Category Archives: Intentional Communities

By Anna Yelizarova and Siqi Lin, Peninsula Press

The Embassy: a four-year-old intentional community in the Lower Haight. Its goal is the creation, maintaining and diversifying of the commons. (Anna Yelizarova/Peninsula Press)

As San Franciscos housing crunch continues, some residents are choosing to forgo traditional apartments and live in intentional, communal living under one roof echoing the type of housing that emerged during the hippie movement.

This year, on the fiftieth anniversary of The Summer of Love, many think that tech has changed the city for the worse, but the movement isnt dead.

The narrative is very much around how San Francisco is over and tech has ruined the city, but actually there is this strong counterculture all over the place, where people are providing mutual aid and shared learnings and doing all sorts of interesting things, and this isnt really seen, said Zarinah Agnew, a proponent of communal living and a resident and founder at The Embassy.

In this 360-degree, immersive video piece, take a tour of the Red Victorian, learn about the communities that have sprung up in the Haight-Ashburyand experience what its like to live communally in the 21st century.

A commune is an intentional community of people that live together, share common interests, collaborate on ideas, and often have common values and beliefs, as well as shared resources and responsibilities. A big part of it is the interpersonal dimension communes offer an escape from the cult of individualism, by connecting you with people to hang out with and grow close and intimate with, in a society where a lot of people lack social connection. Furthermore, there are also a lot of economic benefits.

I cook once a month and am cooked for the other 29 days of the month, explained Eric Rogers, a resident at The Red Victorian. I have this huge building at my disposal. I basically have the biggest house out of anyone I know. And thats a really nice thing to have in a city that has extremely expensive real estate

Built in 1904, the Red Victorian has been a cornerstone of the Upper Haight and a gathering place for revolutionaries, artists and travelers. Before it became a commune, the building was a historic peace and love hotel from the 1970s, and a meeting place through housing political protests, radical new ideas, artwork, creativity and conversations around creating world peace.

About 20 residents live and work together to build a rich community in The Red Victorian. It welcomes its residents to host and attend events from talks, classes and skill shares to music nights, book discussions and family dinners. It is also run as a small hotel, by renting out unoccupied rooms and making selected visitors staying in The Red Victorian feel like coming home to friends and family.

It is part of a greater international commune network, along with the flagship house The Embassy. Both communities work closely together and have great vision in bringing forth change they want to see in the world.

I would describe our community as a very creative and diverse group of people that are very interested in improving the world and also changing some of the systemic ways in which the world operates and perpetuates culture, Rogers said.

The Red Victorian: a Haight-Ashbury commune that supports creatives to connect and be in action around impactful projects. (Anna Yelizarova/Peninsula Press)

They are also part of the 11 houses that comprise the Haight Street Commons network, a group of communities united by geography. Every community operates differently. They make their own house rules and standards for housemate selection. Some are larger and house up to 30 residents; others are smaller and bring together a dozen people. When a new community starts, there is a lot of intention setting and meetings around what values the house should uphold and live by. As a result, you end up with a broad range of lifestyles and vibes in these houses whether it is creating a space to focus on art, or a place to experiment with consensus-based decision-making, or more inwards-focusing goals and creating meaningful bonds with housemates.

Our communitiesare about creating tiny pockets of experiments, Agnew said. I think its a great thing that we operate differently, it would be sad if we all do the exact same thing.

The members of these variouscommunities connect and attend each others events. As a result you see a lot of crossover and friendships, creating a greatercommunity of like-minded people, all diverse in origin, age and walks of life, but united by their choice to live their life with intention. And you really see them come together to support each other and learn from one another.

The Center SF: a commune that features tea movement community. (Anna Yelizarova/Peninsula Press)

Until now, weve largely had a society that has evolved and weve never really had one that was designed. And weve certainly not had a chance to vote or experiment on the kind of society that we might like to have that actually represents all of us, and Id like to see the communes being these places where we get to experiment with how we might like to operate and sharing these learnings between us, Agnew explained.

People have been living communally for thousands of years, whether it is with tribes of hunter-gatherers or extended families. It is only recently that atomized livingbecame such a prevalent notion in Western society. Surges in popularity of communal living, such as the ones weve seen in the 1870s and the 1960s have been associatedto slums in our economy, so there are a lot of dimensionsat play political, cultural and economic among others.

For communal living to thrive in the future, there are a lot of systemic and legislative challenges that will need to be addressed. Financially, it is very difficult to start a commune or to find suitable buildings. Communal dwellings are frequently inspected, according to their organizers. City officials may notunderstand what communal living is, since itdoesnt always fit intopredefined boxes and categories. As a result, this movement has challenged the meaning of the word family.

Chateau Ubuntu: a commune on Haight Street a French-Victorian mansion in the heart of San Francisco. (Anna Yelizarova/Peninsula Press)

There are two major ways that communes can compete with our notion of family. First, there is the dimension of company and emotional support, and second, from an economic perspective, shared domestic labor.Some states in the U.S. to this day, dictate that you cannot have more than four unrelated adults living in one household.

Generally speaking, American society has been told that you do that within a family. But weve realized that it can be a lot more effective if you do it on a larger scale, Rogers explained. In fact, The Embassy commune has seenfamilies with kids among its residents in the past.

Im in this in the long run, Rogers said. Im not doing this as a youthful thing that I look back gleefully on when Im an old person or a person with a family. For me Im really interested in redefining what family means.

Rogers will be pursuing his Ph.D. at Cambridge this fall, writing his thesis on Communes in the 21st Century.

