In October Earthaven’s international community researcher and advocate Diana Leafe Christian gave workshops and consultations to several intentional communities in England, and co-led a workshop on Sociocracy at Findhorn Community in Scotland with her teacher and mentor, John Buck, the man who brought Sociocracy to the English-speaking world.

Sociocracy, which means “governance by peers,” is a governance and decision-making method. Earthaven uses Sociocracy’s “Selecting People for Roles” process to elect annual officers.

“Teaching at Findhorn was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done,”

Diana says. “It was an honor to co-lead a workshop with my own teacher and mentor. And do it at Findhorn — one of the oldest and most famous intentional communities in the world. I loved it!”

Findhorn was famous in the 1960s for growing unusually large vegetables on poor sandy soil with apparently channeled gardening advice, and soon became an international spiritual educational center, attracting thousands.

Diana and John led their two-day workshop at Newbold House, a Findhorn-affiliated conference center in the nearby town of Forres, and gave many small introductory workshops to groups of trustees, managers, council members, staff, and others affiliated with the Findhorn Foundation in the wider local community.

The Sociocracy workshop was so popular John and Diana will return to Findhorn to lead it again in May, 2014.

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Having taken this step in the community’s membership process, I find myself with a few (mostly new) notions about my place in the community and in the world.

Primarily I am now better poised to more fully participate in the exciting exchange of ideas and opinions that are the backbone of our sub-subculture, as well as being afforded more opportunity to contribute directly to the governance process. This in itself was one of my major motivations in applying for membership. As a result of all this, it seems I am taken more seriously in my attempts to socially and energetically establish myself here.

Further, I am becoming a bit clearer on what it will mean for me to simultaneously lead an autonomous lifestyle while still being inextricably connected to, and largely dependent upon, my neighbors and community.

Most importantly, I feel that I have come one small step closer to realizing my ultimate (mostly-attainable) fantasy of complete energetic detachment from that world which exists outside the safe, sensible, cozy bubble that is our home. And yes, you’re damn right, I am (to some extent) willfully hiding my head in the sand.

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“This is harder than I thought!” exclaimed Ohbeeb. She was in front of the room practicing facilitating a meeting. She was saying, “Excuse me; would you like to get on the stack?” to another participant who was having fun pretending to be mildly disruptive.

It was our annual weekend workshop, “Earthaven Governance & Consensus, and Introduction to Facilitation,” held in the Council Hall November 20-21.

I continued to coach Ohbeeb, who practiced this phrase several times, interrupting the person who was acting disruptive.

“You need to hear yourself saying this phrase, over and over,” I said,  “until you create new neural pathways.” Ohbeeb practiced stopping the disrupter several more times until she began doing it quite well.

We hold this workshop once a year for people on our membership track. This year’s participants included Troy, Norm, Ohbeeb, Carly, Liz, Susan, Evelyn, and Curt.

Saturday was about consensus, and included Earthaven’s governance process (our Orbos, committees, and managers), and consensus essentials — strong agendas, well-crafted proposals, skilled facilitation, trained participants, evaluations — among other topics.

Sunday was an overview of the facilitation process, and time for practice. This is where we got to see

people’s acting abilities, since when someone practiced everyone else played the role of meeting participants — often hilariously.

Jonathan, as guest instructor, described the process of facilitating complex topics.

People gathered in small groups to practice creating proposals. They described what they’d like to change or improve about Earthaven, and we noted which of these ideas fell under Earthaven’s governance and could be addressed by a proposal, and which would not be governance but addressed by a private project. People in small groups practiced creating and presenting proposals, and the whole group gave feedback.

In the “Name the Member” game, people called out the name of Earthaven members and I described what official roles each member has played in the community, the committees they’ve served on, and the projects they’ve initiated or managed, plus other myriad ways they’ve contributed to Earthaven. New folks always seem impressed by our governance, and the many ways our members have given and served Earthaven over the years.

Several participants told me the workshop because gave them a much better sense of Earthaven’s governance and how they can participate. “It shouldn’t be called a consensus training,” Art said after the 2009 training. “It should be called, ‘How to Become Empowered at Earthaven’.”

