It is within community we are challenged to become more open, compassionate, to listen better, to explore and be responsible to our connections. Successful community living guides us to see beyond ourselves and our personal needs. The trend in Western culture is one where the basics of life and survival are becoming increasingly depersonalized. Some examples are how we produce and share food, how we partake in the earth’s energy resources, how we hire out work that historically would have been a community effort, and even in death the funeral home takes charge of the body and usually the final rituals.
Our modern culture has not filled the void left by this disconnection. We have distanced ourselves from experiencing our direct relationship between survival, the earth and community, and this ultimately puts us at high risk. By not cultivating our insight that everything and everyone is connected, we damage our own self-respect, respect for others and ultimately respect for all of life
The trainings, seminars and group explorations take place within the heart of our intentional community and are strongly influenced by the disciplines of somatics, martial arts, nonviolent communication, consensus, gardening, cooking and community life. We will practice and learn in our common house dojo, prepare meals together, plant and harvest from our gardens, and enjoy the surrounding nature.
To teach and convey the meaning of Community is like trying to explain Spirit. Defining it diminishes it because it is not an ”it”. Community is not a noun, it is a verb. It is in the being and the doing of community that we learn it’s value and meaning and glean its lessons. Our goal is not to teach the meaning of community, our focus is to offer an experience of communitying.
Any or all of our offerings are practices of connection, and in their daily-ness, they can contribute greatly to an experience of abundance, meaning and greater purpose in our lives.
Food is fundamental—like breathing, if we are mindful in the practice, we can experience the connection between the mundane and the spiritual.
Staying open is fundamental to all of these practices. As with food, our curriculum organizes around our hunger—hunger for meaning, purpose and connection. We recognize that the first step toward authentic and lasting change comes from appreciation. When we commit ourselves to practices of connection with gratitude and appreciation we open to possibilities and ways to live simply on the earth. All of our offerings are drawn from time worn generative practices, life experience and a lot of hard work and commitment. These all weave and overlap as a comprehensive and integrated training that navigates the realms of mind, body and spirit to produce an embodied awareness of the underlying elements of community. Each offering focuses on form, the underlying consciousness we need to bring into that form and how it connects us to the world.
In this way we have the opportunity to viscerally experience our relationship to the earth, our connection to each other and intimately understand the importance of the nourishment of community.
As we gather and move between these practices, we generate a container for good conversation to help us understand and fully embody what we care about, how we wish to live and what kind of world we wish to create.
Good conversation is alive—it is a whole body experience, and it is a somatic practice. Conversations that connect us to our life force peak our curiosity and develop our capacity to vision.