The Communities Directory

The Communities Directory is a thick book that includes lots of information on specific communities across the continent--it also begins with many informative essays by various authors on all aspects of living in community. I picked up this text to get more information from other community founders on what types of issues and challenges I might face with starting a community, and to help me contextualize my thinking and get insights and ideas I wouldn't have thought of on my own. What I found was a mix of helpful, detailed articles as well as some overly basic introductory ones. Among the most useful for me was those about decision making models, "Consensus Basics," by Tree Bressen, and "Decision Making in Practice: Leadership Decisions and Majority-Rule Democracy," by Rebecca L'Abbe; and those about community constituencies and focus, such as "Life in a Resistance Community" by Sue Frankel-Streit, and several about queer people within community. I also got a lot of insight from two articles thinking about elders and children in community, and using "Conflict as an Opportunity for Harnessing Emotional Energy."

I have assumed that any community I would be a part of would practice consensus. I've had an odd feeling about this assumption at times, but I simply could not envision another model that would not be messed up with power dynamics and hierarchies. In the past I lived in several communities that have practiced consensus, with varying levels of formality and training. In those situations, I felt a little lost by the process, a little intimidated to step into leadership, and not entirely sure how to express my opinion about everything, because I often do not have strong opinions about issues. The article "Consensus Basics" was very useful in that I got a clear outline of the steps in the process, which clarified the reasons for why the groups I was involved in operated the way we did. It made me wish I had formal training in the process at the time, as that may have made the experience less frustrating for me, and given me some tools to feel more included in it. Eventually I left the last community I was a part of because I was exhausted by too many meetings and household commitments without enough bonding and feeling of friendship with the people involved. In reading this article, I was struck by the intense moral fiber of the consensus process: the goal is complete inclusion and representation of every person involved. This seems like a daunting task. It made me wonder if the formalities would feel less tiresome in a closer-knit group than the ones I have experience with. It definitely emerged as a clear art form, a calculated process with lots of integrity and intention. I think it is good for small communities and building close relationships if it is used correctly. The article warned against "pseudo-consensus" which can occur when members are not familiar enough with the structure or when people use the form in manipulative ways for their own power or control reasons.

I was actually surprised by my excitement at the article which discussed alternative methods of decision making: leadership and majority-rule democracy. A peer counseling organization I am currently involved with uses the leadership model, which works excellently for that purpose. It is a model that relies on a main leader to make the final decision; however, the leader does not rule in isolation. the leader is surrounded by a close group of people who serve as advising and making recommendations and helping the leader make the best decision possible. This model is exciting to me because it allows individuals to really claim an active, full leadership position. Sometimes in consensus I feel an underlying attitude held by the group that total leadership is somehow inherently corrupt; i don't believe that leadership is inherently corrupt. Sometimes in consensus I censor my own power, scared to dominate or take over the space. In a leadership model, if the group is in union about supporting their leaders, this tension is alleviated because we all agree to support the person making the decisions energetically and practically. Ideally, especially in large organizations, there is plenty of opportunities for leadership. Different people would have control over specific areas that they have expertise in, such as finances, schools, farming, housing, etc. I am not sure how to totally avoid corruption in a community setting with this model, but the example of a large community in India doing it this way was very useful. I am very excited to consider alternatives to the old standby of consensus. Democracy, I admit, does not excite me very much, probably because I think there is too much room for a false sense of representation when many people get marginalized when they are not the majority. It feels too dualistic, and I don't see it working all that great in our government.

Briefly , let me mention my thoughts about constituencies of people within communities. I read several articles about queer folks in community; two of these were about the special dynamic of all-queer of all-womyn space, and the third was about the benefit of a mixed-sexuality community. As a queer person, I find I naturally surround myself with other queer people in friendships, work, school. These are the people I feel naturally drawn to, and I actually find myself wishing I had more relationships with straight people for some diversity and variation of perspective in my life. Many of my friends who are looking for community want to live in queer spaces only. I feel pretty strongly that I don't want a purely queer community. I want all types of people. I want to have a conscious space for queer people to come and be safe and welcomed, but I want straight people to feel welcomed and at home there as well.

Other aspects of my future community that I considered in reading this book was incorporating elders and children. The articles brought up some great points about the benefits of multi-generations, which I had already decided I wanted. I think of this future community as a place my parents can come when they are old, and a place to help raise the children of my dear friends.

The last article I will review was titled "Committing to Community for the Long Term: Do We Have What It Takes?" by Carolyn Schaffer. The author speaks to her life-long commitment she made to a community that fell apart within a year afterward. She explains how the process of committing "without reservation" to the form of the community as it existed in that moment was a trap. It is a trap to need to rely on the physical structure to persist, because change is inevitable and good. She had to address major issues of ego attachment as she let this community disintegrate. She learned through experience how to be a "hospice worker" of sorts to her beloved home to which she had committed, literally, "till death do us part." Her worries of breaking her commitment actually gave her the opportunity to investigate what exactly she was committing to. In the end, she learned that commitment does not equal sticking something out that feels like drudgery, or holding onto a form that clearly isn't working but that you are righteously attached to on principal. The lesson is to passionately commit with both ones heart and ones logical thinking. This is a smart commitment that will see the community through transformation, change, and hold on and persist in tough times but knows the wise choice to let go when appropriate.

I can see myself struggling with attachment to form, both physical land based forms and people. A large motivation for finding intentional community for me is "finding family". Family, in my mind, means you don't ever leave each other. It's like the rigid expectation of "til death do us part." Perhaps this is a result of my family disintegrating when I was a teenager. I am an only child, and my parents were extremely loving and kind to each other my whole childhood; until I was 16. Then everything fell apart. The promise they made continually to me as a young child--that they would stay together through any conceivable conflict--crumbled under the crisis of jealousy, betrayal, shifts in desire and power. Perhaps the sadness of this has left me with an expectation that families stay together no matter how hard it gets. I am aware that this is, perhaps, an unreasonable expectation to hold for my future communitarians. An idea came to me as I read this article. I want to consciously address feelings of attachment as the group coalesces, as part of early bonding exercises; I would also do this for myself in my personal process. I see a day or several days of emotional healing and communication about our expectations and early hurts/memories around our families, friends, loss, or commitment.

Why bother with all this mess? Is community worth all the hassle? Among many other reasons, including camaraderie and feelings of closeness with people, I was reminded through these readings that forming and participating in intentional community is an act of conscious dissent from the mainstream culture of greed and isolation; the challenge is worth it because it is essential to forming a new culture and new values of cooperation, integration, mutuality. This is my revolution.