our vision so far for ecovillage

These ideas are our current vision for creating our future ecovillage. We expect these ideas to morph as our circumstances change, and as other people come on board with their needs and desires. But for now, we want to put this vision out there in case you or someone you know feels drawn by these ideas to join us.
I've numbered these points for clarity but none is more or less important than another.
1. We want to live in community. What that means to us or anyone else is fluid. We imagine ultimately living in a community of about 100 adults, although that is ambitious and long-term and we accept that the number may be considerably smaller to begin with. In fact it is our clear intention that we begin this process with a committed core group of, say, 12 adults. The initial core group will of course have the most say in the shaping of the village. We are very excited about kids and families living in the village.
2. Location. We intend to live in a rural or semi-rural location. Ideally close to a rail link, and within 1 hour's travel of a reasonably large connurbation, for the sake of earning our keep. Southern England or northern France, most likely. We imagine the site will be one with existing buildings and out-buildings, ie a farm, etc. We would like to be able to build new buildings on the site of a sustainable and carbon-neutral nature. We intend for the site to be a compact village-centre development alongside working farm land and wilderness areas.
3. Economy. Nate works as a life-coach and Charlie as an acupuncturist. Both these professions require a stable and large-ish pool of clients, hence the need for a town of some size nearby. We intend to create a secure community subsistence economy, ie and eg growing food, managing woodland, maintaining our tools and machinery, producing energy, dealing with waste... This doesnt mean we all have to be farmers, but it would mean each community member putting in an agreed number of hours each week, and learning skills that could end up maintaining the community in apocalypse or hard times. (2 - 8 hours per week? ) Then we would also need a (booming) market economy. The skills and desires of community members would shape this, but we're thinking along the lines of, for example, eco-tourism like yurt b&b, internet business, retreat centre, eco-skills workshops, consulting which may involve travel, manufacture, etc etc. The subsistence economy exists to support the whole community; the market economy is more individualistic and each community member will ultimately be responsible for creating their own wealth of this type. However, both are needed for the long-term health of the village. There is also an investment aspect for the initial group who will be putting money down to buy the site: we intend that over time this group gets its money back and may make profit as new homes are built and sold to new community members.
4. Governance. We would like to use consensus decision-making structures, perhaps with a board or council that delegates authority to groups and individuals. This allows everyone to have their say, but also gets things done quickly without getting bogged down in having the whole group discuss every aspect of every decision, eg what colour to paint the barn. Privately run businesses operating on site may have to make agreements with the community, eg rent, available space, etc, but they would not be run by the community.
5. Legal structure. We imagine a company such as an LLP (limited liability partnership), with one voting share owned by each adult community member, would own the freehold common land and buildings. In addition to this voting share in the LLP, members may purchase leasehold properties from the LLP. This means that members can own or rent their private dwellings, and that these dwellings can be bought and sold on the open market as long as leasehold requirements are met. There will be some sort of filtering process for people wishing to become village members.
6. Culture/society. Community rules will of course be decided upon by consensus as the village grows. For example, it might be cool for people to agree to nudity in some areas; childcare in community; eating together regularly; regular community-building get-togethers, etc. Personally, Charlie and Nate want to live a life where they can have private space but lots of chances to hang out on the porch with neighbours and kids; where kids are nurtured and safe, old people active and respected, everyone in it together, no hierarchy by sex, integration of generations. We are interested in, but not committed to, home-schooling of the community's kids. We intend to have a 'barn-raising' culture, whereby the community comes together in a spirit of fun if a big project needs to be achieved or if someone needs help, eg building a new dwelling.
7. Spirituality. We welcome village members of any creed, so long as they subscribe to an inclusive 'many paths, one mountain' ethos, respecting other people's spiritual processes. We would like members to be willing to commit to telling the truth to other villagers and to commit to learning from their interactions with each other. We are looking for villagers to be more committed to learning and creating positive outcomes for themselves and the whole community, than to being right or making others wrong (particularly when shadow stuff comes up and it's crunch time).
8. Ecology. Basically we would like the creation of our village to benefit the local and global environment overall. We are interested in leaning about and using new and established ways to, for example, maiximise bio-diversity, minimise CO2 production, minimise wastage, etc.

This is a work in process. Please let us know what you think of these ideas. We are looking for people to join us now in forming the initial core group. Putting our thoughts and vision out there in this way represents a major part of our personal manifestation process - now we await input from you, if this vision speaks to you, whether we know you already or not. Hooray.
Charlie and Nate.

