Community of Light's News Log

Affirmation: The land we seek is first found in the heart, then in the mind, then in the world !

Copyright: 03/08/2010
By Daniel Brady and Wendy Wolters

The Word From Here ... Overview of What We'd like ... How to Participate ... New Contacts ... Letters ... Communities Forming ...
For Your Information ... Interest Survey: Preferences ... Special Commentaries
The word from here

03/08/10: Hello everyone:

The next online meeting will be on Sunday, March 21st, an equinox day, at 6pm PST. The name of the discussion group is a default which contain the user's Yahoo ID; so, in my case, the conferences will be called: "dbrady2000's conference". It may well be easier is to become listed as friend so that when I am online, using Yahoo Instant Messenger, you can find me easily.

I will also post news notes directly into the YahooGroup as I can.

Below are some ideas I'd like us to consider, there may be others and I welcome including them in this list.

I'd still like us to ponder these consideration: Perhaps an organic garden that specializes in all manner of herbs, biblical, oriental/medicinal, native American and other culinary, cultural or technologically useful plants. The benefit is that we could do mail order, pre orders and the like. We could expand to serve the import export needs of producers overseas, we'd network with eco-friendly groups that may just be gatherers and not farmers at all. Point is, in many locales, many different hearty plants could be grown. The cost would be water, seed, or seedlings, and working soil up, which is to say composting common ground into lofted loose soil.

There is the idea of sweat lodges too. Simple enough to construct, even if on a temporary basis. We do not have to have stone you could use available tent designs, or convert any enclosed space into a sauna.

Living space for a coop of persons whose fixed income would work for the kind of space you have. The solution for this is as simple as persons bringing in an RV or trailer, making for ready made and personal housing that would be as legal as its waste system was.

A theme component, the idea that you would seek out, say, herbalists, or persons who like orchards, vintners, bee keepers, writers, musicians but you get the idea.

Another theme idea is that of libraries. That is to say a place where persons with a common interest would collect materials relevant to their interest, do research, provide resources and support for a particular field of knowledge. If sufficient interest is found, so as to form the basis for a community, then it can be another means toward an end.  

Thanks, Dan: creative1@creativeideasforyou.com


An overview of what we'd like

Community of Light

We want to co-create a community in a rural area, grow a good portion of our own food, create profitable cottage industries, and so be self employed. We would keep well the land that we live on and engage in right livelihood. We also want to contribute to the community around us and so benefit our society. Ideally, we would want to be near enough to a good sized town maybe some 50,000 or so, a college community would be something to consider. We could each use our talents, abilities, or professions to provide for ourselves as well as to help each other.


How to Participate

One of the first things you should consider is looking at the home page for the community. There we have a brief on what agreements have already been made.

Then, to participate I would like you to join your YahooGroup and set its email preferences so that you get at least "special notices". That would mean that you'd get announcements from me. Here is the URL for our YahooGroup: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CommunityOfLight/?yguid=5191372

You might want to know something about the people already involved, see the member profiles at : http://www.creativeideasforyou.com/contact's_profiles.html

You may also want to look at the listing the Community of Light has at the F.I.C.'s web site: http://directory.ic.org/10486/Community_of_Light

To participate in the online chats, you would have to have one or more of us listed as friends in the Yahoo Instant Messenger. This is a free process.

Regarding Yahoo, I know that you will get a lot of email in your Yahoo account, but if you set it up to send you special notices you'll get the few emails that I send out. Every once in a while you'll have to empty out the collected emails from your Yahoo account so as to keep it viable.

Communications

My yahoo ID is dbrady2000@yahoo.com. This is available for those who want to set up or join into chats when we arrange them. My usual email is: creative1@creativeideasforyou.com


New Contacts

January 2010 through March 2010:

it_systems_tech@yahoo.com

No longer want to live in a way that is not in touch with or with little consideration of the planet we live on; or contribute or perpetuate this spiritless disconnection with all of life.

michellemermaid19@yahoo.com

Hi, just wanted to learn more about intentional communities. Thanks!

michaelwolfe1969@yahoo.com

Loren Woodson ......... loren.woodson@yahoo.com

I have always wanted to be free like myself and self sustaining,that believes in learning and peace

becomingconscious .......... jdbounce@earthlink.net

blue_creek002@yahoo.com

Hi, my name is Joshua Gillihan and I am very interested in what you may be doing for our future. Thank You.

December 2009 to January 2010:

newaeonfellowship@yahoo.com

imzadi37@yahoo.com

I have been interested in self-sustainable housing and communal livingfor quite some time. I live in Bernalillo County in New Mexico.

taters_gramma csims821@yahoo.com

I am interested in finding a community of other people who are wanting to live in a less stressful atmosphere. I have been practicing eco-friendly habits in my lifestyle and want to join with others.

billfishon1@yahoo.com

I am interested in being part of the group as I have strong beliefs that we as Americans have veered far from the communities our grandparents lest us.

thatcass@yahoo.com

Hello! My name is Cassi and I am very interested in learning more about this community. Thanks so much!

skip_patterson@yahoo.com

Currently living in Colorado after moving here last year from Indiana. Looking for a like minded group of individuals who are ready to live outside the mainstream of society.

chhavi1jan@yahoo.com

I want to join!


Letters

  


Community Forming and Land Opportunities


For Your Information

Fellowship of Intentional Communities:

The Fellowship of Intentional Communities is a great resource for anyone wanting information about communities that are established or forming. You can find which ones are near to you and do a good deal of research with the information they provide, who knows there may be a place within a relatively short drive.