PENINSULA PRESS EDITORS NOTE: Peninsula Press ReporterAnna Yelizarova is a serial communal-living dweller and a current resident at Chateau Ubuntu, an intentional community in San Francisco.

This story originally appeared on Peninsula Press, a project of the Stanford Journalism Program. Also from Peninsula Press: More 360-degree video stories

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Communes in San Francisco: Returning to the roots of communal ... - SFGate (blog)

For Mark Sundeen, the search began with a guilty meat snack.

After two decades of bumming around the countryfirst as a outdoorsman stringing together jobs in the rural West, and later as a city-bound freelancer and money-lung whose sole purpose was to inhale dollars, transform them into pleasure, then exhale a stream of carbon into the air, feces into the sewer, and plastic containers into the landfillSundeen settled in Missoula, Mont., seeking a simpler existence.

He got engaged to a woman with similar values, bike-commuted 14 miles daily, lived on garden feasts that took hours to concoct, and left the sink cluttered with wholesome dirt clods.

In a world where human appetites obliterate entire ecosystems, Sundeen recognized that what we choose to consume has moral implications. But one night while grocery shopping, faced with the $6.50 price tag on organic butter, he brokeand headed instead for the much-cheaper stuff in the conventional food aisles. There, he succumbed to a greasy breast of fried chicken, no doubt factory-raised on monoculture grain and cruelly caged with a throng of its brethren. Then, he wiped his sins away with a moist towelette and pedaled home.

Its a wry encapsulation of a conundrum that those who aspire to sustainability face: We carve out sacrifices here and thereDrive less! Recycle! Install solar!until they interfere with other desires. In search of a clearer path, Sundeen, author of The Man Who Quit Money, sets out to find people who have gone far beyond what most of us consider good enough.

The result is The Unsettlers: In Search of the Good Life in Todays America, a gorgeous new book that provides a contemporary twist on Wendell Berrys 1977 classic The Unsettling of America. Where Berry argues that industrial agribusiness and modern capitalism have distanced people from the land and each other, with catastrophic consequences for the environment and communities, Sundeen explores a movement toward radical simplicity meant to solve those ills, digging deep into peculiarly American strains of utopianism and telling the stories of three couples trying to live out their ideals in wildly different places.

Olivia Hubert, a black horticulturalist, and Greg Willerer, a white former teacher with roots in the anarchist punk scene, create a tiny urban farm, hoping to localize and humanize Detroits inner-city food systempart of a bigger ambition to build a more-just version of a city bludgeoned by industrial collapse, racism and poverty. There is Ethan Hughes, who led a cross-country, bike-driven superhero expedition to do good, and his wife, Sarah Wilcox, a classically trained soprano, who created a car-free, electricity-free intentional community in Missouri that engages in nonviolent activism. Finally, we meet Luci Brieger and Steve Elliott, who founded a successful small organic farm not far from Missoula, and catalyzed a vibrant local food scene across western Montana.

The book is part memoirchronicling Sundeens own new marriage and quest for a better lifepart interwoven biography, and part social history. But though Sundeen finds beauty in each of the couples lives, he doesnt flatten them into human Instagrams, the soft-focus shots of sun-dappled mason jars and fresh-picked pears that tug at the hearts of the rest of us cubicle-bound hordes. Hubert and Willerer must run off armed intruders from the crackhouse across the street instead of merely grappling with gophers as other farmers do. Hughes and Wilcox grow weary of the infighting so common in intentional communities and grope to maintain momentum when few of their peers are willing to commit to the enterprise for more than a summer. And Brieger and Elliott watch their dream enter mainstream society as yet another piece of the corporate machine: mega-organic agriculture that plants sprawling monocultures and sends plastic-sealed produce thousands of miles, driving right over the environmental and community benefits of the small, diversified farms that the couple built their own lives around.

The characters are weird, stubborn and strong, and Sundeen provides a nuanced picture of their beliefs, underpinned by both religious and social justice movements and influences ranging from Berry and Thomas Jefferson to the Quakers, Booker T. Washington, the Nation of Islam, Tolstoy and Gandhi. Importantly, Sundeen also acknowledges that the renunciation of privilege can become just another means of exercising it.

In the end, nobody finds revelatory answers, and yet all persist despite obstacles. And Sundeen himself recognizes that his own role is not to be a pioneer of simple living, but to be what he already is: a writer. The book seems to suggest that the true recipe for revolution is not utopianism, per se, but the emotional foundations from which its practitioners strive. In other words, to live right, one must find true purpose, work hard in its service and do the best good she can.

This review first appeared in High Country News.

The Unsettlers: In Search of the Good Life in Todays America

By Mark Sundeen

Riverhead

324 pages, $26

More here:

Western Lit: 'The Unsettlers' Tells the Stories of Characters Who Have Gone Far Beyond 'Good Enough' - Coachella Valley Independent

The Collective Empowerment Group, established in 1993 as the Collective Banking Group, has grown from 47 churches to more than 200 religious leaders. In the last three decades, the pastors in the organization have gone from store fronts and warehouses to massive sanctuaries. Now many churches have established community development corporations and have started a variety of businesses.

Our churches need to be about empowering people and that is giving them the toolsand skills to help them along the way, the Rev. Bobby Manning, pastor of the First Baptist Church of District Heights, Md., told attendees at an annual empowerment conference on April 7. He said he likes to host eventsat laundromats in his community in an effort to connect with people.

