like all break throughs, nothing can prepare you but you are always ready.
ive been dreaming of this for years, but havent had any real opportunity to save money. ill gladly work hard and contribute to a permaculture and cob housing

ill be buried there if i may, under a great big trichocereus!

im curious how security would be set up, we cant just have anyone/everyone show up and go to "school" there has to be some kind of safe guard to ensure its longevity.

Appalachia is the region that has always appealed to me (on an innate as well as on a practical level). A rich spiritual and cultural history and relatively cheap, sustainable acreage.

What wrong with them. They are the people benefit most from a trip. May shows them how to fix their life? If you dont like those people, only white, rich elite stay because they have money to go there and pay for what they need, like food, lamp oil, whatever.

If you do invitation only, then you get tight group who get paranoid and distrust others. And if someone comes and group dont like him there can be mobbing.

Moral standard seem important.

Sounds like a good hands-on idea. I would like to be someone who could go to such places but I still cling too much to my material possessions that make me happy. I am more aware of that all the time. Often I think life would be so much easier if you didn't have to worry about material junk. I admire anyone who passed that stage and can create a new way of life. In another world I would even travel there to visit, but I won't fly anymore because of privacy reasons.

I have a vacation cabin of sorts with my girlfriend and it often inspires me to think about how that could be a self-sustaining community. We wanna get solar panels there for some basic power but I hear they can be stolen from the roofs. We also, on that park, have problems with homeless people breaking into the houses and stealing stuff to sell for a few bucks or just sleeping there a night.

This happened to our cabin...this homeless dude slept there in winter one night and used the toilet, which was nasty because in winter the water mains are closed, so we could not flush. I have to say I was quite angry. It is not as if in .nl there are no Salvation Army beds in winter for homless people and it is not as if these people cannot get help from myriad programs to get them back on their feet and getting a small place to live. It is all socialism here after all.

But..how can you deny someone a bed when they are hitting rock bottom in society, the selfsame society that grinded their soul up to the point where Everlast sings in the song 'What it's like': "He asks a man for what he can spare with shame in his eyes, get a job you fuckin slob 's all he's adviced.'

I am not ready for such a community when I stare in the mirror and see a man angry for the desperate act of a fellow man of Earth desperate needing shelter from the winter frost, because he broke into MY PROPERTY.

Benny my friend, you nailed it. I'll talk to you when you get back from France :-)

I have had everything and more and it brought me no peace, if I were to speak truth it brought me nothing but fear. The fear that it would be all stripped away, taken in the night and it was many times. I soon came to realize that all that is of atoms and matter is limited in it's being. Only the investment that is in myself that has lasted me, even unto the ends of my days. No man mortal nor god can take this from me. Physical possessions can be repossessed by those who desire it more than you and hold legal claim true or not from you but you will have you till your very last breath. It is a lesson we all learn, from this teacher of great things, time.

I have a similar dream, though no means of making it happen quite yet.

Go for it, dude! I think the world needs places like that!

The ball it is a rolling this may not be a fantasy for long. How many of you would seriously consider living in a place such as this keeping in mind that to do so would require you give up your lives as they were for good and for ill. Such a place would not be a place of dreams and walks through the long grasses but something that would require in many ways a return to colonial practices.

It is not outside logic to think that out of the many thousands that come here a few like minds would consolidate their resources and create such a community. What is hard to foresee is how many of those people there are and how this entity which is beyond any one being but a product of many would evolve.

I completely support your idea for creating this self-sustaining community, I have but one question:

What you call it? Have you considered what you would name it yet?

I hope your plans go beyond your expectations!

I just love this idea. You got a heart in the right direction.

Every day I am opening up the secret of corruption to people I talk to. Telling them things that maybe they never knew. It makes me realize we are controlled by a higher power and all they want us to do is work, buy things and then die. They dont care about our health or well being. They feed us crappy food to shut down the creative thinking, stearing us away from natural foods. Making impossible to get enough money to get ahead because of rising costs of living, taxes and credit / loans. It is a sinking life and we are being pulled under. Our human existance is fading quickly.

