Introduce yourself and meet others

Hello everyone!
My name is Brandon Hess. I live on 4 acres of land in central/eastern Utah with my wife, Susan, and two children, one grandchild, and one brother in-law.

We are currently living in the old fashioned intentional community (family based) but would like to expand our little farm and could use some help with that.

It seems clear that this group here is finding the path forward for the future and I want to be a part of that.

I believe the future of sustainable civilizations will include small building blocks that are made up of small permaculture farms that include a small ā€˜tribeā€™ that has a government that is highly effective and based on principles of communal living. I believe that these small governments will combine to form a network that will save our planet and our great grandchildren.

I hope to help find a way forward for my grandchildren and for our planet.
Peace.

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Well hey Team!

Iā€™m Gigi (she/her). Iā€™m living in Vermont and am a Burner (Burning Man participant) who wants the festival in my back yard and am designing a (VERY cool, if I do say so myself) community around that. I have never been a part of a planned community in any way, shape or form, but it seems to be something I need to learn more about, since Iā€™m developing one (yes, I see the humor there) so Iā€™m here!

Iā€™m a healer (energy work, belief work, channeling & shamanism) and an abstract artist with an MBA (interesting combo right?). I am really into understanding the mind, providing spaces to appreciate and empower creating art and making the world a better place. Iā€™m on this planet to help bring mankind and the Earth into its optimal state and Iā€™m super clear on that.

Special talents - I drive absurdly well backwards, my healings are quite good (thanks for asking!), Iā€™m definitely a visionary (always open to new ideas) and Iā€™m wildly kind.

Iā€™m here to learn, figure out how to make this community a thing, and find people who want to collaborate.

I also like cake.

Psyched to chat you up!!

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I am working on forming a community and would love to talk about your experiences through zoom. My e mail is lilaosborne@rocketmail.com. Looking forward to connecting with you.

Hello,
My name is Ugo. I live at the ecovillage ā€œLa Cite Ecologiqueā€ in the province of Quebec in Canada. Iā€™m 34 years old. The ecovillage is older than me, it will turn 40 years of age in 2024. It is built around an alternative school and education is its cornerstone.

I grew up and went to school here from 1 to 10 years old. I also lived in ā€˜normalā€™ society, attended a ā€˜normalā€™ school and had a ā€˜normalā€™ job from 11 to 25. Then I came back to live in the community and work for one of its company. The ecovillage is economically independent. In the sense that almost all the members work for companies located on site and owned by members of the ecovillage.

Iā€™ve always imagined that inter community networks (like FIC or GEN) should be a giant forum (like this one) where we could share our tips and learn from others for better community living. Needless to say I am thrilled that FIC is bringing this project forward. I will participate to the best of my ability.

Have a wonderful day !

Ugo from La Cite Ecologique

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hi Catherine, Iā€™m by Newburgh, ny and share your interest in healing, connecting, and nature. just joined this forum today and realize Iā€™m just starting the learning curve of this software. I would enjoy speaking/writing to you re common interests. geo

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Hi, my name is Don and currently live in Ramona. I am a musician, plumber, grower, tradesman looking to find an alternative to current living environment. Trying to find my way to ascension. Looking for like minded people who just want to love and care for Gaia.

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Hello! Iā€™m Jamie. Iā€™m in Texas currently and looking for an ic to join. Iā€™m new to ic living and WWoofing and had no idea such wonderful places existed! Iā€™m excited to find a community with likeminded eco friendly ppl! I canā€™t wait to be a part of something so inspiring and learn and grow with others! If you have an opportunity in Texas or neighboring states and need help Iā€™d love to hear from you!

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Hello friends,
Finding this thread is A BIG WARM HUG!
Ladybird Everwild (she/her) photographer and creatrix, Mother to one radiant sun. Rescuer of furry beating hearts.

I am currently seeking a community of others looking for deeper connections with themselves, others, and our veggie gardens! Letā€™s grow community and carrots! My partner and I are in our early 30ā€™s with a 3 year old child. We have spent the last 3 years living on the road visiting all types of intentional communities (while also collecting shelter animals) across the US and abroad. We have grown tired of the search, and are ready to have a multi-generational group of wonderful people on abundant fertile land to call our furever home! Is it with you?

We are currently tolerating city life in Atlanta because of proximity to lovely family.

