Any recommendations for Communes/Eco Villages/Intentional Communities?

[japanarchist]

Hey Y'all,

I've been thinking about traveling around again and I've been wanting to check out some communes (or whatever you wanna call them) of people living together off-grid or semi off-grid and doing cool things like growing food, getting out of the rat race, living healthier, etc. I'm in Oregon and would love to get some recommendations for places here but I'm open to other states as well. Going somewhere explicitly anarchist is ideal but I'm not limited to that either. So far the 2 places I have on my radar are The Garden in Tennessee, and Acorn Community in Virginia. Anyone have any experience with either of them?

 

[Tyler608]

Slab city California?

 

[Colinleath]

I made a point of visiting quite a few over the years. . .

• Twin oaks community, Floyd,​
• The farm (ecovillage training center), summertown, tn​
• Earthaven ecovillage, black mountain, nc​
• Moonshadow(?) Also, in tn​
• Wildroots, (near Asheville)​
• One in Massachusetts near Amherst​
• The stillwater sanctuary / possibility Alliance (la Plata, Missouri) (only has a landline phone, no electricity on purpose, carfree, near amish and Amtrak station, funded by donations, definitely worth a visit and an entree into many of the ICs in that area)​
• Quail springs in Ventura, CA (on the way to Frazier park in the desert)​
• Spirit pine (frazier mountain)​
• Sunburst sanctuary (near buellton, Ca)​

Just look in the fic directory for more ideas. Ic.org, and there are many not in the directory as well.

 

[Andrea Van Scoyoc]

I was going to suggest The Garden but...you've already heard of it.

I know there was a guy supposed to buy land in Georgia and make it a commune, but never heard anything more.

Good luck!

 

[japanarchist]

I made a point of visiting quite a few over the years. . .

• Twin oaks community, Floyd,​
• The farm (ecovillage training center), summertown, tn​
• Earthaven ecovillage, black mountain, nc​
• Moonshadow(?) Also, in tn​
• Wildroots, (near Asheville)​
• One in Massachusetts near Amherst​
• The stillwater sanctuary / possibility Alliance (la Plata, Missouri) (only has a landline phone, no electricity on purpose, carfree, near amish and Amtrak station, funded by donations, definitely worth a visit and an entree into many of the ICs in that area)​
• Quail springs in Ventura, CA (on the way to Frazier park in the desert)​
• Spirit pine (frazier mountain)​
• Sunburst sanctuary (near buellton, Ca)​

Just look in the fic directory for more ideas. Ic.org, and there are many not in the directory as well.

Which ones did you like most?

 

[doejohnsone]

I too am looking for a place maybe similar to this. Love community settings and working as a team to get things done. Any recommendations of places open to newbies?

 

[rivervictor]

hello, I lived for seven years in community at a Catholic Worker. it was good in some ways, but hard to be a disabled queer person who's not Catholic or Christian, among the mostly white abled straight Catholic people. we could protest nuclearism and war together, and we could feed hungry people. I like the works of mercy. but otherwise, it was a fuckton of compromise to live with people who are mostly mainstream values. Catholic Worker is supposedly anarchist, but they called me and my spouse "the anarchists" because we were the anarchists.

Catholic Worker has around 200 manifestations around the world, so they say. we were on our way to run another Catholic Worker house and got derailed finding out the person we were supposed to live with there had bedbugs. that whole situation was handled poorly, and we didn't feel safe, so we hit the road.

then we ended up staying at an intentional community called Full Circle Farm in Ojai, California near the Quail Creek someone else mentioned. Full Circle has beautiful land and fruit trees hippies planted decades ago. I like that there are many small structures, and folx are spread out. but there is a culture of ableism which is just about everywhere, unfortunately. my spouse and I stayed there one month. I learned a lot about how most communities want normal people, and hippies are mostly into appearances and money as much as regular people, just with a slightly different style of dress. it was depressing.

we are at a small farm in Oregon now, for a month, to help with the garden and goats. we visited Lost Valley Education Center yesterday, in Dexter, where my spouse lived for five years. more ableism, racism, love of money. it's a business. most intentional communities are businesses--a nonprofit is mostly a business. ideally it would not be that way. but money wins.