Their Communities Magazine comes out regularly. The directory that they have is a great primer in the variety of the community universe. You can write them:. Communities Magazine, 138 Twin Oaks Road, Louisa VA 23093 USA or call them at: Tel/Fax: 540-894-5126. Their website is at Intentional Communities

This list of places seeking members, communities forming and the like. It's at the F.I.C.'s website: http://directory.ic.org/iclist/

Our listing on the F.I.C.

We encourage you to review the Community of Light's listing using this link. Listings at directory.ic.org are also used for the FIC's print version of the Communities Directory.

Northwest Intentional Communities:

The resources on the Northwest Intentional Communities site might be valuable. There are lists of legal documents, process advice etc. They're at: http://www.ic.org/nica/resource.htm

California Farm Link:

Here is an organization, California Farm Link, which attempts to match aspiring farmers with landowners. I've filled out and sent in the questionnaire They operate mostly in northern California, and I've seen some listings of interest. If we are able to get a match for a farm, we could likely negotiate a sharecrop rental until we got our businesses going, then buy the land on doable payment terms.

Giving to Good Causes?

A very easy way to give food to the hungry is to set the Hunger Site as your browser's home page. Check out the Hunger Site to see what it is about and how it works.

 


Special Commentary or Writings

A Whale of a story

If you read a recent front page story of the SF Chronicle, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth. A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farallon Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her .

They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around-she thanked them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives.

The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole time, and he will never be the same. May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate to be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you. And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude.

I pass this on to you, my friends, in the same spirit.

 

James Two Eagles .......... jamestwoeagles@yahoo.com "keeper of the woods"

Many many years ago, Back thousands of years in this land the winters were much colder. There was very little warmth for many to share little alone have, The nights were extremely bitter and what warmth the brother animal had was to curl with each other and even then it was not enough for their young or their old.

So Gray fox decided he would travel the land to find puma, "Keeper of the fire" and plea with the great puma to share a part of his fire so that his tribe might have warmth for the winter. So gray fox traveled for days with out stopping in search of puma and at last he had found him at night fall, Days later.

So gray fox walked and thought of many ways to approach the "Keeper of the fire" for hours and then he came up with a plan.
So gray fox walks into the camp of puma and puma says with a deep voice why are you here gray fox and gray fox replies I am cold, very cold and tired, I only wish to sleep at your fire awhile and warm my self and rest. Puma looks at him and says I think you are here to steal my fire for your self. Gray fox replies no puma only to rest, I have traveled for many days and I am very tired and cold. So puma tells him OK but only for a while and then you must leave my camp. So gray fox falls asleep for a short while then wakes up watching to see if puma was asleep or awake and he noticed that puma had closed his eyes and so he waited for hours to be sure puma was asleep.

Then he sprung up and leaped into the hart of the fire and ran threw and grabbed one of the burning sticks with flame in his mouth with a great speed and burned and singed his fur right down the middle of his head and back with a huge orange/reddish stripe and that's how red fox became red fox.

Love To All Of Life ... Honor To All Of Life ... Peace For All Of Life.


Our Preferences

If you are a member of our Yahoo group you can access the current polling data, or vote: this is the link to our group These are not the current statistics but they, overall, have not changed much in the last year or so. I place them here for reference's sake.

Would you consider a location outside the United States?

Choices

Votes

%

Outside the U.S. preferred

2

9%

depending on country chosen

5

22%

Neutral - no preference

2

9%

would but not first choice

9

40%

NOT consider outside U.S.

4

18%

Should we have a membership fee of some kind?

Choices

Votes

%

Income of entering members

5

27%

Money making capacity of the community

13

72%

If we had an entry fee what should it be based upon?

Choices

Votes

%

Number of entering members

0

0%

Income of entering members

2

12%

Money making capacity of the community

2

12%

Other

4

25%

A share buying system

8

50%

Areas or regions we'd like to consider: (See the site for details)

Choices

Votes

%

AZ, NM, W. Texas

0

0

Cent. US: NB KS OK DA

0

0

G. Lakes, AK, MO, IL, IN,WI, KY, TN

1

6%

E. KY, E. TN, WVA, W.VA, W.,PA,

2

13%

G. Coast, FL, LA, MS, AL

1

6

E. PA, NY, NH, VT, CT, RH ME, MD

0

0

N. Idaho

1

6

NW/W OR, W. WA,

7

46%

CA, NV, UT, E. OR, E, WA, MT, CO, Wy

3

20%

What kind of climate would you want to live in?

Choices

Votes

%

Tropical

2

8%

Subtropical

5

20%

Forest

7

20%

Woodland/meadow

10

41%

Tundra

0

0%

What land locations would you like?

Choices

Votes

%

Island

14

18%

Peninsula

11

14%

Land bound w/coast

15

19%

land bound no coast

12

15%

High altitude

13

16%

Low altitude

12

15%

What sorts of things would you want to use the land for?

Choices

Votes

%

Farming

20

13%

Raising livestock

14

9%

Raising feed crops

11

7%

Hunting

6

4%

Gathering

16

11%

Fishing

14

9%

Utilitarian crops

10

6%

Fruit bearing trees

23

16%

Lumber/milling

5

3%

Water/solar for alt. power

24

16%

Would you consider a buy/sell/relationship with the outside world?

Choices

Votes

%

Yes

23

100%

No

0

0%