Introduce yourself and meet others

My name is Mark Day. I am looking for a progressive community, ecumencical in
the broad sense. I am 83 and need some kind of assistance eventually. Right now
I am in goood health, mentally and physicall. I am interested in finding an intentional community somewhere in Southern California, but I can locate elsewhere. Does anyone have any ideas of where i can look. i seek to rent, not buy a unit. Mark Day (760) 224-3872
mday700@yahoo.com

Hi. My name is Donal. I’m a Clinical Psychologist interested in permaculture and the social technologies needed for thriving communities. I’ve been living in Madison, WI cohousing for about 15 years. Really excited to have found this space.

I’m hoping to learn if there are various tool kits out there for living in community, everything from legal to forms of self-governance, resolving conflicts, etc. I have read a lot of books and have the practical cohousing experience. I’m excited to take some of the courses offered here.

I’d love to connect with anyone around the topic of assembling or accessing a list of resources and ideas that can be deployed and/or consulted at various stages of the community-building process. My own attempts with this are here: https://oneplanetthriving.com/2015/05/social-technologies/

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Hi Brad,

We are in Ontario too but down in Kingston and trying to start or join an intentional community as well. Seeing as were fairly close, all things considered, maybe we can connect.

Best,
Lachlann and Lorelei

Hi Ugo,

We’re in Ontario Canada and thought you might have some suggestions for us to find an intentional community? Yours sounds great but might be a bit far for us to keep our income.

Thanks,
Lorelei and Lachlann

Hi Lachlam and Lorelei,

It is good to hear from you.
This area is quite a bit different than Kingston but having so many fewer people gives one a lot of options that are not possible in more crowded settings.
I have been very busy at the homestead this year.
It is a good feeling to go to sleep at night knowing that you did good work during the day. :slight_smile:
I have a website that has not been updated in far too long, but it might answer a few questions about us here.

I would really like to know what motivates each of you to want to live in comImunity.
With any luck I will soon be posting a small video showing one aspect of life here.

All the best to you,
Brad

Hi Lachlann and Lorelei,

I have been to Ontario for work during my previous job. I visited many times an intentional community / ecovillage called Whole Village. It’s in Orangeville. Probably a couple of hours from where you are. I personnally don’t know other IC in the province but there are more for sure.

Have a wonderful day !

Ugo

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Hi Ugo,

Thanks but that’s not close to us. We’re on the other side of southern Ontario.

Thanks for the suggestion though!

Lachlann and Lorelei

Hello Brad,

We would love to live somewhere quieter and away from the city, since it really fits in with what we want from life (grow our own food, livestock, build our own house, etc). It also excites us because we’ve been craving the simple life over all the paperwork and bureaucracy of the city.

We want to live in an intentional community because at this point in our lives we feel it’s our best shot at actually having a community. We really want to be able to live in a way where we know almost everyone we interact with, and that we can provide help to the people that help us, and work together. I think there’s great value in a hard day’s work, but there’s even more in doing it together.

Our only concern is that we will probably need to work at least part time to buy the things we can’t make. Lachlann’s job means going to site visits, so we would need to live somewhere there’s enough sites to visit for us to make money. There is an option to work remotely constantly as a supervisor, but we’re not there yet career wise. I really hope that we could work this out as soon as possible, but it may take time.

Let us know what you think,
Lachlann and Lorelei

hi, i’m Benny (he/him & it/its). i don’t have the spoons (disabled culture term) to say much more than this (so read my bio): i want the world to slowly dissolve into a ā€˜quilt’ of communes that we can all travel between (because the point isn’t to have THE perfect vision, or be THE utopia, it’s to have your attempt be a thread in the larger society you want to aim for). i currently live in Los Angeles (Yaanga).

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  • What should we call you?
    I’m Jason, profile handle is Boo-boo
  • Where are you living? Do you live in an intentional community now?
    4plus years all over the US currently trying out a community in Indiana
  • What are your experiences in community?
    Mostly negative because of me being special needs and single
  • Special talents
    I make things fabulous
    Currently writing a lot
  • Interests
    Self Care
    Mental health activism
  • Why are you here?
    To connect with like minded people

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may those who’ve harmed you step on Legos every day for the rest of their lives

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Hi Lachlann, Hello Lorelei,

The simple life is much more fulfilling. It is a worthy goal. At this point I would say that I am completely unfit to return to regular society. The transition is just too difficult for me to go through anymore.

The downside of such a life is that money is still required and it is vanishingly difficult to obtain. I have no advice there, only warnings. My income for 2021 was $0, and 2022 will be no better. I do not qualify for any programs in Ontario because I own more than one property. I can live on less than $10k per year but tending to the homestead is itself a full time job, with no pay in sight.

Community is absolutely required but one has to be extremely careful who one shares their space with. In my situation, it is a remote spot and not everyone is able to thrive in such an environment. The last person that came out here went rather crazy rather quickly and burned down a house and sauna and threatened my life in his madness. That took only 10 days. It will take years yet to recover.