I feel sad and hopeless, but I don't want to give up. I believe in living in community for our well-being, and to share, resist capitalism, and do something better.

but I am losing faith in the existence of functional, just communities. I could tell you stories about Acorn, Twin Oaks, East Wind, and a few Catholic Worker houses. abled straight white guys who push people around tend to win, or abled straight white ladies with retirement plans, pushing around the others who have nothing. I despair.

 

[Colinleath]

Which ones did you like most?

At the time, earthhaven ecovillage was a cultural nexus and led to many other connections and opportunities.

Settling in the west, i hoped to find something similar out there. Quail springs filled that niche for me.

On another trip across the US i made a point to visit stillwater sanctuary. . . (La Plata, mo)

And that is certainly yet another amazing place with connections to many other communities, ideas, opportunities.

But if î really liked any of them maybe I'd have stayed longer. I probably spent the most time at quail springs and returned there the most. But i had a unique claim to Fame there, being the guy who always (but once) walked 40-50 miles in and out.


Other communities that have been memorable:
Deer park monastery (Escondido, CA)

And the communities that form around outdoor ed jobs (naturalists at large, open sky wilderness therapy, rafting companies etc, etc-- they're all somewhat homeless people doing somewhat or very challenging stuff for work and when not working are generally off doing challenging trips of their own)

Another community experience happens with the long trails in the US and Europe.

Oh yeah and I finally made it to a rainbow gathering:

Where is the next Rainbow Gathering?

Rainbow Gatherings are not festivals. They’re intentional gatherings of all kinds of people who come together for a month somewhere in nature to cook together, sing around the fires, make workshops, share experiences and generally come together as ‘a family’. Some people see the Rainbow...

festivalsandretreats.com

The European one in Bulgaria. (A rather intense community experience that i didn't stay very long at. . . Maybe I'll last longer next time)

A bunch of them organized another one in Turkey coming up soon.

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And a few of them were taking a break from a horse caravan community that is currently in Guatemala. . .

horse caravan guatemala - Google Search

And more recently I've found the technomad community -- i like them all in their own way .

I suppose i spend the most virtual time with the bicycle & unicycle travelers. . . They're an inspiring group.

Just found Teagan earlier today and she's just one example.

Tegan Phillips (@teganphillipscomics) • Instagram photos and videos

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[Gin]

Hey Y'all,

I've been thinking about traveling around again and I've been wanting to check out some communes (or whatever you wanna call them) of people living together off-grid or semi off-grid and doing cool things like growing food, getting out of the rat race, living healthier, etc. I'm in Oregon and would love to get some recommendations for places here but I'm open to other states as well. Going somewhere explicitly anarchist is ideal but I'm not limited to that either. So far the 2 places I have on my radar are The Garden in Tennessee, and Acorn Community in Virginia. Anyone have any experience with either of them?

While in Tennessee check out The Farm in Summertown It's been around since the 70s. It's pretty Hippie but they're self sufficient with a Soy Dairy, Sorghum Farm, Midwifery School. At least that's how it used to be. Let me know how they're doing, if ya go👍
Travel Safe

 

[rivervictor]

fascinating read--about intentional communities Twin Oaks and Acorn regarding anti-transness, power, violence.

HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE: A Communal Living Experience

(note: this interview was originally conducted by CRACKED.COM, but either never made the cut to being used for a publication or was lost…

web.archive.org

 

[japanarchist]

hello, I lived for seven years in community at a Catholic Worker. it was good in some ways, but hard to be a disabled queer person who's not Catholic or Christian, among the mostly white abled straight Catholic people. we could protest nuclearism and war together, and we could feed hungry people. I like the works of mercy. but otherwise, it was a fuckton of compromise to live with people who are mostly mainstream values. Catholic Worker is supposedly anarchist, but they called me and my spouse "the anarchists" because we were the anarchists.

