January 8, 2013
As a community builder in the city of Portland and community counselor for Windward, I am always on the look out for circumstances and stories that can shed light on what it means to be a healthy intentional community.
This holiday season I was down in San Diego visiting family and we took a guided caravan ride through the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.
We piled in our open back truck with our well trained guide and lurched out onto the grasslands of the park. There were great views of herds of water buffalo and gazelle, chances to hand feed giraffes and fruitless efforts to give apple slices to rhinos.
To make up for the fact that no rhino seemed very interested in trotting up to our vehicle, the tour guide took to telling us about their social lives.
There was a contented pod of rhinos in front of us, five adults and one youth in all, all laying on their sides in the warm sun - this is December but this is also San Diego.
a comadre of rhinos lounging on the savanah
He explained that this is a group of all female rhinos and one young male. He was very proud of how successful the park's breeding program had become now that they have figured out one very important thing . . . rhinos don't get pregnant unless they feel well surrounded by their sister rhinos.
He said there were many years of zoos and parks putting a pair of rhinos, one male and one female, together and then assuming they had infertile or disinterested rhinos.
It just didn't occur to them that numbers were the issue. But when the park designers and staff went about doing all they could to give each of the types of animals in their care what they observed that they usually had in the wild, they made it possible for all the female rhinos to gather together and suddenly, animals previously thought to be infertile were siring and caring baby rhinos to term.
The story of these successful female groups of rhinos reminded me very much of a group of four older women I delightedly watched with fascination one holiday season in the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. They were just so naturally happy and at ease with each other, a fact that caught my eye just after I noticed them because they were all wearing holiday headband antennas. You know the type, plastic head band, two wire springs pointed up at odd angles, something festive dangling from the end of each spring.
Not something I expected on the head of a group of 60 year old women out for an afternoon with what I could only assume was their latest book group, best girlfriends from way back or maybe their biological sisters.
They finished their tea before my group did and as one of them walked past our table I decided to be bold and ask, "Excuse me," I said, "I couldn't help noticing the four of you. You seem so happy together like you've know each other a very long time. I'm curious, how long have you know each other."
The woman smiled and said, "We've all known each other since kindergarten."
I said something like, "That's incredible." or "Wow, how did that happen?"
And she went on to say, "It's been very sweet over the years and at our age, you really cherish your women friends. Our children have come and gone. For some of us our husband (or husbands) have also come and gone, but we've always had each other."
So I'm thinking those rhinos out on the pretend savanna in Southern California and all the ones out on the real African savanna are on to something. There is safety and security in numbers, a camaraderie or, if you want to give it a gender specific name, a comadre that allows for taking on the risks of childbirth and raising children with the security of a posse of helpful women at your side.
Karen and friend
It will be interesting to see what happens at Windward in the child bearing years for the next generation of our intentional community. Communities through out the centuries have had many examples of tribes and sister wives raising children together. One part of China has a walking marriage where children stay with their mothers and uncles and grandparents from their maternal side of their family.
On occasion a car will pass me by with the bumper sticker - LOVE MAKES A FAMILY. Being in the midst of raising two teenage daughters, I know full well that love, while very, very essential is not the only element at play. It also takes a lot of groceries, a warm and welcoming place to be, a sense of humor and some stress relief for the main inhabitants of the family pod.
But I very much respect what I understand the intended sentiment of the bumper sticker to be - family is not gender specific or number specific. Family keeps coming back to the table (or that warm spot on the savanna or the Palace Hotel at Christmas time) to laugh and cry and circle the wagons, so to speak, around who ever is currently most in need of comfort and support.
There is no easy way to form and maintain family and community. As a person well known for being deep into intentional community, I get approached often by those who have been on a more solo path or in a tight (almost too tight) coupling, or a more isolated, overworked nuclear family with questions about how it all works and is it all worth it.
I'm in the habit of smiling and saying, "Is life in intentional community worth it? Sure. If you aren't used to it, it's going to hurt like hell at first and feel like a lot of work many times over the years, but isn't something that stands a really good chance of lasting past the efforts of just one or two people worth working for?"
Those were certainly some pretty safe and happy looking rhinos in no need of our little bucket of apples. I'm sure they have their moments with each other, as we all do, but their pod is probably somewhere on that San Diego savanna right now, snorting a bit and getting on with life just fine.
Karen Hery
Founder of the Sunnyside Swap Shop Co-op
community counselor for Windward