Mannings sentiments are shared by the Rev. Harold B. Hayes, pastorof HunterMemorial AME Church in Suitland, Md. Hayes said one of his top priorities is building a bridge of communication and understanding between Blacks and Latinos in Suitland. When we talk about Suitland, the Latino population is rising and what must take place is Black and Brown coming together, Hayes told attendees, We have to learn to bridge the gap and be intentional. Couple that with literary and there is no stopping us.

Both Manning and Hayes were at the Ministry Center of the First Baptist Church ofGlenardenon April 7 where the needs of people in their pews were front and center.

It is my vision that the church has to lead the charge when closing the income gap between Blacks and Whites in America, said George C. Fraser, founder and CEO of FaserNet and The Black Wealth Alliance, organizations focused on providing the Black community with training and tools to sustain intergenerational wealth and empowerment. Fraser was the keynote speaker for the conference entitled, Creating Legacy.Com.

Itisimperative that the Black community, driven by the Black church,transform who we are as a peopleand the only way that we can do this is collectively, the Rev. Jonathan Weaver, pastor of Greater Mount Nebo A.M.E. Church in Bowie, Md., who also attended the conference,said.Weaveradded that in the era of President Trump Blacks must do more for themselves.

While Weaver andotherpastorstransitionedfrompreaching inretailbigboxes to multi-millionedifices, theEaster seasonbrings with it a rebirth for church leaders to do more to empower their members. One of the last bastions of hope is the church, said the Rev. Anthony G.Maclin,pastorof the Sanctuary at Kingdom Square in Capital Heights, Md. Churches have to come together so that we can raise the conscious level of our people.

The Rev.MidgettParker, a lawyerand minister who helped coordinate the conference, said This isaboutchurches needingto come togetherto be able touplift all of our people this is about helping people to help ourselves.

Excerpt from:

Area Pastors Look to Connect with Communities More - Afro American

Brad Dourif, who played Wormtongue in The Lord of the Rings. Photograph by Diane Krauss (DianeAnna) (Own work) CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

The world is a mess. Danger lurks everywhere. Evil is winning.

Look. The world is changing. Everything you knew about the world of your youth is gone. The landscape is all different. Evil is afoot.

There is really nothing much you can do about it. Stop trying to fix the world. Its outside of your control. Most of the world will be taken over by evil. Accept it. Stop letting your pride think you can do something about it. You cant.

There is something you can do. It is not all hopeless. The world might give way to evil, but you can encase yourself in your own intentional community, holding up against the evils of the world as you preserve yourself from its evil influence.

You should not seek out for what you can do for others. Stop thinking you can help them out. They are a lost cause. Rather, seek to bring your people together and in create for them and yourself a small little stronghold of the good.

Anyone who asks for your help, turn away. If you help them, they will be using resources which you and your community needs.

Think this through.

You are old. You have done your duty for others, now is the time for you to rest.

Is it your fault it is now a dark time, and the world is falling apart? No. You have done what you can for the world. You have done good. But now it is time for you to retire.

Those who would pick your bones and grow fat on your resources claim they want to go to war to save the world, but all they would do is live off of you as a parasite, as the world crumbles around us.

There is nothing you can do to save other communities. Once you understand this, you can truly get to work with your one last good. You can build up your own small community and protect it against all outsiders. Be kind, welcome those who are willing to join your community if they have something to give to you, but be cautious, and avoid anyone who comes seeking help. They will come and take and take and take until you have nothing left. Then what will you do when the enemy comes for you? Those who truly care for you will ask for nothing and will give of themselves to help defend our community.

Do not tax yourself with the worries of the world. If people come asking for your help, turn them away because of the evil they would bring to our community. You have earned your rest. Go, take your meat, and eat. It is yours. You have earned your keep.

But if you truly feel you must go out, if you feel the need to heed the call and help someone else one last time with your waning strength, go if you must. But remember, I am here for you. Let me take care of your community. I will protect it for you. I will make sure it thrives while you are away. No, I do not recommend going, it is best we keep to ourselves, but if you must go, if you must use up your last remaining strength, know everything is in good hands with me. I will make sure everyone gets what they deserve. I will make sure they will survive, away from the darkness, preserved here, in our bastion of hope. The world outside might perish, but we will survive, and once the time of darkness is over, we will then be free to go out in the world and render it our light.

Thank you Grima!

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The Wormtongue Option - Patheos (blog)

As San Franciscos housing crunch continues, some residents are choosing to forgo traditional apartments and live in intentional, communal living under one roof echoing the type of housing that emerged during the hippie movement.

This year, on the fiftieth anniversary of The Summer of Love, many think that tech has changed the city for the worse, but the movement isnt dead.

The narrative is very much around how San Francisco is over and tech has ruined the city, but actually there is this strong counterculture all over the place, where people are providing mutual aid and shared learnings and doing all sorts of interesting things, and this isnt really seen, said Zarinah Agnew, a proponent of communal living and a resident and founder at The Embassy.

In this 360-degree, immersive video piece, take a tour of the Red Victorian, learn about the communities that have sprung up in the Haight-Ashburyand experience what its like to live communally in the 21st century.

A commune is an intentional community of people that live together, share common interests, collaborate on ideas, and often have common values and beliefs, as well as shared resources and responsibilities. A big part of it is the interpersonal dimension communes offer an escape from the cult of individualism, by connecting you with people to hang out with and grow close and intimate with, in a society where a lot of people lack social connection. Furthermore, there are also a lot of economic benefits.