Catholic Worker has around 200 manifestations around the world, so they say. we were on our way to run another Catholic Worker house and got derailed finding out the person we were supposed to live with there had bedbugs. that whole situation was handled poorly, and we didn't feel safe, so we hit the road.

then we ended up staying at an intentional community called Full Circle Farm in Ojai, California near the Quail Creek someone else mentioned. Full Circle has beautiful land and fruit trees hippies planted decades ago. I like that there are many small structures, and folx are spread out. but there is a culture of ableism which is just about everywhere, unfortunately. my spouse and I stayed there one month. I learned a lot about how most communities want normal people, and hippies are mostly into appearances and money as much as regular people, just with a slightly different style of dress. it was depressing.

we are at a small farm in Oregon now, for a month, to help with the garden and goats. we visited Lost Valley Education Center yesterday, in Dexter, where my spouse lived for five years. more ableism, racism, love of money. it's a business. most intentional communities are businesses--a nonprofit is mostly a business. ideally it would not be that way. but money wins.

I feel sad and hopeless, but I don't want to give up. I believe in living in community for our well-being, and to share, resist capitalism, and do something better.

but I am losing faith in the existence of functional, just communities. I could tell you stories about Acorn, Twin Oaks, East Wind, and a few Catholic Worker houses. abled straight white guys who push people around tend to win, or abled straight white ladies with retirement plans, pushing around the others who have nothing. I despair.

Hey I was at Lost Valley this weekend too! I got there late Friday around 9pm and stayed till sunday.

 

[japanarchist]

fascinating read--about intentional communities Twin Oaks and Acorn regarding anti-transness, power, violence.

HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE: A Communal Living Experience

(note: this interview was originally conducted by CRACKED.COM, but either never made the cut to being used for a publication or was lost…

web.archive.org

I’m no longer interested in twin oaks. I reached out to them and they have some policies I don’t like so they’re off my list.

 

[rivervictor]

Hey I was at Lost Valley this weekend too! I got there late Friday around 9pm and stayed till sunday.

cool! what did you think? my spouse and I were there for a couple hours early Friday for the free portion. we met the internship coordinator. we missed out on buying the limited discount tickets for disabled and lower income. so we just went there for the free farmers market. seed exchange I got some good seeds.

 

[japanarchist]

cool! what did you think? my spouse and I were there for a couple hours early Friday for the free portion. we met the internship coordinator. we missed out on buying the limited discount tickets for disabled and lower income. so we just went there for the free farmers market. seed exchange I got some good seeds.

I thought it was fine. I think they should have scheduled the different events one after the other instead of overlapping them so we could’ve had a better opportunity to attend them all. The people I met there were nice and friendly to me.

 

[Fuzzypeach]

Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in Missouri seems cool. The only problem is, it's in Missouri. Also you can get a directory of communities at www.ic.org.

 

[rivervictor]

I thought it was fine. I think they should have scheduled the different events one after the other instead of overlapping them so we could’ve had a better opportunity to attend them all. The people I met there were nice and friendly to me.

so glad they were friendly and nice to you.

 

[The Toecutter]

Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in Missouri seems cool. The only problem is, it's in Missouri. Also you can get a directory of communities at www.ic.org.

I've always wanted to pay this place a visit. I might take my custom "bicycle"(one-seater microcar that can be pedaled) over there. Their community bans private automobile ownership, but this sort of vehicle may be acceptable to their community given that it is perfectly functional as a bicycle with the electric drive system disabled, and has an ecological impact comparable to a bicycle, in spite of being able to travel at car speeds when using the motor. They might have a use for my ideas.

I'd have to spend some time living there to see if it was right for me or not though. They don't present as outwardly anarchist, and more as milquetoast left-libertarian/green, but that's still a far-cry from the global inverted totalitarianism/corporatism most mainstream society finds itself living under and therefore likely offers a massive improvement in quality of life on that basis alone.

Slab City is definitely on my bucket list as well, mostly out of sheer curiosity. But that is a lot farther away from where I currently live than Dancing Rabbit.