Here are questions that reveal more about our values and desires for fellow community members. We want a community of diverse people with varied skills and interests, so we don’t expect every value to resonate with every person.

Interconnection

• Do you start from the premise that all forms of life are equally valuable and contributing strands in a vastly complex web of life? Do you want to live authentically and cooperatively, in relationships of mutual respect?
• Do you agree that our culture of individualism and nuclear families often leaves people feeling isolated, constrained, and stressed? Do you want to live authentically and cooperatively, in relationships of mutual respect?
• Do you yearn to be a part of something larger than yourself or your immediate family, more tight-knit than a neighborhood, something like a tribe or a People?
• Do you value open and honest communication, consensus decision-making, taking responsibility for your words and actions, and inner work to heal your deepest wounds?
• Are you willing to relinquish some individualism and autonomy in service of the good of the group?
• Are you willing to imagine that group decisions can be better than one’s own?
• Are you able to surrender to the give and take of active listening and participation in a co-operative and imaginative group of people?
• Are you typically honest with yourself about how you’re feeling, and willing to be vulnerable with others when something’s on your mind?
• Are you able to keep moving with the flow of conversation and consensus, sharing your concerns honestly, so that you can let go and not carry grudges or resentments?
• Are you good with children?  Do you think that being around—and in service to—the spirits and needs of children make you a better person?
• Are you open to the experience and wisdom of others – from children to elders to nature?
• Do you prefer live entertainment—campfire sing-a-longs, puppet shows, children’s theater, open mics—to electronic media?  Are you an artist, or some other kind of creator?

Voluntary Simplicity

• Do you wish to free yourself of the unnecessary complications of modern life? Do you aspire to meet your needs directly and sustainably, in tune with the natural rhythms of your landbase?
• Do you love eating local, organic, nutrient-dense foods that you have grown, harvested, processed, preserved, and/or prepared with your own two hands?
• Are you motivated to build with local, reclaimed, materials and employ natural building techniques?
• Are you willing to relinquish some of the conveniences of our consumerist society?
• Are you drawn to handcrafting/DIY, i.e. weaving, using natural fibers, woodworking, repairing clothing rather than tossing it out, replicating good designs?
• Do you hate needing to use a car or airplane to see friends and family, or to get food?
• Are you an innovator, tinkerer, weaver, designer . . . who works in a low-impact medium who sends a revolutionary message?

Activision

• Do you see the need for systemic change to avert global ecological and social collapse? Do you feel an imperative to DO SOMETHING substantive to make the world better for all life, both human and nonhuman?
• Are you tired of waiting for the world to change, and determined to engage in action to make a positive difference?
• Do you see that fossil-fuel-based industrial patriarchies are overpopulating, polluting, and destroying our planet; are doomed to collapse; and that that might be a good thing?
• Despite the bad things happening on Earth, are you generally happy to be alive and to have the opportunity to make things better? [Despite witnessing global, widespread injustices and atrocities against humans and non-humans, are you generally happy to be alive and to have the opportunity to make the world better?]
• Do you cherish the interdependent web of life on Earth, and do you understand that our survival depends upon it?  Does the web of life elicit in you both a child’s sense of wonder and belonging; and a mother’s fierce determination to nurture, protect and defend?

General/All Encompassing / Spiritual / Philosophy of Life / Life Philosophy

• Are you a resourceful, emotionally mature self-starter, who can envision life outside the box?
• Do you have an inquisitive mind and a passion to learn?  Do you enjoy passing along the things you have learned to others?  Do you like figuring things out for yourself?
• Do you need immersion in raw nature as a regular restorative for your sanity?
• Do you humbly embrace how much about the Mysteries of existence we don’t actually know?

rev. 4/24/21