build a community on the other side of that lake. And from the moment I thought that thought, I was caught up in some vortex of energy that in my mind’s eye resembled a tornado. I was at it’s center, but rather than sucking me up into it’s funnel it was sending everything down to me. There was so much energy and it was so positive and full of life that I had no doubt a power far greater than I was at it’s center.
I put up a notice that I was starting a community and as “luck” would have it, a group that revolved around Gestalt Therapy was looking to do the same thing. We met, sent a scouting party to the lake, decided it was a go, and two weeks later we had 20 some people and all the necessary gear to camp out and begin cutting logs for a log cabin. You might have noticed I didn’t mention any real estate deals. That’s because we decided to use a loop hole in the British Columbia law and establish a mineral rights claim to the land.
Needless to say, the experiment was short-lived, spanning the summer and early fall months. But oh what an astounding 5 or 6 months it was! For the first time in my life I came face to face with the demons of civilization, with all the inbred fears we have: fears of darkness, fears of being alone in the woods at night, fears of animals stalking me, fears born out of childhood horror movies. They all came roiling up from my subconscious, forcing me to deal with them. And I faced them, one by one, and as I overcame each fear it was extremely liberating. I felt freer than I had ever felt, not just because I conquered those fears, but because I had even conquered my usual preoccupation with time.
I carry with me memories that few people ever experience. One day on a hike into the forest I came across this most beautiful meadow. The meadow was surrounded by a virgin forest of 300 foot tall Douglas Firs and huge cedars with moss hanging from every limb. As I laid my head to rest, I noticed how it comforted me like a pillow. The entire meadow was covered with a deep, spongy moss. But what was even more amazing was the fact this meadow was formed entirely by the roots of the surrounding trees. They reached out for the water of a spring that flowed beneath this cover of roots and moss. And as I lay there listening to its whispering gurgles, I fell asleep.
Another very unique experience happened when I stopped to rest beneath a huge Douglas Fir. I had a wooden flute and I began to play. When I stopped, I heard this whooshing sound, the sound of large wings beating the air. I looked up and saw an American Bald Eagle flying into it’s nest to feed its young. I’ve never forgotten that sound and when I meditate each day it sometimes returns to comfort me. That was the day I became lost. But that’s another story for another time.
So what’s my point? Simply this, that the power and the majesty of life is barely touched by most of us. We believe life must be a constant struggle to make ends meet and as a result we are preoccupied with those ends, failing to see all the other stuff in the middle. When I started my first community I did so by divine call but with little understanding. What I discovered has never left me and remains permanently fixed in my heart, calling me, entreating me, pleading with me to do it again. I discovered that being part of a close knit intentionally built community is like being on permanent vacation.
For the past three plus decades I have never stopped thinking and planning to start another community. But this time I want it to be permanent, to last for countless generations to come. If you would like to explore just a small part of my thinking, I invite you to click on two links in the navigation bar at the top of this blog: “Community” and “Sneek Peek”.
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