The Fall 2018 edition of Communities, focused on “Networking Communities,” is now available by donation for digital download.
Networking Communities: Issue #180 ● Fall 2018
Publisher’s Note: Everything Is in Someone’s Backyard By Sky Blue
In the face of devastation and injustice happening around the world, escape into “the good life” is not only unrealistic, but also a privileged avoidance of our responsibilities as global citizens. We need to work together to create equitable and sustainable societies.
● Alliance Building
● CommonBound!
● Conferences: Making the Movement Personal
● Clusters of Communities: The Radical Triangle
Notes from the Editor: Won’t You Be My Neighbor? By Chris Roth
It’s still possible to make it a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
Answering the “Call of the Mountain” through a Spiralling Network of Sustainability By Thomas Macintyre
Organizing a networking gathering yields many benefits, but the collatoral trials and tributions take their toll on this organizer—now recharging by prioritizing farm and family.
Leading Edges of Collaboration: GENNA Alliance By Cynthia Tina
Six key networking organizations come together to serve the regenerative communities movement by forming GENNA, the North American branch of the Global Ecovillage Network.
Networking through the Mandala: Finding and Binding Common Values By Evan Welkin
Inspired by New Zealand ecovillagers, Port Townsend Ecovillage adopts a visioning tool, the mandala, which also embodies the interconnection and alliance of community wisdom around the world.
Communities of Intention in Peru, Ecuador, and Beyond: A Summer of Travel and Rediscovering Communal Roots By Renay Friendshuh
As a college project, a child of intentional community explores how others define community, discovering that organic community spaces are possible everywhere.
Connect: Now More Than Ever By Setesh FreeMan
Time spent at Lost Valley and La’akea inspires a passion not just for community and its heart-opening, communication-deepening, earth-connecting effects, but also for communal networking and the difference it can make in the world.
Communities: Better Together By Bruce Perler
Experiences at the annual West Coast Communities Conferences have become a rich part of shared life among Goodenough Community members.
● West Coast Communities (Un)Conference 2018
European Day of Sustainable Communities, 22 September: A Celebration of the Diversity of Grassroots Action By Iva Pocock
Citizens, communities, and municipalities work together, inspired by the growing recognition that the global problems we face, such as climate change, urgently require innovative, systemic responses emerging from the bottom-up, not just the top-down.
On the Potential for an IC Business Network By James Collector
Research and data strongly suggest that a network of intentional community businesses could fill a real need for both customers and business owners.
The Federation of Egalitarian Communities and Community Networking By Sumner Nichols
East Wind and Twin Oaks, the FEC’s two big anchors, can choose to be relatively passive or they can take bigger risks to grow community—a goal stated in both communities’ bylaws, and worth pursuing.
Liberation, Networks, and Community By Yana Ludwig
Movements and networks of liberation show us that community can be a tool either of oppression or of powerful organizing for liberation. It’s time for our movement to get solidly on the right side of history.
Inclusivity and Disability By Allison Tom
Cohousing aspires to be as inclusive as possible, but North American culture suppresses conversation about disability and health. How can communities create processes to address previously invisible needs?
● Countering Ableism—Patty Smith
How to Help One Another: Connecting Cohousing Communities in a Regional Network By Jude Foster
In the PDX-Plus Cohousing Group, individual member groups find it simultaneously reassuring, daunting, and energizing to learn that their challenges and joys in living intentionally in community are shared.
The Cohousing Research Network: A Community Approach to Communities Research By Angela Sanguinetti, Heidi Berggren, Neil Planchon, Diane Margolis, Robert Boyer, and Chuck MacLane
The collaborative research process in this “virtual intentional community” comes with challenges, but the personal and collective outcomes of collaboration prove worth the trouble.
The Gifts of Gathering By Laura Lasuertmer
Organizing and cleaning up after Midwest Catholic Worker gatherings can be hard work—but are more than counterbalanced by the inspiration, connection, and sense of greater purpose they provide.
● A Missing Connection?
Perennial Lessons from Historical Communities By Amy Hart
A modern-day communitarian “networks” with Fourierist communities of the 1840s by examining their lives together and noticing enduring themes, challenges, and solutions.
Linked by Love and Transparency: The Need for Human Connection By Satyama Ratna Lasby
Inspired by studying and experiencing free love in the communities of Osho and Tamera, a spiritual seeker explores how to link community living to the topics of yoga and tantra.
From Holism to Community By Dan Schultz
Years spent studying community and co-creating Maitreya Mountain Village lead to a chiropractor’s “aha” moment: holistic health care and cooperative community are a match made in healing.
Reclaiming the “We” from Ancient Wisdom By Pegi Eyers
We owe it to ourselves and our kinship groups to join the worldwide circle of cooperative culture, to reclaim earth-rooted identity, and to align our communities with a holistic paradigm once again.
It Takes a Village: The Journey to Build a Lifesharing Community in New Orleans By Amy Syracuse
The mother of a child with autism founds Raphael Village, a lifesharing community which has affiliated with the Camphill Association of North America and received support from the Camphill Foundation.
Our Community Can Change When We Work Together Well By Paul Born
Tamarack Institute’s work over the last 15 years affirms that if given good information and effective tools, people will organize and work together to create the kind of communities they want.
Dancing between Network and Community By Paul Freundlich
A network is something we use for specific purposes; a community is something we feel which completes us. Intensity, shared experience, and time are what transform a network into a community.
Review: The Parents’ Guide to Climate Revolution By Sharon Blick
Climate activist Mary DeMocker promotes collective rather than individual action while also tackling questions about when and how to talk with children about climate change.
Excerpted from the Fall 2018 edition of Communities, “Networking Communities”—full issue available for download (by voluntary donation) here.
