Hello Again DailyKos!
It has been a long time since I posted on this site. I was an active user (under a different account) during the Howard Dean campaign.
Below the fold is the story of how I became a Communist living on a Hippy Commune in the heart of Virginia.
Watching the Dean campaign implode as well as the re-election of Bush lead me to the conclusion that working within the system is futile. I decided to drop out of the system and be the change I wanted to see happen.
I wanted to live a more non-violent, sustainable, and healthy life. I wanted to distance myself from American consumer culture.
But where in America would I find such a place? I imagined that the only way to effectively drop out of consumer culture and live a more sustainable life would be to take a small group of people and do it together. I imagined I would have to create this place myself. I set about researching the idea and came across several existing communities with the same goals and intentions as I had sought out.
And so I visited and came to live as a communard in the Communities Movement. I've never been happier or healthier and consider it the best decision I've made in my adult lifetime.
I currently live at Twin Oaks (http://www.twinoaks.org). Twin Oaks is home to about 100 people with ages ranging from 2 to 85 years old. We have no religion, guru, or charismatic leader. We govern ourselves democratically. We provide for each of our members all their food, clothing, shelter and medical needs.
We are "Income Sharing" (a more politically correct term than "Communists".) We all pool our resources and labor and divide them fairly between ourselves.
We have a few community businesses, including Twin Oaks Tofu (http://www.TwinOaksTofu.com) and Twin Oaks Hammocks (http://www.TwinOaksStore.com). Between these and a few other smaller businesses we create the income needed to support ourselves financially.
Sharing resources allows us to live lighter on the earth. We all live on approximately $6,000 a year a piece, but live a lifestyle of comfort that would require an income of $40-$60k individually if we were to do it on our own.
We grow 95% our own produce and all of our own meat, dairy, and poultry. Most of our food has 0 transportation miles built in them. We raise our food organically and sustainably, without pesticides, herbicides, or petrochemical fertilizers. We feed our beef cattle on okara, a byproduct of our tofu business.
Our labor system values all work equally, 1 hours work is worth 1 hours credit no matter if your washing dishes or programming computers. Domestic work like raising children and cooking are valued as equally as working in the tofu factory or answering the business phone. There are no gender roles, our head mechanic is a woman, or head cook is a man.
We have a culture that is unique and vibrant. We have living among us a Klezmer band, a Circus of street performers, and locally renowned artists. Each winter we pull together a musical or play. We currently have regular weekly games of ultimate Frisbee and scrabble. Last week we had a rather exciting drag show.
Many of the relationships here are polyamorous or non-monogamous. There is no social pressure or scorn for experimenting with gender identity, sexual orientation, or relationship format. Many man here wear skirts, some women here never wear them.
People tend to be more comfortable with their bodies here, and mainstream beauty standards are often replaced with an attraction for uniqueness and individuality. Women rarely shave their legs or armpits. Few people wear deodorant. It is common to see both men and women swimming in the buff at the pond, or men and women to be topless in the garden on hot days.
And we throw some kick-ass parties.
It baffles me that more people are not living this way. I am living a healthy happy life, where the majority of the fruits of my labor go to directly benefit friends, my family and myself. I live lighter on the earth and am not pressured by advertisement to make unhealthy choices.
In the mainstream culture, I felt like I had to make so many compromises and work so hard to live a life I felt morally comfortable with. Here I feel as though every action I take goes towards proving that humans can live another war. I feel as though all my work and play helps strengthen my community around me, which I believe is laying the groundwork for a more sane future.
I am now convinced that the Intentional communities movement represents a viable and necessary alternative to mainstream consumerism culture. I have more hope in mankind's future knowing that even we Americans, raised in the belly of the beast of capitalist consumer culture, can live ecologically sustainable and peaceful lives.
love
bucket
Learn More:
http://www.thefec.org/
http://www.ic.org/