So far so good

Update on the planning situation:

Jackie, the older lady who lives at Greycot, spoke with the planning folks when they came back a few days ago.

Apparently, she did her "old lady telling stories" schtick, and they were mostly on her side by the time they left. They will probably want us to move our yurt (which we thought might happen) to another location on the property (as we hoped) and will probably be happy to have us officially resident in "the Moulton Residence" with the yurt up in its garden (as we hoped).

In addition, they acknowledged the legality of the four dwellings on the property, which we had expected to take some wrangling and filling out of forms. So, victory! At least for now, as far as we can tell.

We won't know for certain what the outcome of these visits is until we get some sort of a letter from the council, or we approach them in the Autumn to get letters certifying the legality of our existing arrangements. Still, for now...

Our prayers worked, and/or its a good thing to have a charming old lady on your side.

It Would Have Been A Long Fall With A Yurt Rope

Oh, the pun we have.

This Autumn would have been interminable, if we'd not fixed the yurt ropes. The ones that hold on the all-weather flap that covers the top wheel are always stretched tight. In a wind, they thrum like halyards aboard ship -- and if you've never sailed, they thrum like the strings of a really big guitar. Continually. That can become relaxing, actually, but they are close enough to the yurt roof that they also slap, rapidly, against it. That is a bit less relaxing, a bit more techno.

The solution is... take the all-weather flap off? In the middle of the biggest rain-borne floods in English history? Hmmm. Strap the straps with more tightly-strung straps? Makes it a lot harder to open the skylight when we've got sun...

The solution is pipe lagging! Or, if you're American, pipe insulation foam. String the ropes through that, and it lies lightly against the yurt roof. Not only does its porous surface dissipate wind energy through small-scale turbulence (or so I imagine), but it also transmits all oscillations very gently to the roof surface. The ropes haven't thrummed once. And now they're easier to maneuver, due to the fact that the width of the insulation makes them less able to catch on other ropes or the edges of the top wheel.

Go us.

A Scary Moment

Yikes!

We're just being visited by the planning council today. They have the ability to issue all sorts of orders about who can live where, and what sort of structures are permitted to exist. We think that our yurt is permitted, and that the worst we'd have to do would be to move it, but we don't know for sure! And that's scary.

We also aren't certain about the status of our official dwelling (the old shack that we're paying rent on).

We'll be cleaning it up so it's livable, but we don't want to have to move in this weekend, that's for sure! And will the council decide that, since it's all dirty and substandard, it's not a real dwelling? God, I hope not.

In fact: Oh great mystery that is all becoming all, I ask and intend that the council people decide to support us in our venture. I trust that everything that happens now will help me to serve the good of all people and our planet, and to aid my current intentions if my current intentions are aligned with that greater good. Love, Nathaniel Tucker White

I invite all of you readers to join me in this prayer!!!

PS - please do comment! I know you need to do a word-verification, but its quick. This way, 'bots don't put porn and stock ads on our blog!!

Sustainability = Stability in Change

An ecovillage is, in theory, a sustainable community. Community can be a confusing word, but generally we can take it to mean a group of more than sixteen people living together, working together, and sharing some sense of purpose and identity. Sustainability is harder to pin down. I like to define sustainability as "leaving more wealth for one's descendants for several generations to come," including in the definition of wealth such things as biological diversity, peaceful relations with other groups, and the skills that produce happy lives and great interpersonal relationships.

With this definition of sustainability, no actions are absolutely ruled out. Coal and nuclear power, for example, become "difficult elements to incorporate into a sustainable design", rather than "essentially unsustainable". Sustainability is about planning for the future, and choosing actions that are likely to create wealth for future generations.

All living systems maintain their own stability through constant change. Those changes include internal shifts of physical maturation and learning processes as well as behavioral shifts, changes in how the organism relates to its environment. If sustainability means planning, we must take into account the fact of change.

A single plan is not sufficient for any system intending to be sustainable, because no prediction of what will be required in the future is ever perfectly accurate. Often, our plans are complete rubbish because our predictions are so inaccurate. Businesses have begun dealing with this issue by using something called "scenario planning". In scenario planning, a group generates multiple stories about what might happen in the future, and then develops strategies to deal with those possible futures. Scenario planning, or something like it, is the only way any community can consider itself sustainable.