I cook once a month and am cooked for the other 29 days of the month, explained Eric Rogers, a resident at The Red Victorian. I have this huge building at my disposal. I basically have the biggest house out of anyone I know. And thats a really nice thing to have in a city that has extremely expensive real estate

Built in 1904, the Red Victorian has been a cornerstone of the Upper Haight and a gathering place for revolutionaries, artists and travelers. Before it became a commune, the building was a historic peace and love hotel from the 1970s, and a meeting place through housing political protests, radical new ideas, artwork, creativity and conversations around creating world peace.

About 20 residents live and work together to build a rich community in The Red Victorian. It welcomes its residents to host and attend events from talks, classes and skill shares to music nights, book discussions and family dinners. It is also run as a small hotel, by renting out unoccupied rooms and making selected visitors staying in The Red Victorian feel like coming home to friends and family.

It is part of a greater international commune network, along with the flagship house The Embassy. Both communities work closely together and have great vision in bringing forth change they want to see in the world.

I would describe our community as a very creative and diverse group of people that are very interested in improving the world and also changing some of the systemic ways in which the world operates and perpetuates culture, Rogers said.

They are also part of the 11 houses that comprise the Haight Street Commons network, a group of communities united by geography. Every community operates differently. They make their own house rules and standards for housemate selection. Some are larger and house up to 30 residents; others are smaller and bring together a dozen people. When a new community starts, there is a lot of intention setting and meetings around what values the house should uphold and live by. As a result, you end up with a broad range of lifestyles and vibes in these houses whether it is creating a space to focus on art, or a place to experiment with consensus-based decision-making, or more inwards-focusing goals and creating meaningful bonds with housemates.

Our communitiesare about creating tiny pockets of experiments, Agnew said. I think its a great thing that we operate differently, it would be sad if we all do the exact same thing.

The members of these variouscommunities connect and attend each others events. As a result you see a lot of crossover and friendships, creating a greatercommunity of like-minded people, all diverse in origin, age and walks of life, but united by their choice to live their life with intention. And you really see them come together to support each other and learn from one another.

Until now, weve largely had a society that has evolved and weve never really had one that was designed. And weve certainly not had a chance to vote or experiment on the kind of society that we might like to have that actually represents all of us, and Id like to see the communes being these places where we get to experiment with how we might like to operate and sharing these learnings between us, Agnew explained.

People have been living communally for thousands of years, whether it is with tribes of hunter-gatherers or extended families. It is only recently that atomized livingbecame such a prevalent notion in Western society. Surges in popularity of communal living, such as the ones weve seen in the 1870s and the 1960s have been associatedto slums in our economy, so there are a lot of dimensionsat play political, cultural and economic among others.

For communal living to thrive in the future, there are a lot of systemic and legislative challenges that will need to be addressed. Financially, it is very difficult to start a commune or to find suitable buildings. Communal dwellings are frequently inspected, according to their organizers. City officials may notunderstand what communal living is, since itdoesnt always fit intopredefined boxes and categories. As a result, this movement has challenged the meaning of the word family.

There are two major ways that communes can compete with our notion of family. First, there is the dimension of company and emotional support, and second, from an economic perspective, shared domestic labor.Some states in the U.S. to this day, dictate that you cannot have more than four unrelated adults living in one household.

Generally speaking, American society has been told that you do that within a family. But weve realized that it can be a lot more effective if you do it on a larger scale, Rogers explained. In fact, The Embassy commune has seenfamilies with kids among its residents in the past.

Im in this in the long run, Rogers said. Im not doing this as a youthful thing that I look back gleefully on when Im an old person or a person with a family. For me Im really interested in redefining what family means.

Rogers will be pursuing his Ph.D. at Cambridge this fall, writing his thesis on Communes in the 21st Century.

EDITORS NOTE: ReporterAnna Yelizarova is a serial communal-living dweller and a current resident at Chateau Ubuntu, an intentional community in San Francisco.

Excerpt from:

Communes in San Francisco: Returning to the roots of communal ... - Peninsula Press

Its no secret that the destruction of the socials has had a big impact on the social scene at Amherst. If a group of students want to have a party, then they have to reserve a dorms public common room, or a venue like the Powerhouse, unless they live in one of the five suites in Jenkins. That has made it a lot harder to organize parties, according to Beau Santero 18, a member of the football team. On the flip side, residents of the Triangle dorms of Mayo-Smith, Hitchcock and Seelye have qualms of their own, with one Mayo resident speaking for many of his neighbors when he complained of sticky floors and trashed bathrooms after parties organized by non-residents.

At the end of the day, some of these conflicts are inevitable when students have such different ideas of a good time. Some people look forward to Friday, because it means a board game night in a friends dorm room. For others, it means getting a good nights rest before waking up early for a hiking trip with the Outing Club. Still others pine away, lighting candles to the memories of Pond, Stone, Coolidge and Crossett.

However, after talking to a few of our fellow students, we have come to the conclusion that a lot of the tensions, which arise when students with different interests compete for a limited number of viable social spaces, are due to the dynamics of party registration and dorm governance unique to Amherst. This is good news, because it means we can try and fix things.

The key problem of partying at Amherst after the socials demolition is that the interests of partygoers and dorm residents are less aligned than at any point in the colleges history. Before 1984, residential fraternities hosted most parties. After 1984, a mixed regime of parties within on-campus suites, parties in common areas of dorms and parties in off-campus houses prevailed. Under both systems, a large share of parties were held by residents in a suite or house. Obviously, this helped reduce the negative effects of noise and mess on students less interested in partying. Now, with all options other than parties in common rooms and public venues like the Powerhouse eliminated by architectural fiat, living and partying have become spatially scattered with negative effects for all. Moreover, there are fewer and fewer opportunities for people to form intentional communities with their peers that are grounded in a fusion of social and residential space a formula that has been essential to the success of theme housing at Amherst.

