Communities Articles
Here is a selection of articles from previous back issues of Communities magazine. All back issues up to issue #184 are available for download here.
For more information about Communities magazine, visit its new publisher at GEN-US.
Bodies in Isolation
Posted on May 18, 2019 byBeing immersed in mainstream culture and isolated from supportive, body-positive communities can prevent choice and body-awareness exploration. But living in a supportive community can make alternative choices and attitudes easier to sustain.
Your Community and the Law
Posted on April 30, 2019 byEarthaven Ecovillage learns the hard way that it’s important for a community to choose its legal entities carefully, and to consult and listen to lawyers. A member shares some lessons from their ordeal.
What Can We Learn from the Amish?
Posted on April 23, 2019 byTouch the soil, live simply, and be satisfied with “enough”: it’s worked for the Amish for almost 300 years and it can work for us as well.
Community, Land, Self: We’re Part of the Same Elephant
Posted on April 16, 2019 byEscaping to an ecotopian or intact natural world proves neither possible nor effective as a way to avoid the realities of human and planetary suffering. Instead, a communitarian receives lessons in interconnectedness that he will never forget.
Growing Together through Trauma, with the Land
Posted on April 9, 2019 byWhen La’akea Community’s stability is disrupted and its existence threatened by the aftermath of an earthquake, members discover that their land is a much larger source of “glue” to keep them together than they had thought.
How We Came to Inherit a Salmon Stream
Posted on March 30, 2019 byThe residents of Sahale Learning Center and EcoVillage welcome the salmon who swim from the Hood Canal up the Tahuya River each year to spawn.
Cross-Class Cooperation and Land Access
Posted on March 23, 2019 by1 Comment
It is important to not only talk about the role class privilege plays in our movement, but also celebrate the ways that cross-class cooperation can be a form of much-needed solidarity.
The Dilemmas of Being a Benefactor: Creating a Community Land Trust
Posted on March 16, 2019 by1 Comment
CommonSpace CLT fulfills its founder’s dream of using her inheritance to create an affordable, not-for-profit example of diverse community on protected land in perpetuity.
Land Speaking through the People: The Great Work of Our Times
Posted on March 9, 2019 byThrough Community Land Trusts, we can reimagine and experience anew our relationship with the land as communities of place-based people.
Review: Farming While Black
Posted on February 26, 2019 byThis book is written for young Black, Brown, and Latinx people with dreams of farming, but it is also a gift to all of us who care about farming, equality, and justice.
Black Land Matters: An Interview with Leah Penniman of Soul Fire Farm
Posted on February 24, 2019 byHeadquartered on a community farm, a nonprofit, people-of-color-led organization works to dismantle racism in the food system by increasing farmland stewardship by people of color, promoting equity in food access, and training the next generation of activist farmers.
Connecting Land and Community
Posted on February 21, 2019 byThrough collective, organized efforts, groups that have lost access to land can regain it, while building community as well.
Land in a Sustainable and Just Society
Posted on February 17, 2019 by2 Comments
To value equally the needs of all life and all people, we need to shift our land-use approach away from control towards access and stewardship.
Community Land, #182 Contents and Free/By Donation Digital Download
Posted on February 14, 2019 byCommunities issue #182, Spring 2019, Community Land, shares stories about how intentional community projects can gain access to land. It asks provocative questions about land, people, privilege, and the obstacles that prevent communities (particularly disadvantaged communities) from reconnecting to land―and offers inspiring stories of overcoming those barriers to achieve more equity and sustainability. Just as access to land depends on community in some form, community often depends on and derives its vitality from a group’s relationship to land. The issue highlights the interdependence of our selves, our human communities, and the lands which steward (and are stewarded by) our presence.
Seeking Brigadoon: A Community of Dance-Campers Finds a Permanent Homeplace
Posted on February 10, 2019 byAfter 40 years of summer camps and other gatherings with shifting locations, Dance New England finally lands on its own 417 acres.
Adventures in Remote Simplicity: Four Distinct Community Styles
Posted on January 28, 2019 byExperiences in wildly differing intentional communities suggest that the more egalitarian, interactive, and focused its members are on shared labor, the stronger and more long-lasting the community will be.
Climate Change Activists’ Community
Posted on January 21, 2019 byRichmond Vale Academy provides an immersion in collective living and activist education for those who want to not only understand climate change, but respond to it in their own lives.
Narcissism, Dependence, and Culture Change
Posted on January 14, 2019 byTwo aspects of the cultural transition we are working toward are little discussed but directly impact our daily relationships: narcissism and dependence dynamics. By unpacking them, we can turn the tide.
Skill Building for a Culture of Collaboration
Posted on January 7, 2019 byTo build a healthy cultural infrastructure, it’s important to clarify your cooperative decision-making process, adopt conflict tools, and commit to the ongoing development of collaborative skills in your group.
About That Clothesline…
Posted on December 28, 2018 byAfter a communitarian’s love affair with line drying starts to wane, and eventually withers, she leaves community—partly to pursue an evolving relationship with a clothes dryer.
The Shaker “Culture of Cleanliness”
Posted on December 21, 2018 byBecause of their commitment to a culture of personal and community cleanliness, the Shakers largely escaped the cholera epidemics which plagued the rest of the country in the 1800s.
Planted in Good Soil: Cultural Roots and Community
Posted on December 14, 2018 byA community may achieve an ideal balance by drawing upon deep cultural roots to inform its structures and common life, while remaining vitally open to fresh insight and creativity in response to the present.
Mind the Gap: How the Cultural Difference between Incoming Residents and the Community Can Indicate Whether They Will Stay
Posted on December 7, 2018 byA small culture gap between a new resident and the community correlates with greater chances of a long-term fit; a large culture gap makes this much less likely, but not impossible.
An Evolution in Community
Posted on November 30, 2018 byFull immersion in a residential intentional community transforms over the course of a decade and a half into a much wider experience of community.
A Day in the Life
Posted on November 29, 2018 byA day’s interactions in a rural intentional community in central Virginia show that it is much more than a “hippie subdivision.”
Changing Skies
Posted on November 27, 2018 byThe culture of intentional community is about the commitment to venture out together into the blue skies and the grey; it’s about not only joy, but also the hard work of growth.
Introducing This Issue: A Culture of Cooperation
Posted on November 25, 2018 byA certain way of being in the world creates a cultural bond and sense of the familiar among those who live in intentional community.
The Culture of Intentional Community, #181 Contents and Free/By Donation Digital Download
Posted on November 23, 2018 byHow does living in intentional community shape our daily experience? What distinguishes a culture which emphasizes “community” from one that does not? What skills and awareness do we need to co-create a resilient collaborative culture? How can lessons and wisdom from intentional communities benefit the world at large? What can we learn from organically-emerging “unintentional” communities? In Communities’ Winter 2018 issue, “The Culture of Intentional Community,” authors explore all these questions and more, sharing insights they’ve gained from their own wide-ranging experiences.
GaiaYoga: The Art and Wisdom of Living Holistically—Unifying Spirit, Self, Community, and Earth
Posted on November 10, 2018 byThe cofounder of GaiaYoga Gardens traces the life journey that led him through various intentional community experiences and teachers to seven “yes”’s—ultimately forming a comprehensive vision of a new “Domain 9” culture consciously designed to be in alignment with all of who we actually are.
Perennial Lessons from Historical Communities
Posted on October 30, 2018 by1 Comment
A modern-day communitarian “networks” with Fourierist communities of the 1840s by examining their lives together and noticing enduring themes, challenges, and solutions.