Iā€™m launching a blog ( www.lonelyfamily.com ) to share about the ups and downs, and plot twists of this journey, as it continues to surprise even ourselves! I also want to speak to the isolation of raising a child in modern American culture. If any of this resonates with you, I would love to connect.

Many blessings to each of you on search for home. I trust that the effort in the search, the courage to break out of the matrix and manifest our F*YES lives will reward us all in rich community gold!

Love,
The Everwild Woods Family

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I am Tara! Fearless Green Lady looking to strategize and create massive expansion in rural and urban sustainable development! I am going into my Master of Engineering in Sustainable Urban Planning, but I also think intentional rural communities are important as our country transitions post-end-stage-capitalism, as not everybody wants to live in the city, and rightfully so! My academic research is in green cities in countries currently succeeding in their plans- like Barcelona and Netherlands. However, MORE prototypes are needed for rural plans, and I want to visit communities to take notes!

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Hello all,

Iā€™m Christine from northern AZ near Meadview, between Lake Mead and Grand Canyon West.

Started with permaculture after finding a partner here on IC.org in 2009. Bought the adjoining lot in 2014 and started all over because the gophers had invaded us and killed all our summer crops and fruit trees. And started building little ā€œhousesā€ (casitas) with cob / adobe.

We started hosting WWOOFers and HelpXers and had so much fun!

In 2016 my partner moved out, plants really werenā€™t his thing and he also wasnā€™t interested in my many projects, trying to bring organic food to Meadview, running the gardening club, etc. All those time and money drains, but Iā€™m an empath and thatā€™s my original brain damage.

Got sued by debt buyer Midland Funding in 2012 for Capital One accounts I defaulted on in 2008 when I got totally wiped out. Fought them, prevailed, sued them, overturned 2 federal judges involved in my case on appeal in 2018 and subsequently suffered major brain damage resulting in working memory loss when very stressed in late 2019 due to the litigation stress. LONG story ā€¦

Thanks to Covid shutdowns, unemployment and then an inheritance Iā€™m alive today. Had the money for a ton of supplements and the time to self-diagnose, kind of.

A couple months ago I finally quit hosting WWOOFers, too many bad experiences. Despite my brain damage, I still think giant circles around the helpers Iā€™ve had this last year. I donā€™t know why just about everybody I hosted had ADHD, or was an alcoholic, or just quit meth, or farm surfers, and I even had the first ER run last year with a guy who got so drunk he fell into a hole and then couldnā€™t work for 2 weeks, and as soon as he was ready to work again the three FRIENDS went camping and he sexually assaulted them when they were all drunk again (early 20s).

I canā€™t do this anymore, have way too much to do to babysit so-called ā€œhelpers.ā€ And canā€™t take the constant stress, no-shows, people leaving because the weather is bad, etc.

Speaking of the weather, I lived here for 22 years and itā€™s unreal how cold, hot, dry and windy it is now. Just about NO rain for about two years until July 2021, when we got a couple inches in several storms and the back of my hoophouse blew out.

The upside is that I know now which plants survive two years without rain, and sadly, itā€™s NOT the native prickley pear cacti.

So I bought another two acres of virgin desert last year about a mile from my place for a demonstration site, show people how NOT to clear from corner to corner and plant lots of native willows, catsclaw, and many other bushes and trees that can make it through a drought without supplemental irrigation once established. Not forever of course, but I know they made it through two years.

Just a few weeks ago I lightly cleared for a driveway, got a pad for a self-contained boat and the hoophouse Iā€™ll move over. Itā€™ll function as a placeholder for a home and Iā€™ll ā€œproperlyā€ landscape around it for maximum wind protection and appropriate shade ā€“ passive solar.

Quite a few of the willow and fig cuttings seem to grow. Maybe eventually Iā€™ll get to putting up a adobe / cob building there and Iā€™d like Mohave Country to allow code exceptions as they do in other Arizona counties so people can experiment and build their own homes with ā€œunapprovedā€ materials.

Being 63 years old and getting only $266 social security, Iā€™m trying to figure out how to continue living. I manage a vacation rental and itā€™s so stressful having to deal with Airbnb and their lack of support.

Iā€™m so invested here, FINALLY the orchard garden is doing so well, incredibly, thereā€™s still a lot of fruit on the trees despite the many wind storms.