Finding the right balance of mix with society is a challenge of the first order. I suspect there are many answers that are highly personalized.

Brad

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Hi!

I’m Kathe (she/they) I live in Florida and share a household with my 5 person polycule (we’ve been living together since 2017 depending on how you count). I have also lived in a residential co-op for a few years.

I can crunch numbers like a pro and use this professionally to investigate carbon moving through soil. I’m also interested in shared governance of digital resources and professional societies.

I’m here because FIC has been a fantastic resource for me both personally in running our household and professionally thinking more broadly about shared governance models. I’m looking forward to meeting everyone!

-Kathe

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  • What should we call you?
    Bryce

  • Where are you living?
    Currently living in the state of Ohio (USA). I telecommute (computer programmer) and my partner and I will be relocating soon, but we don’t yet know where we want to put down roots in the future.

  • Do you live in an intentional community now?
    No

  • What are your experiences in community?
    I have had short stays (3 to 7 days) at a few monasteries. 2 Orthodox Christian monasteries. 2 Buddhist monasteries.

  • Special talents
    Maybe listening?

  • Interests
    Reading mostly non-fiction, watching documentaries, bicycling ( casually, no spandex for me :wink: ), walking, jogging, photography

  • Why are you here?

    • To connect with and learn from others about intentional communities
    • To visit some communities and possibly find a community where I can put down roots

We agree, even though we haven’t really had the chance to truly live simply together yet. I guess for us the goal is kind of to be unfit for regular society, given how much it’s values differ from ours. It is good to hear that you can get by on such a little amount of money; Our goal was to be able to source a little more than that through part time work in the nearby area, and use that to cover the things that the larger ā€œweā€ (our community) simply couldn’t provide or produce.
We’re so sorry that happened to you! that’s truly awful, we’re shocked that that happened so fast, yet at all. We don’t really know how we would react, but don’t think it would involve any violence or burning!

And you’re exactly right. As much as we’d be tempted to throw everything to the wind and claim ā€œwe’re going to live in the woods and use blueberries as currency!ā€ we know that’s not really ever an option. Some level of contact with larger society is necessary, and given that we all have families who are still wholly part of it, leaving it entirely would never be an option.

One thing we would be curious about is maybe trying to arrange some kind of active community network. We understand that there are many websites and groups for this, but also we’ve been told by many that talk is plentiful, action isn’t. We can’t nail down any details, but maybe in the future we could arrange a work/vacation thing? Unfortunately we don’t think we could live as far north as you given our families, but we would be interested in visiting and seeing it, and would gladly trade our help and what we could offer in exchange.

Hope to hear from you soon,
Lachlann & Lorelei

I love that word, never met before! What does it mean and why do you use it?

Also fascinated by your occupation. Trying to get interest for a carbon-neutral…negative community the other side of the Atlantic. Soil and biomass sequestration would be part of the deal. I do it wherever I go. Check out the link over at Clean-air eBike ecoHorta - Foundation for Intentional Community

All and any feedback welcome on that venture, or my historic website as a sculptor, or the post I wrote for this forum, which’ll be under my pofile here.

I’ll take the time to write a short blurb here soon.

Best, Trev

Even though he as referring to psychedelics or other ā€œmedicinesā€, when he said it, Ram Dass said ā€œWhen you get the message, hang up the phoneā€, which is what you’ve done. I’ve done the same on various alt life models and entheogens . Nice to meet you here, even if we’re unlikely to meet in person, being on opposite sides of the Pond, and on a low carbon diet. But do check me out and give any feedback you’d care to.

As for your long intro - it’s a gift shared - not everyone is time starved every day and an exception in a tome of minimalism is refreshing.

Hi @wavesculptor Polycule is from the polyamory community and refers to a group of people who with interconnecting romantic relationships and implies a family relationship between members who are not romantic sometimes (certainly does in my case!). Nonmonogamy and intentionally community have a complicated history at times. We are also not open to membership applications, so we don’t identify ourselves as an IC. BUT the IC community (FIC specifically) had excellent resources on multi-adult households which is why I’m here :smiley:

Carbon negative is a great ambition, hard to quantify and verify but a great target.

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Hi Mitra, lot you’re doing I’m also interested in on a smaller scale. Do check out my footprint here, any feedback welcome.

Do you have any idea what happened to Bundagen community on the sea-shore, some way south I think, of Byron? I sat on the beach there in the early 90s and toyed with tossing my onward flight tickets into the ocean. I didn’t, but never heard of the place since, wonder if they changed name or just went under the radar.

Best wishes.

Hi @kathe! Nice, and unexpected, that this gets real-time.

Yes, I was a strong practitioner and advocate of poly back in the 90s. Stayed with several poly active ICs, inc Ganas, Staten Island, and Centerpoint, NZ. Never heard the term polycule back then tho. These days I’m very contentedly single and asexual, tho if other things drew me into relationship, no compelling reason to remain so.

All the best.