In exploring these issues, we spoke to four students: a football player, a Mayo-Smith resident, a theme house residential counselor (RC) and a three-year RC who has supervised both first-year and returning-student dorms. We know our research is far from exhaustive. The sample size is tiny, and our respondents were drawn from our extended social circle. Thats why we intend for this to be a starting point. We hope others will raise new ideas and call us out where they think we are mistaken.

Our conversations with a resident and partygoers on the Triangle help illustrate why the current situation is a crummy deal for partiers and non-partiers alike. One Mayo-Smith resident said he wouldnt choose to live in Mayo-Smith or a similar dorm again. Indeed, according to statistics provided by Director of Student Activities Paul Gallegos, 29 percent of all registered parties in the 2016-2017 academic year to date have occurred in the three Triangle dorms (Mayo-Smith, Seelye and Hitchcock).

That burden is perhaps a contributor to the divide between partiers and residents perceived by the same Mayo resident. On weekends, the bathrooms are frequently trashed, with spilled alcohol, cups, and garbage on the ground, he said. Our first-floor common room is disgusting, smelly, sticky and unusable.

This lack of accountability is a natural result of a system in which residents and partygoers have distinct interests. Conversely, Santero described a parallel group of problems faced by people trying to organize parties: demolishing the socials, he says, was a shock to the system. Now, its a scramble to get a giant group of guys who are really excited to go out on a Saturday all together in a social space while also trying to be respectful to students who, quite simply, never wanted to live next to the football team in the first place.

One RC, who asked to remain anonymous, painted a picture of exceptionally toxic relations between his residents and students using the dorms common space for registered parties. I know that there have been dorm damage incidents in the past in all dorms, but this year damage has skyrocketed, he said. Damage has gone beyond just simple accidents to outright destruction of property and disrespect. The basement has had eight holes [made by students] these are holes the size of a chair or a human body.

The tenor of relations described by the people to whom we spoke belies the effectiveness of a technical or administration-driven solution. We are not at all anti-party. In fact, were the opposite. And new rules, or a new formal party registration system, seem like half-measures at best. What has happened is the complete dissection and rearrangement of student life in space. Strong communities are based on the richness of overlapping social, residential and academic experiences. When these different functions are scattered across campus, its a no-win situation.

Our interview with Bryan Doniger 18 was a refreshing counterpoint to the horror stories we heard from our other respondents. Bryan is the RC of Marsh, the arts theme house. Marsh is an intentional community. Members have to apply and interview. They contribute to the life of the house with Marsh-sponsored art projects. The dorm has an e-board and a president alongside the RC.

Doniger says that when his residents have objected to a planned party, weve been able to work out all objections without cancelling any parties the goal is to host events while still keeping everyone relatively happy. As a result, Doniger has had to do much less to resolve conflicts between residents and partygoers than RCs of other dorms, noting that even when he had to shut down parties, things went smoothly.

Donigers experience with Marsh may be idiosyncratic. However, we think there is a more compelling explanation. Marsh as a whole has more social resources than other dorms. By that, we mean it is a real entity in a way that Garman, Seelye and Lipton just arent. Because it functions as a hybrid of a student organization and a residence hall, residents know what theyre getting into. We believe this web of social ties creates a sense of collective belonging and responsibility that is missing in other dorms (aside from the other theme houses). It is weakly institutionalized where it does exist, making it hard to perpetuate. Thus, Marsh is able to host regular open parties and biweekly Coffee Haus events with little fuss, even as other dorms have seen a huge increase in party-related conflict.

The question is not what to take away from other dorms, but how to make Marsh-like systems a bigger part of residential life. Marsh works because it is built on organic ties between students, not the artifice of administration-proposed follies like last years Neighborhoods scheme. Designating distinct loud and quiet dorms is a step in the right direction, but it is only a first step. Moving forward, we should explore ways to build Marsh-like institutional structures into the fabric of upperclassman dorm life at Amherst, learning from relevant models at other institutions, like the social houses at Bowdoin and Middlebury or the eating clubs at Princeton that have abandoned the selective bicker process.

This article is not a research note or a policy proposal, and it is not our place to make specific policy recommendations that our little bit of investigation doesnt justify. But it is safe to say this: In 1986, the Beastie Boys called on their fans to fight for the right to party. Now more than ever, we need to make sure that this is a fight we have with the administration, not with each other.

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The Scattering of Campus Social Life | The Amherst Student - Amherststudent

After two decades of bumming around the country, first as a dirtbag outdoorsman stringing together jobs in the rural West, and later as a city-bound freelancer "whose sole purpose was to inhale dollars, transform them into pleasure, then exhale a stream of carbon into the air, feces into the sewer and plastic containers into the landfill," Mark Sundeen settled in Missoula, Montana.

There, he got engaged to a woman who also valued a simpler life, bike-commuted 14 miles daily and lived on garden feasts that took hours to concoct.

In a world where human appetites obliterate entire ecosystems, Sundeen recognized that what we choose to consume has moral implications. But one night while grocery shopping, faced with the $6.50 price tag on organic butter, he headed instead for the cheaper stuff in the conventional food aisles. There, he succumbed to a greasy breast of fried chicken, no doubt factory-raised on monoculture grain and cruelly caged. Then, he wiped his sins away with a moist towelette and pedaled home.

