A Seasonal Status Update June 27th 09

Hello Beautiful Inspiring Busy people!

Its been quite a while since one of these things, and I just wanted to try to piece together a little perspective by talking about what different folks on the recieving end of this list are up to (no names though, feel free to reveal yourself, its not my place!), and what I've been looking into, thinking about and doing related to this "project".

First of all,
I'd like to plug this book that Sara brought up "Creating A Life Together" by Diane Leafe Christian. Silly name, as it so happens with so many good books, but definitely the most appropriate, inspired and well researched book that could possibly be for projects such as this. Christian lives at Earthaven in NC and has so much to say about various Villages processes of forming, the legal aspects to think about when buying and owning land, tax stuff, Profit/non Profit, how to think about membership, and so much more. I will refer to this book many times!

I'd also like to suggest that anyone thinking about spending anytime in a co-housing/or eco-village setting read this book however you can.
I was thinking that we could do a foto-copy and mailing swap---
I could mail different chapters to different folks, and each could then mail that chapter they have to other folks, so that way we could spread the cost around, and it could also be a little fun :-) Does that make sense?

Second off, I am so inspired and often jealous of what so many folks i know are up to. I often have to pinch myself to realize that my friends and acquaintences are up to so many cool things.
As for folks that have expressed direct or collaborative interest in the project, here are some stats:


(Please forgive me in advance if i skip you, so much cool stuff is going on, and my mind isn't getting sharper unfortunately!-- let me know if i should add anything to the list please! - and please don't view my contribution of your activity as binding, i just want to emphasize the collective growth wealth around us as a community)


-2 folks in Second year of Law School, with totally awesome ambitions that exceed my comprehension
-A good friend entering 3rd year of Med school.
-A foundational friend owning a house for possible equity in the project and entering Nursing school (if i understand correctly, because Nurses are recognized as one of the best professions to work almost anywhere in the country-- the Farm in TN mentions this in their history. ) All the while, also raising chickens and gardening!
-Several friends in various grad schools in various subjects pursuing their passions, three just graduated in Fine Arts (with grant now!) and one in Media.
-Others now studying for social work and PhDs in agriculture and environmental studies
-A foundational friend running a farm in PA
-A possible foundational friend working on his career as a Children's book writer/illustrator and working on his farm skills in Oregon for the Summer
-A couple amazing friends working for some time now as landscape designers/architects
-A collaborative friend continuing his serious study of Farm life with his partner in CA
-a great friend overcoming the temporal constraints of the Justice system, wowing us and sharing his great insights and charisma with us all
-a good friend busting ass and accomplishing great things related to fish and boats in Alaska to realize his dream for a Naturally Built music studio and more? !
-and knowledge of friends and folks building houses for themselves and others in Texas and Maine.
- and so many much more cool stuff happening!

feel free to post about interesting related things!


In my little world, I am approaching my first anniversary of life as a construction worker. I've been extraordinarily blessed to have lived and worked some with Sunray Kelley in WA, Haikola Custom Construction in ATX, and Kindra's Claysandstraw.com with her awesome partner John near Blanco, TX in the past year in what really has been the most challenging occupation I've yet imagined. In addition, I was able to sublet the first permitted Strawbale/Art house (built by Norm and Cat B) in Austin for 3 months last summer, which was a wonderful education and contrast to living in Sunray's works.
Currently, with Kindra and Co. we are coming to completion on a strawbale house for an awesome recently retired client, with a possible Cob house starting in September.

Apart from "Creating a life Together", I've been in the reading of : bell hooks "Beloning: the Culture of Place" which is a wonderful and deep meditation on her life and coming back to her native Kentucky to teach at Berea, the deep place of agriculture with african-american culture, and many other things.

I just finished Witold Rybscynski's "Home", which is a lovely eurocentric history of comfort and the conception of home within western society.
Also read Pollan's "A Place of My Own", an overlooked gem in my opinion refering to interesting construction and architectural history.
Still working on "The Poetics of Space" - let me know if you have any insights from reading it to spur me along!
Also working on "Cohousing" by Chris ScottHanson. A good book, but not essential.
Finally, I've also dived head first into finances initially via a random "motivational conference" my old boss invited the crew to. The speakers included Colin Powell and Rudy Guiliani. Quite a random spectacle! Through the rabbit hole and the experiment of un-demonizing money, I've been studying with an uncommon zeal "the markets", investment and related things in this funny economic political year that we find ourselves in. My only complaint is that i find it a little too fascinating for an often described anarchist....



Thirdly,
reading Christians book (which i still haven't finished its so concisely packed full of information!), has created a very necessary mental rubric about the order of priorities for a village-like endeavor.

Those that i would most like to share with y'all are:

-The necessity for an original core group, however small, and a secondary group of supporters, and also, of course, late-comers.

-The necessity for the coregroup to develop a "Vision statement" and "Vision Document" as a group as something to refer to for the future, as a community exercise and as a creation of a sort of dialog that can be a tool for future communication.

-The need for more advanced knowledge of relevant Tax, Legal, and Investment information in order to better and more smoothly interact with those worlds; as well as the definite need to occaisionally hire accountants and attourneys and other sorts of professional managers (Christian also suggests a Consensus Instructor or Mediator for some of the initial important meetings).

-The need to have an well structured relationship and understanding of loans, and mortgages. Several villages have developed a legal way of forming their own bank, and some also to issue their own internal currency as a way to organize their finances, loans, and internal economy. Fascinating! The "Schumacher Society" is often mentioned as a catalyst for this, but i have yet to understand or find their website to be helpful to me, Christian's book is a great start though!

I think that's all i can bite off for now.