We have to work together to change it, but how? The higher power is too large.. Not enough people want to stand strong. They are making it illegal to protest on the streets now. So we have no say and just have to let them control us like puppets. Crazy!!

But Vovin you have the right idea and I admire you for that. I really hope you can pull together and have this freedom of life we should all have. Get back to our roots and live off the land. Good on yeah!

I think it's a good idea, of course.

I'm all for intentional communities. But even more important than planning the logistics, is planning the social organization. I kind of skimmed this thread, so maybe you've already gotten somewhere in this respect.

All I can say is that I've visited many intentional communities in this country (and lived in one for a few years), and they all seem to have their power struggles and hidden or overt hierarchies.

If you are the one financing this thing, you might envision yourself the head of it, for example. Even if you don't think you are the head of it, it has to be a legal entity of some sort. Who owns what? Shall people own their own houses, or shall no one own their own house? Can members be voted out?

Not wishing to be a Debbie Downer, but there's more that is required than simple dedication to an ideal + capital. The rules need to be laid out in detail and agreed to by everyone, consensus-like, right from the start. We idealists may not like rules, but conflicts are even harder to manage when you don't have rules of engagement.

Anyway, I trust that you will do your best with this, and hopefully one day I can come visit.

the laws of such a community would lie in my mind in the populace not those who seek power. As mark twain once said he who is capable of getting elected should by no means be allowed to serve. The quest for power corrupts even the most honorable of men.

I haven't been to many intentional communities, but there was one that was really functional that I've always remembered... the secret to their success, as far as I could tell (and was told), was that they didn't have any rules, but simply relied on quietly and mutually respecting each other's space. The guy who actually owned the property had the final word on what was ok and what wasn't, not power that was abused in the least.

That simplicity was key... there was nothing really to dispute, which I think comes into play when the concept of plural ownership is in use.

Here is a guide to intentional communities, from someone who has done it before:
Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities

http://www.amazon.com/Cr...id=1335838308&sr=8-1

'The Farm' in Tennessee, started by Stephen and Ina May Gaskin, is a commune that has been in existence for over 40 years.

This thread is really exciting to read, and it's so nice to see all of the positive response- apparently you aren't alone. I think many of us have similar visions: living on the land, off the grid, growing our own food and medicine, getting in tune with the rhythms of nature, pursuing and sharing art, knowledge and wisdom in a flowing community of open-minded lovers, healers, movers and shakers.

I'd be willing to bet, being faced with an option to join a group of people dedicated to making this community real, you'd find lots of support- you've got mine. This is the exact sort of thing, with just the right sort of people this vision needs to push itself forward.

I have a friend who's adapted this vision and really wants to green the desert as a part of working towards a sustainable community. It sounds like a lot of work, and I'm not on the permaculture end of this story, but it may be worth looking into. May also be crazy and impossible. The Appalachian's do have a sort of majestic allure. That's definitely a place one can really dig into some roots.

I wonder if this is all part of the movement- it seems possible that a large portion of the population will make the move to this lifestyle- perhaps on the level of mass migrations, and at least on very local urban and suburban levels. So many people are wising up to the game and craving a more organic, visceral life every day that soon enough we may find ourselves under the tree of knowledge once again.

Count me in. Every day in Babylon is another day closer to Eden. I will contribute all that I can to help the community. For now sleep. Will throw in to the idea pool after some good rest.

Sounds like the 'hippy dream' brother Vovin, you could also plant a massive patch of Acacia or DMT containing trees PLrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Your mind makes it real, that is the secret

It will not be real just in my mind. We are here to make the myth just insane enough to leap from the edge, just sane enough to make it happen. This fantasy, this myth, as a few of us debate the intricacies of such things soon it will be a reality. Fantasies, dreamed enough, have a ability to become a reality.