So I donā€™t see myself moving. But itā€™s so hard living here, Qanon headquarters, with the F Biden and Go Brandon flags. Census data shows that we have quite a few democrats here, but theyā€™re all AFRAID, have been bullied into submission.

I didnā€™t even get on Facebook until 2016 and found that a local candidate for sheriff wanted all Muslims deported. Mohave County is militia country and former gardening friends even drove to the border to ā€œprotect usā€ from the immigrants. I despise social media, but since nobody else stands up to the alt right ā€¦ I tend to do what nobody else does. Occasionally. Since I got kicked out of most local groups because they donā€™t want to hear about old people dying and rotting, and if their pets eat them they are killed too. It terrifies me to think about that.

I also filed a lawsuit against everyone involved in my healthcare in 2019/2020, but am aware that thereā€™s no way Iā€™ll prevail. Just need to find out WHY our nonprofit hospital and doctors are incapable of providing effective healthcare. Watched a friend commit suicide because his wife couldnā€™t get the home healthcare prescription signed in FOUR months. She had polio, was almost 80, and couldnā€™t pick him up anymore. He fell a lot.

I was in my early 40s when I move here, and not to socialize with old people. But through the gardening club I made many friends, it was more like social services, and then lost almost all of them to horrific healthcare.

Iā€™ve learned so much about health and brains in recent years and Iā€™m terrified of getting dementia. I know itā€™s preventable and even reversible, but despite living among all these retirees, I have been unable to find a single person interested in learning and DOING what it takes to stay well.

Having been by myself for a couple of months I just love how much I get done! Itā€™s nice to have privacy.

Iā€™d like to live in a loosely organized ā€œcommunityā€ with a commercial kitchen and maybe a common living room for activities, but with individual homes or campers or whatever. Share the water hauler (well is about 1.5 miles from my place), a big truck for outings, organize shopping trips (60 miles to Kingman, 100 to Vegas), order from coops, etc. Conserve resources. And it would be so cool to know that someone will take over my place and take care of my dogs and the plants when I die or just canā€™t do it anymore.

Itā€™s so beautiful here in the Joshua Tree desert, but between the many mean people here and the awful climate, I canā€™t really ask anyone to move here.

So maybe I do have to consider finally finishing the inside of my house and selling. But where would I go? And to let the orchard garden die, thatā€™s just so sad. Am in adding the final touches, lots of medicals and flowers.

Havenā€™t had a lot of time to look, but I havenā€™t seen anything yet that would work for me. I donā€™t want to make more friends whoā€™ll end up getting sick because they eat crap, drink way too much, etc.

Donā€™t want to live in or near a city and I think all the rural areas are filling up with Qanon types.

So I donā€™t know ā€¦

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Just spent some time reading the website and thatā€™s really an amazing community!

Wish there were more like this.

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Hi Ralph. I am new to the forum. I just wanted to say I have an old friend in Detroit who used to live in a collective, and who may be interested in what you mention. I am going to tell her about the forum. Best wishes with your dreams.
K

What was the name of the collective? I may have heard of it.
When I hear about collectives, especially art collectives in Detroit I make sure to listen.

@rparus -It was in Ann Arbor. She was raised in Detroit and lives there now. We both had some experience with a place called Heiwa, and I think she lived there. Do you know the place? More importantly, do you know places in Detroit now?

@AshMM Where in FL. Iā€™m in FL and it would be interesting to have a conversation about alot of commonalities.

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Hi, Iā€™m new here! Would love to talk to you! MichiFest nostalgia! Really want to hear more about the Ohio Womenā€™s Land.

Iā€™m familiar with a few places in Detroit by name only.
Years ago I used to belong to the Ann Arbor Artists co-op. I think that was the nameā€¦
I am not familiar with Heiwa.

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Hi, Ash. I recently joined this forum and see we both live in Florida. I am interested in creating intentional community here, and would love to connect to share ideas and learn together.

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For sure! Sorry, Iā€™m not super active on here, but Iā€™m going to try to pop in a little more frequently. =)

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Iā€™m not on much either. I do get email notifications of replies. This eve I am watching recordings of some cool FIC courses! And reading about some existing and developing communities in other places. What part of Florida are you in? I am in south FL. ( apparently I didnā€™t use the correct reply button, or tag; this was reply to @AshMM )