February 8th, 2013

Andrew:


Sometimes, getting away from community is the best way to better engage in it. I liken it to trying to gain perspective on something by looking at it in your hand. You cannot see very well how it fits into the bigger picture unless you sit it down and walk a distance away.

Winter is just about the only time of year when I can step away for 5 days and not have anxiety about the amount of work I put on others in the process. So in January I took a handful of days in Portland in order to recenter myself for the year ahead.

The sleepy winter landscape gives a chance for us who work on the land to slip away for a few days.

While in Portland for the most part I didn't do anything! And it was wonderful. To just not do anything for the better part of five days, allows for all sorts of internal movement.

I have been a life-practitioner of Vipassana meditation. I know there are many doctrinal accounts of what is or is not Vipassana, and perhaps I am being disingenuous for using the word Vipassana. But I hate being cought up in the language games. Vipassana basically means "seeing clearly" and is a foundation of Buddhist meditation practice.

At the most basic level, Vipassana is a practice of concentrating on ones breath allowing the mind to settle down and naturally become clear and focused. From a centered place, thoughts, feelings, remembrances, etc are allowed to arise and fall away while one observes the movements inside in a non-judgemental way.

When I say that I didn't do anything, I mean the whole point of this retreat time was not to do anything in particular, and let my mental/emotional/physical being express itself, and in that be able to see more clearly.

I find that it takes me a few days of this intensive practice before I have "broken through" to some more relaxed way of being. This is when the real transformation begins to happen.

I appreciate greatly the opportunity to simply be able to drop off the daily responsibilities of animal care and community life to do nothing in particular. Thank you to all who allowed me to do this. It was deeply nourishing.

Members of the Atlan Community forming a "Humandala".

Meeting with Atlan Community Members

Besides my personal meditation while away, I was also able to set up some get-togethers with fellow communitarians in Portland.

I had the opportunity to meet with members of the Atlan Community ; Laurrien Gilman (aka La), Leonard Barrett (aka Lenny), and Keala Young. Atlan is an intentional community and educational retreat center being founded on a piece of land in Western Klickitat county near where the Condit dam used to be before it was removed.

Here's a video and a link to a blog about the rewilding of the White Salmon river.

Windwardians and Atlandians (as I will refer to them in the plural) share a common vision of creating a working model of a better way. A culture which grows out of a love for the Earth, and care for people, and appreciation for the beauty and the simplexity of living and artful, creative existence in relationship to a piece of our home planet from which we draw our sustenance. And also, we share a great passion for exploring what is on the edge of possible when living cooperatively.

They have already begun work on a workshop/loft community space which will form a kind of nexus of their community. You can see there progress on the Atlan Center Blog

I feel that it was a good introduction, and I look forward to continuing to develop a relationship with all the members of this neighbouring community as they move more toward living on the land full time.

Meeting with Planet Repair Institute


A picture of a small pond in the backyard of the PRI house.

I also had the chance to meet with Mark Lakeman and Mighk Simpson of the Planet Repair Institute, a land-based suburban intentional community and permaculture school that stands as a living example of City Repair in action.

I happened to arrive on tragic day, when a neighbouring piece of land was being torn up by housing developers. This was no ordinary piece of land, but the birth place of the Village Building Convergence, and the site of countless community focused enterprises. Sadly, it was sold, the old farm house torn down, the grandparent orchard trees plucked from the Earth and many lifetimes of work destroyed in short order.

Over the roar of a very large chainsaw, we made our introductions. As limbs fell to allow the sawyer to climb to an ancient Fir tree and dismantle it in sections small enough not to crush the surrounding houses, Mark expressed his honest grief over the whole situation, and Mighk gave me some more of the history of the land.

While it was a day of deconstruction in their community , I was honoured to be able to bear witness to something so deeply momentous. Perhaps, an all too sobering example of how the world of private property needs to be reckoned with if we stand any chance of incubating a new culture amidst it's ubiquitous power. The event stands as an opportunity for re-commitment to the cause of building resilient communities.

The work of Mark Lakemen through City repair, and the honest dedication of Mighk with the Planet Repair Institutes living laboratory is indeed an inspiration. No doubt an example of what great things are possible in an urban context. I particularly look forward to seeing the Sellwood Gap urban food forest project develop under the guidance of folks for PRI.

Sunnyside Environmental School energy teach-in

Intern Sam playing with kids at the Sunyside swap shop in 2010, part of a sensory playtime where Windward folks bring in bunnies and chicks for kids to experience.

Later in the week, I was able to give a presentation with Opalyn at the Sunnyside environmental school; an alternative K-8 school in Sunnyside Neighborhood of Portland. It is right next to the Church which houses Sunnyside Swapshop Coop,of which Karen (a member of Windward) founded and Windward is the sponsoring non-profit.

Opalyn and I gave a series of half hour presentations about Biomass energy and gasification to 6th, 7th and 8th graders. I have never given a rather technical presentation to a group of middle schoolers before! As you can imagine it was a bit of a challenge to hold their attention, but once we started talking to them about replacing gasoline in a car with wood gas from tree branches, their ears began to perk up :)

I look forward to exploring ways that we can bring groups of school kids onto Windward's property to give them a more hands-on immersion way to learn about these technical subjects. It strikes me that there is really no better way to teach a subject as complex as renewable energy, than the students being grounded in an actual piece of land.

If there is anyone out there who would like to plan a school field trip to Windward and it's campground, feel free to get in contact with us!