When I think about designing a village, there are three very general scenarios that I try to incorporate.
1) Apocalypse
2) Stagnation
3) Abundance

The Apocalypse scenario involves one or more disasters striking, and essentially means the large-scale collapse of our civilization. I don't regard it as the most likely outcome, but I'm also certain that I don't have the information I'd need to accurately lay odds. At the moment, the story I use for this scenario runs something like, "we have a global energy-crunch; global warming accelerates just as the global economy goes into a depression; a major icesheet (Greenland or one in the Antarctic) slides into the sea, raising sea-levels by seven meters and drowning major cities; large scale migrations and economic collapse produce the breakdown of social order". In that scenario, I want to be living in a community that can produce its own food, energy, and basic clothing / tools for a few years if necessary. We'd also need to be able to provide our own policing / local defense.

The Stagnation scenario is a much more likely scenario in my opinion. It is essentially "Apocalypse-Lite". "We all run low on oil and the global economy slows; global warming and rising sea-levels lead to loss of species, agricultural areas, and increased storm damage; some migration and increased disease combine with a slower economy to mean impaired health and reduced standard of living for many people." In that scenario, I want to be living in a community that can provide me a comfortable way of life with very little expense, but at the same time I want to have products and services I can put on the broader market so I can participate in the rebirth of the global economy (which will happen sooner or later). I also want my community to be well-integrated into my local area, so we can barter and help other people get organized.

In the Abundance scenario, the same challenges exist: global warming, mass extinction, exhausted petroleum deposits, sea-level rise, population growth. The difference is that this scenario assumes that we get our global act together enough to dodge most of the bullets. Renewables, some relatively clean non-renewables, and conservation/high-efficiency produce plenty of energy. We change our environmental management strategies so that biodiversity stablilizes and begins to increase again. This is a future of airships and sail freighters, high quality trains, bicycles and small super-efficient cars. It is a future of local manufacturing, a global information economy, employee ownership of companies, exploration of space, increasing longevity, and full life-cycle design of all industrial products. In this scenario, I want to live in a community that gives my children all the benefits of a stable, loving environment, that lets me do a few hours of physical work a week and relax with my friends easily in the evening, as well as keeping me connected to the booming global economy. I want to live in a simple home with access to luxurious community facilities and transport links to major cities and airport(s).

We can see that there are certain common themes, certain design features that will make it easier for me to accomplish my goals in any of these scenarios. Having some agriculture, some energy production, and some light manufacturing facilities on-site will be a requirement. Having good communications facilities is important as well. Relationships with other local businesses and producers of various kinds will be important.

In any case, my scenarios will have to get more detailed as we move forward on the village design. They will also change over time as the potential challenges clarify themselves. As the scenarios change, so should our strategies for navigating them. In this way, we can create a stable platform for building our dreams: maintain a well-crafted foundation of planning for change.

Smoothing the Edges

Living in a yurt is good preparation for the close community of a larger village.

My wife and I have moved from a three bedroom house in which we each had an office into a setting where, when we are home, we can always see each other. We can both hear the same music, and when one does an activity, we both know about it, whether we are cleaning the stove (which she does often) or sitting on the sofa (a favorite choice of mine).

Bedtimes offer a particularly clear contrast. I used to go to bed near to one o'clock in the morning most nights. I could schedule my work for late morning, and the middle of the night was time for me to be by myself. Not that I used it for anything productive -- it was just me time.

Now that my (our) sofa is in our yurt, that me time has disappeared. I am reading, or writing, or playing a computer game, in the bedroom. As a result, I go to bed earlier and wake up earlier. But it requires me to find other time for myself, makes me eager to head into town for an hour or two in a cafe.

There are countless little adjustments of this kind that produce feelings of anxiety (fear) or frustration (anger) in us as we change the way we live. "I used to be able to do it this way!"

This is the challenge of community, as anyone who has lived or worked with another person surely knows. Being forced by the requirements of the job or the living situation to adjust ways of being that, up till now, have been the perfect expression of my desires and wishes creates change in me. Gracefully letting go of my old ways of doing things, while simultaneously asserting my desire for a new way that satisfies me and satisfies my wife (or work partner, etc.) is the only useful way forward. What a challenge!

Yurted

We have just moved into our yurt!

We shoveled 3.5 tons of gravel to make a patio, which we finished with underfloor insulation and wood. We then erected the yurt on top of the patio, with the yurt edges tucked down around the floor edges. Thank the great creative process that the yurt manufacturer gave us the correct measurements for a well-erected yurt!



Our new circular home is immensely cozy. We have a gas stove, a sofa, a bed, dressers and wardrobes, and a "dining table" which formerly served as a coffee table -- we sit around it on cushions. This has us well and truly launched on our new adventure. Next steps, finding land and arranging agreements with other potential village founders!