Sunday 13 June 2010

Plant where you stand

I'm just home from a lovely weekend with Limina people at the beautiful Quadrangle in Kent.

We've been talking about how we want to live.

Frank Forencich is a Stanford-trained biologist and play specialist.

Looking at indigenous wisdom from around the world, he says, the 'Mind Body Spirit' trinity has missed its other half:

'Land, Tribe, Ancestors.'

The yearning for connection with Land and Tribe that I feel is so widely shared, it seems.

One important thing came out of the weekend for me.

The notion of plant where you stand.

I've been slowly developing the idea of an intentional blended community and visitor place where people can try out practical skills and a blended lifestyle.

Wrong thinking, I realise.

If lots of the people with a strong orientation towards nurturing healthy connections with land and tribe all exodus from our existing communities, what will happen?

Plant where you stand, our conversations seemed to conclude.

I'm going to move somewhere quite small.

See who in the local community wants to start a goat co-op.

Embed it rather than separate it.

That's where I'm doing.

Lean into the cracks. Nestle and nestle into the concrete forms we've inherited until they soften and open into new structures that support new ways of life.

IT's possible.

I'm excited about Limina. It's got a good feeling to it. It's perhaps the main place for people who share this yearning to connect, inspire, enable, challenge and support each other. That's certainly what happened this weekend.

It's a good thing.

3 comments:

  1. You're spot on here. We need to be scattering appleseeds across the desert. Then coming back to water them. This is the way to get the ideas, and the practices, out there into the world - the way to inspire people. Intentional communities have many good points, but they're usually inward looking, and end up naturally disconnecting from the 'real world' in which most people live.

    As well as which, on the subject of ancestors, I feel a strange kind of historical debt has to be paid here in England. Our ancestors had their land stolen from them over centuries. Now the country is a mishmash of superstores, giant estates and half a million quid poshed-up homes. We need to bring back the goats, the small-scale chaos, the work with the hands. Call it historical revenge.

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  2. What a beautiful comment Paul. Here's to historical revenge! :)

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