WHAT IS AN INTENTIONAL COMMUNITY?

An intentional community is a group of people who have chosen to live or work together in pursuit of a common ideal or vision. An ecovillage is a village-scale intentional community that intends to create, ecological, social, economic, and spiritual sustainability over several generations.  Having researched and discussed at length, our current founder’s group entertains becoming either an intentional community or an ecovillage.

CREATING A LIFE TOGETHER

One of our first steps towards community has been to read this book.  In our first formation round, all participants read the book cover to cover before embarking together on several of the envisioning exercises.  Since our number of participants is still quite small, we imagine that once more founders have gathered, we’ll repeat these exercises with the goal of firming up our purpose, mission, and vision.

Here’s a summary of the book:

Creating a Life Together  provides step-by-step, practical “how-to” information on how to launch and sustain a successful ecovillage or intentional community. Through anecdotes, stories, and cautionary tales about real communities, and by profiling seven successful communities in depth, the book examines “the successful 10 percent” and why 90 percent fail; the role of community founders; getting a group off to a good start; vision and vision documents; decision-making and governance; agreements; legal options; finding, financing, and developing land; structuring a community economy; selecting new members; and communication, process, and dealing well with conflict. Sample vision documents, community agreements, and visioning exercises are included, along with abundant resources for learning more.

• Communities that influence us/why:  Dancing Rabbit, La`akea,