It's a wry encapsulation of a conundrum that those who aspire to sustainability face: We carve out sacrifices here and there Drive less! Recycle! Install solar! until they interfere with other desires. In search of a clearer path, Sundeen, author of "The Man Who Quit Money," set out to find people who have gone far beyond what most of us consider "good enough."

The result is his book, "The Unsettlers: In Search of the Good Life in Today's America," which provides a contemporary twist on Wendell Berry's 1977 classic, "The Unsettling of America." Where Berry argues that industrial agribusiness and modern capitalism have distanced people from the land and each other, Sundeen explores a movement toward radical simplicity, digging deep into peculiarly American strains of utopianism and telling the stories of three couples trying to live out their ideals in wildly different places.

Olivia Hubert, a black horticulturalist, and Greg Willerer, a white former teacher with roots in the anarchist punk scene, create a tiny urban farm. They're hoping to localize and humanize Detroit's inner-city food system part of a bigger ambition to build a more just version of a city bludgeoned by industrial collapse, racism and poverty.

There is Ethan Hughes, who led a cross-country, bike-driven "superhero" expedition to do good, and his wife, Sarah Wilcox, a classically trained soprano. They create a car-free, electricity-free intentional community in Missouri that engages in nonviolent activism.

We also meet Luci Brieger and Steve Elliott, who founded a small organic farm not far from Missoula that catalyzed a vibrant local food scene across western Montana.

The book is part memoir, chronicling Sundeen's new marriage and quest for a better life, and part social history. But though Sundeen finds beauty in each of the couples' lives, he doesn't flatten them into human Instagrams "the soft-focus shots of sun-dappled mason jars and fresh-picked pears" that tug at the heart of anyone stuck in a cubicle.

Hubert and Willerer must chase armed intruders from the crackhouse across the street off their property instead of merely grappling with gophers attacking their fields. Hughes and Wilcox weary of the infighting common in intentional communities and grope to maintain momentum when few of their peers are willing to commit to the enterprise for more than a summer. And Brieger and Elliott watch their dream enter mainstream society as yet another piece of the corporate machine: Mega-organic agriculture that sends plastic-sealed produce thousands of miles, driving right over the environmental and community benefits of the small, diversified farms that the couple built their lives around.

The characters are weird, stubborn and strong, and Sundeen provides a nuanced picture of their beliefs, underpinned by both religious and social justice movements and influences ranging from Wendell Berry and Thomas Jefferson to the Quakers, Booker T. Washington, the Nation of Islam, Tolstoy and Gandhi. Sundeen also acknowledges that the "renunciation of privilege" can become "just another means of exercising it."

In the end, nobody finds revelatory answers, yet all persist. Sundeen himself recognizes that his own role is not to be a pioneer but what he already is: a writer. In this, the book seems to suggest that the true recipe for revolution is not utopianism but the emotional foundations of its practitioners. In other words, to live right, one must find true purpose, work hard in its service and do the best good she can.

Sarah Gilman is a contributor to Writers on the Range, the opinion service of High Country News (hcn.org). She is a contributing editor of the magazine in Portland, Oregon.

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Gilman: For Mark Sundeen, the search began with a meat snack (column) - Summit Daily News

Iowa States Pride Summit is kicking Pride Week off with a call for unity and inclusion.

Various clubs and campus organizations will host events Monday through Friday to inform and express what Pride Week is all about.

It gives us an opportunity to create intentional spaces and gather in community with each other, said Joel Hochstein, hearing officer for the Office of Student Conduct.

Hochstein said Pride Week is about forming a local community and connecting with other local communities to join together on a national scale.

All students, faculty and staff are welcome to participate in the 10 official panels, activities and political call-to-action events outlined in the LGBTSS Pride Week events webpage.

The Pride Alliance, College of Business, Pride Summit, LGBT Student Services (LGBTSS), Office for Diversity and Inclusion, Gamma Rho Lambda, the Queer Graduate Association and Iowa State oSTEM will host these various events this week.

The events that the organizations are doing are meaningful in different ways for different people, Hochstein said.

With events varying from political action sessions, such as Contact Your Representatives! in the Agora at 11 a.m. Thursday to an open campus event for information on sex topics at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Carver, Hochstein said theres bound to be something for just about everyone.

At 5:30 p.m. Monday, the Pride Summit will host Making Workday Work for You in the lobby of the Student Services Building. The event will include a town hall on the new ISU student information system, allowing students to ask questions about how they fit into this systems plan.

The Office of the Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion will also host an event at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday in Beardshear to discuss the founding of Ames first-ever Pride Fest. Students can come by to share their thoughts and opinions, and meet those who are trying to make Ames Pride 2017 a reality.

To get involved in Pride Week, students can attend events, become a part of one of the organizations that host the events or contact the Pride Summit for more information.

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Iowa State Pride Week seeks to create local community - Iowa State Daily

Credit: Flickr/r2hox. Some rights reserved.

Its November 9 2010, and Im one of many students that have surrounded and taken over the Conservative Party headquarters at Millbank Tower in London. Im angry, we are all angry, because the government is trying to triple the amount of money we have to pay to learn, develop and grow as young people. They are trying to raise UK university tuition fees from 3,000 a year to 9,000 as part of the continuous process of marketizing education.

