EcoVillage Mania

Today I got to see some old friends on national news - right here in the Sunday Washington Post. I am amused and excited! It is a pretty positive article. It is true that they are pretty much a bunch of white middle class hippies living out in the woods, and that while far from modeling utopia, the fact that the mainstream media is finally aware of ecovillages as a modern phenomena is a window of hope for me. I cannot emphasize enough the rugged dedication, physical labor and personal processes that go into such a lifestyle. Anyone who has grown up on a farm or who has homesteaded or ever been through a consensus meeting can imagine that this might be so. Like many others, I have spent several years of my life visiting and living in such places, geared towards living sustainably, and meeting people from all around the world who share this practice. When it becomes most engaging to me is when it involves people in the non-industrialized world, the working poor, urban projects, and indigenous people determined to preserve and adapt their own traditional lifestyles and values. These grassroots inspired human settlement projects are happening throughout North and Latin America, India, Australia, Africa, and elsewhere. Most people seem to have no idea that this is even happening, or have any context for imagining it. I am here to tell you, it is happening! In different ways - all over the world. Not nearly enough, however. It may not be what single handedly "saves the world", and yet it is joyous and inspiring to witness such human wisdom responding resourcefully to our modern challenges. As I see it, ecovillages do not provide "the" answer, but are part of a tide of creative solutions to our current global path of destruction, part of what may help turn the collective scale towards a saner, more sensible, more human and humane way of being in the world. Human beings are stewards, not masters of the Earth - and we will have to come to terms with this eventually. Imagine what Heaven on Earth might look like, and feel like to be a part of. At least imagine what it might mean simply to survive as a species. Imagine actually acknowledging collectively the finite nature of the resources we depend on, and learning to rebalcance our lives in rhythm. We have an incredible capacity to envision and create when we decide to. We are inextricably connected to all of life on the planet - all around and inside us. We are not only dependant on the Earth, we are Earth. Many other ways of living are indeed possible, and necessary.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/14/AR2006111400979.html?nav=hcmodule