 Earthaven member Diana Leafe Christian is an internationally known ecovillage activist, author of Creating a Life Together and Finding Community (New Society Publishers), and publisher of Ecovillages newsletter. Click here for her website.

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We’ve known for quite a few years that new members coming into Earthaven needed a lot more coaching about our history, plans, policies and practices than they were able to get through the normal course of a Provisional Membership. We’ve required and offered trainings in Consensus Decision-Making since we were ourselves trained by “the experts,” but putting on a program about the broader scope of permaculture and land use as we interpret it has been a daunting commitment to keep. At last, this year—thanks to Diana Leafe Christian, Lee Warren, and myself, we presented the now required and first ever orientation to the background and current application of permaculture principles and land use operations at Earthaven. It was a terrific hit!

          New and prospective members who attended the day-and-a-half event were awed by the comprehensive and hard-earned expertise that has gone into the documents and decisions about running our community literally from the ground level. Pieces fell together like a jigsaw puzzle as old and newer members took the journey from macro to micro view of Earthaven. Beginning with a sunrise walk on Round Mountain led by Chris Farmer, treating us to a long, clear view of our property from several miles away, the day was filled with introductory presentations on permaculture, the Earthaven Site Plan, “multiple intelligences,” the hard work of transitional living, and the shock and awe of land development (aka destruction before construction). Breakfast and lunch were served by our culinary artists, and the day moved towards its end with an on-the-ground tour of the Village Terraces neighborhood, where the enormous task of applying our values and experience has gone so well. A brief look at our formal land use and ecological documents closed the first day.

          On Sunday, we also began outdoors, with a silent walk to Hidden Valley, led again by Chris, who offered a brief history and catalog of our forest at the end of our walk. I led a short exercise in “making love” with the tree of our choice, and we walked back to the Village Center among what may now be a more distinctly recognized community of tree beings.

          Shawn Swartz was with us on Sunday, and he gave us an awesome semester-in-an-hour review of forestry and so-called sustainable forestry practices. (Shawn is now the Forest Warden at nearby Warren Wilson College, where he lives with Holly, Rose and Eli—hurray… and we miss them!)

          We barely had enough time to complete the program with a discussion of forestry and agriculture at Earthaven and then it was time to eat our prepared lunch before the upcoming Council meeting. We did make time for an evaluation segment, and here’s a sampling of comments:

“Lots of info about the meaning of living at EH. Of immense value!”

 

“Stimulating. Learned lots, including ideas for my garden and orchard.”

 

“Liked multidimensional aspects. Would love a series from our ‘experts.’”

 

“Inspired to do projects. Nice to integrate this after 2-1/2 years!”

 

“Appreciate all the work so far, the breadth of content, all the alternatives.”

 

 “Gratitude for so much addressed on such deep levels.”

 

“Very informative for here or elsewhere.”

 

 “Never have to be bored again! Feel motivated, but with peace of mind.”

 

“Best weekend I’ve had in a log time. I could handle two more weeks like this.”

 

“Felt particularly benefited by having already received my permaculture certification and been at EH a while, giving me a context for all this information.”

 

“Interested to hear about how much has changed.”

 

“Glad it wasn’t all documents and codes, but also spiritual and connecting.”

 

          Of course, our presenters have a list of potential improvements and elaborations. We will certainly plan to reserve a whole weekend for next year’s orientation!

 

          Diana’s presentation on ecovillage economics was held two weeks later. Her review of the global ecovillage world, what’s worked and what’s not in a variety of locations, and a look at what’s already happening at Earthaven contributed both inspiration and confidence for the continuing evolution of a “thriving local economy” here in our own extended community.

          Most segments of these events were recorded and will be available for review in a few weeks.

One final note: when the weekend was over, I left with a certain sadness, as if something very important was still missing from our offerings to new members. And then it hit me—we teach governance and land use, two essential legs of the Earthaven stool, to our incoming members, but we don’t yet have anything to say about the vast amount of experience and practice available to us in the spiritual and healing arts. As I bemoaned this fact, Lee pointed out that nothing prevents us from creating part three of our new-member orientation, and the list we’ve started gathering on this huge topic promises to turn into yet another exciting, member-led event down the road.

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