There is screaming, shouting and drumming all around me, along with police in riot gear, but we outnumber them by far as we are in our thousands. I am part of a huge crowd that is singing and moving like a shoal of fish in the sea. I am at the front, face to face with a helmet, baton and shield. It's hard to see the person inside but thats not my focus - I am focused on getting into the glass fronted party headquarters. Suddenly we are all pushed forward and I find myself kicking with my feet, hitting the glass with anything I can find. I feel this rush of adrenaline in my body. I feel all my anger around the injustice of what the government is doing come out as a physical force.

I feel a release as I kick at the glass - and then there is this beautiful moment when the glass window smashes. Everyone cheers and rushes forward. We have done it - we have broken into the building. People stand on chairs. We chant, we sing, we fill the room, and for a moment this collective anger becomes collective joy - it becomes togetherness. I feel elated, I feel pumped, I feel powerful. I feel we are powerful, I feel together we can change the world. We just broke into Conservative party headquarters for Christ sakes - we can do anything!

And yet

Theres no doubt that anger is a powerful motivator. It motivates us to get out onto the streets and do something: to take action; find kindred spirits; build collective power. But it also has a negative side when it turns to hate hate at the world around us, hate at people who are destroying the environment, hate at the people who voted for Brexit. In my own struggles I also began to direct that hate towards myself in the form of guilt - guilt for being white, middle class and privileged; guilt for spending time doing things other than creating social change; and at its worst, a general sense of guilt every time I experienced pleasure or joy.

That doesnt mean accepting racist, sexist or other discriminatory behavior we must stand up and challenge it and become aware of how we perpetuate it but carrying that hate around inside of ourselves is incredibly self-destructive. So, can anger coexist with love, or do we have to choose one or the other? Neither extreme works for me, so what could a new approach to politics look like that acknowledges both of these forces as equally important in creating transformational social change?

From my early twenties I was drawn to spaces and places where I could explore what alternative forms of love might look like. I spent time in intentional communities and at festivals such as Boom andNowhere (the European Burning Man), and went on courses and workshops exploring intimacy and sexuality. In different ways all of these spaces embraced the idea of love and connection as a force for positive social change.

It was during these explorations that I discovered Tamera an intentional community in Portugal that has had a particularly profound impact on my life. Tamera was founded in Germany in 1978 and in 1995 it moved to Portugal. Today 170 people live and work there on 330 acres of land. As they put it:

The founding thought was to develop a non-violent life model for cooperation between human beings, animals and nature. Soon it became clear that the healing power of love and human community had to be placed at the center of this work. Love, sexuality and partnership need to be freed from lying and fear, for there can be no peace on Earth so long as there is war in love. The ecological and technological activities of Tamera include water conservation and promoting regional autonomy in energy and food. Through theGlobal Campusand theTerra Nova School, we are working within a global network of similar communities on the social, ecological and ethical foundations for a new Earth a Terra Nova.

Love is a powerful force that motivates me to act, to create, to give, to be alive - love of the natural world, love of music, love from a friend that gets me through a difficult year; the love between me and a partner that can make me feel like I am flying and can achieve anything; sexual love that can put a smile on my face for the rest of the day; love for a stranger in another country that can make me donate money to charity; or the love of a family member that can make me drive through the night to be with them by morning.

Ive had some of the most empowering, motivating, life affirming experiences in these spaces, experiences that have given me the energy to go back to everyday life and keep on fighting for a more beautiful world. However deep down Ive always felt that there was something problematic in this approach to social change that it couldnt just be about love and nothing else. Theres a hope that when we live in utopian spaces such as Tamera, then all of the things that are sad, bad or problematic about human society like pain, anger and power will simply disappear, but this strikes me as naive. The reality is that we bring all of our issues and privileges with us to these communities, and if they are not explicitly addressed then the same patterns of inequality will be reproduced.

Without a clear awareness and analysis of power and how it functions, and proactive methods of engaging with it, love can become degenerative, particularly for those who may have less power because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic standing or personal confidence. So the way ahead at this crucial time in history must be nuanced, consciously working with power and embracing both our anger and our love.

With the rise of President Trump and a politics of hate and fear, its important that we dont disengage, that we stay awake to, honour and acknowledge our pain, anger and rage. These are crucial emotional responses that lead us to take action, challenge the status quo, and build a different form of power together. But we cant let that anger turn into hate, blame and guilt. Otherwise we lose, because we become participants in the political and emotional games of the forces that oppress and discriminate against marginalised groups; who promote further cuts in services and greater austerity; and whose actions take away the hope and future of the next generation.

Instead we must create a politics of love, empathy and compassion; a politics that reminds us of the beauty that exists inside of ourselves and in the world in which we live; and social movements that make us feel alive, connected and supported. But to do this we need to re-imagine and diversify the narrative of love, beyond the confines of romance and the passive acceptance that is so often used in new age philosophies. As the writer and activist Bell Hooks writes:

We need to reclaim the concept of love, not as an abstract, all embracing, fantasy but as a set of ethics, principles, values and behaviours. A love that is justice in action... To begin by always thinking of love as an action rather than a feeling is one way in which anyone using the word in this manner automatically assumes accountability and responsibility...Culturally all spheres of life politics, religion, the workplace, domestic households, intimate relations - should and could have their foundation in a love ethic.

In this understanding love does not become passivity, acceptance or disengagement, or give into the pretence that pain, anger, and power do not exist. Instead it becomes a daily practice which also involves critical reflection, discernment, values and principles, as well as nurturance, care and support. A love that is justice in action is one that acknowledges power and knows that equality is a prerequisite for unity. Thisquote from the Black Lives Matter movement sums it up perfectly:

Our aim is to provide hope and inspiration for collective action to build collective power to achieve collective transformation, rooted in grief and rage but pointed towards vision and dreams.

