Living in Place – Three Big Blessings of Living at Earthaven
One: Taking charge of time
All it takes is a few hours out in town or on the road to re-realize how differently we live out here at Earthaven. So many basics of daily life are different; time is different. Priorities have to be different—so we’ve made quite a bit of room in our relationships and organizational expectations for a slower pace, whenever possible. Committed to an environmentally responsible lifestyle, while staying in touch with our world, we need extra time for details this less automated life requires.
We need time to nourish our relationships, neighbors included, as we learn they’re what make the whole experience hum. Needing all this time means showing up late is less the affront we thought it was!
(left) Johnny McLeod, Julie McMahan and their respective young’uns chilling at the Hamlet playground, midday and midweek.
Two: Living in Place
We live in a beautiful forest! The majority of our land is protected by a forestry plan that seeks to nurture forest health and create mutual benefits into the future.
That means most land around our homes is undeveloped and designed to stay that way. We can walk trails and find new ones, discovering spots that touch us in almost mystical ways. Though we aren’t all farmers or gardeners, we live close to those who farm and garden. They’re our stars, bringing blessings to land and table, helping us live closer to the nature they care for.
Three: Living in Space
Blessing number three is the significant amount of open space. It’s not a National Forest or a private wilderness, but veer off the roads in any direction to encounter a spacious shift in perspective.
Ever lie down on the Earth and look up at the night sky? Aren’t people all over the globe also looking “up?”—in other words, isn’t “up” everywhere? Starry nights at Earthaven are a particular invitation to reach out and sense the spaciousness all around us, all the way to the edge of the cosmos!
Most of us at Earthaven are descendants of non-indigenous people (to this continent and even this area), which means we’ve become unrooted in our very bones, unlike the way folks in the land of their ancestors feel connected to place. But we are learning. Our bodies and natural minds become more connected to the land every day, season by season, year by year.