The politics of the future must embrace all that makes us human: our anger, our pain, our joy and our love.

Continued here:

Love, anger and social transformation - Open Democracy

Tuesdays Wild Hunt was a feature on Wade Mueller, who leads a Pagan intentional community in Wisconsin. Its spawned an unusual amount of comments: some sympathetic, some critical, and some that make you wonder if the commenter actually read the article.

I respect what Wade Mueller is doing. Intentional communities almost always fail this one has been going since 1999. Building a community around a place allows for a deep connection that cannot be duplicated by occasional or virtual meetings. Muellers intentional community flows from a similar vision as my dreams of a Druid college. I hope his community succeeds even beyond his dreams.

But there are problems. Its not that he appears to be speaking for all Pagans when thats not his intent (something Ive been accused of doing a time or twenty). Who made you the Pagan pope? is a defensive reaction that rarely addresses a substantive issue. The problem is that some of Muellers comments are flat-out wrong.

Were not really Pagans. We have a Pagan veneer over the top of a Christian and secular life. Until we have permanent lands that we live on, are born on, and die on, we wont be Pagans.

Ive written plenty about the impact of Christian and secular society on our Paganisms. Its a problem we need to be mindful of. But to say that means we cant really be Pagans is simply wrong.

Ultimately, Paganism is about what we do. If we honor Nature, honor our Gods, refine ourselves, and support our communities (or some combination thereof), we are Pagans. Where we live is a secondary consideration, the same as what we believe.

We are now a religion of nomads yet all of our traditions are based on place. If we want Paganism to to move past where we are now, a social gathering, we need to do something different. stated Mueller. That something different is to buy land to create Pagan communities, businesses, and worship centers.

Humans have always been nomads, or at least, migrants something all Americans (North and South, native and immigrant) should understand very well. We may settle down for a few generations, but then we move on. While rooting ourselves to a particular place can be beneficial, any robust religion must accommodate human movement.

Fortunately, Paganism can do this.

There is value in living close to where your ancestors bones are buried. But no matter where you go, you carry them within you. You share their blood. More importantly, you share their lives: the odd saying you picked up from your mother, your grandfathers love of Nature, a song your family brought with them from Ireland so long ago no one remembers when.

If you want to connect to them, honor them. Make offerings to them, tell their stories, call their names. Do genealogical research and study the history of their times. Every point of commonality is another connection.

Living on the same land is a good thing, but experiencing our ancestral roots does not require a connection of place.

The spirit of the River Boyne cannot be found outside of Ireland. But Brighid? Shes here. I know Ive experienced Her first hand. The Morrigan? Shes made a strong connection to many people on this continent. Where ever people have gone, their Gods have gone with them.

Theres a temple to Athena in Nashville. Yes, it was built as a secular celebration of the centennial of Tennessee statehood, but things that look religious have a habit of becoming religious, regardless of intent.

the Parthenon Nashville

This isnt just a modern thing. The Romans carried the worship of Mithras from Persia and Isis from Egypt as far away as Britain. The stories of the Tuatha De Danann begin with Their arrival in Ireland. The literature is unclear exactly where They came from but it is clear that They moved. Whether on Their own or with Their peoples, Gods move.

Our experiences of the Gods may be different from place to place, just as our experiences of our fellow humans are different from place to place. But we can be Pagans where ever we are, because our Gods move with us.

Which is better, the excitement of a new lover or the familiarity of a long committed relationship? Theyre not the same thing, but theyre both pretty good.

Im envious of Kristoffer Hughes his family has lived on Anglesey for 3000 years. He has a connection to that land I can never have to any land. My family has barely been in America for 200 years, and Ive only been in Texas for 15 years.

But that doesnt stop me from walking out into my back yard and pouring offerings to the spirits of the place. It doesnt stop me from listening to the trees. It doesnt stop me from running my fingers through the good black Earth and feeling a connection that goes deep into the ground.

Youre renting? Do the same thing. Live in an apartment? Find a nearby park, or be like Jack Sparrow and bring land with you into your house.

Ownership has practical advantages mainly that someone else cant sell the land out from under you (most of the time, anyway). But I can promise you the land and the spirits of the land dont care whose name is on the piece of paper in the courthouse. They care that you honor them with your rituals and that you respect them as you go about your ordinary life.

We dont have to own the land to honor the land.

Wade Mueller is right that Paganism is about place, but its also about time. Its about looking backward to our ancestors and their beliefs and practices. Its about reconstructing, recreating, and reimagining those beliefs and practices to fit our lives as they are, here and now. And its about looking forward to our descendants and leaving a better world for them than what we inherited (a very difficult task, but thats another topic for another time).

I lived in the same house from the time I was born until I went away for college. Shortly after Cathy and I got married, we built our own house on the back edge of that land. My connection to that land was strong, and I planned to live there forever. Forever turned out to be six and a half years thats when my job went away and we moved to Indiana, then to Georgia, then to Texas.

My story is not unique. Perhaps we should settle down and always live in the place where we were born (and accept the limitations that brings) but that is not the reality of our time. In this time, our religions must be as mobile as we are.

Paganism can do this. We carry our ancestors within us, our Gods move with us, and we can honor the land where ever we are.

Whether we own it or not.

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We Don't Have to Own the Land to Honor the Land - Patheos (blog)