Jonathan and eli Swiftcreek are on a membership track at Earthaven Ecovillage. Their search for community began in 2007 with a shared living situation in Asheville and continues on with their life at Earthaven.

          In October 2008, eli and I shared the news with our housemates that we would not be buying the house, and not continuing with the community.  We grieved the end of the project, dream and life, but also celebrated the new paths open to us, namely the freedom and limitless possibilities created from closing a door.  Our futures were suddenly more malleable.  With joy and relief we ended our full-time jobs, as we no longer needed to be mortgage worthy.  Our full-time efforts would now go towards finding a new place to live.

          Our first step in the process of creating our new lives in community was to analyze the Communities Directory for any potential communities that met our criteria (see previous article), especially the ones located in the Southeast or Mid-Atlantic regions.  As we researched communities and talked to people who had lived at or visited the communities, we soon realized our list was getting short.  Part of the shortening of the list had to do with discovering more of our needs, including a community’s position on children.  For example, Twin Oaks community, in Virginia, was very attractive and interesting to us and we planned to visit but discovered their fairly strict policies regarding children.  Deeply dedicated to children and the raising thereof, they don’t take child members lightly. Members must apply for and be approved to have a child; incoming members generally need to live there for a few years and form relationships with community members before bringing children into the mix.  Though likely a conscious and important guideline for Twin Oaks, we needed more space and freedom on this issue than they were able to provide us at this time.

          Looking back we realize that Earthaven, even though it was the closest community to our Asheville home, hadn’t made it onto our short list of prospective communities.  We hadn’t considered it because we had formed negative impressions based on some input from ex-residents living in Asheville at the time.  When we became conscious of this, we questioned our unfounded dismissal of Earthaven, and decided we had little first hand experience with which to judge it.  We committed to go on a tour and check things out for ourselves.

          The extensive 3-hour tour just touched the surface of things and left us wanting to learn even more about the village.  At first look, Earthaven seemed to meet many of our criteria and needs, and we became hungry for more information and experience.  We read as much as we could, and planned to visit again to start meeting people.  Our enthusiasm and eagerness in learning more about life here was naturally slowed because winter was approaching which meant less social opportunities at the community.  During each visit during the winter we gradually met folks.  Our evolving perception of Earthaven became entirely the opposite of a few months before!  I couldn’t stop thinking about it, imagining and projecting a life there.

          We decided to give Earthaven a solid commitment of six months of living there, to test it out.  Any other communities we had been interested in, we pushed into the backs of our minds.  We endured the joyfully painful wait for May to come, when our house lease would end, and we could move to Earthaven to begin trying it out.

Jonathan Swiftcreek enjoys exploring Earthaven Ecovillage as a home, and spreading awareness and enthusiasm for ecovillage life.

 

Entry 1:

The First Steps Towards Earthaven

          The joint story of eli (lower case intentional) and me, our search for community, and two years later, our move to Earthaven, began in April 2007, in Asheville, NC.  We had met recently, connected through community-oriented events related to food and our lifestyles (potlucks, buyers’ clubs, Critical Mass bike rides, miso-making workshops, Asheville LETS orientation).  We began dating, and over the next few years our lives wove together completely, and our commitment to each other deepened.  Asheville had a subculture that offered us much (as above, and also local farm and food awareness, herbalism awareness and education, and alternative health practices in general). Yet, during one April discussion between the two of us, we expressed our yearning for something else to fill our lives; we ached a pain we could not describe.  We did know the source of the pain, and from my several years living on farms and having communal connections in livelihood with others, and eli her experiences, we knew what nourishment we needed.  We were looking for satisfying community and connection, especially when it came to connection with food, and with sharing the everyday life and livelihood or long term project.

          In May, now a community of two, we strategized how to become a community of more.  We envisioned our ideal urban collective household, and crafted a document describing it.  I had a friend who owned and lived in a large Montford neighborhood house that had been a university coop house of sorts.  She wanted to move away from Asheville and sell the house.  The timing and circumstances opened the possibility, and we created an 18-month rental contract with an option to buy.  We hoped that by the time we were ready to sign a mortgage, we would have a few more people to sign with us, while the rest of the house would remain renters.

          We spread the word through our friends, the weekly local foods potlucks we hosted, and posted flyers around Asheville.  I went to the Twin Oaks-hosted Communities Conference during a weekend in August, to learn and to seek potential members for our forming community.  A few people in Asheville expressed interest, but backed out.  It wasn’t until practically the last hour, just a few weeks before our November 1^st move in date, that we managed to get seven other people to join in as renters.  Our house on Chestnut Street became Casa Castenea, Castanea being the botanical name for Chestnut.

          The 18 months that we lived in Casa Castanea was a story all in itself (more like a book).  Holding that tale for another time, the simplified version described the deepening understanding of eli’s and my needs of a community.  What was illuminated during this time was our awareness of the importance of sharing with others a connection to the sources of life and sustenance- interpersonal relationships, food, shelter, resources, and meaningful livelihood.  Most importantly, and lacking, we needed other people as deeply committed to the project as we were, and the consequent feeling of fairly shared responsibilities.

          How long would it take for this to happen there?  I had the sense that many people I met were not interested in committing to long-term projects and a lot of people attracted to urban collectives were transient in general.  In October 2008, we chose to seek elsewhere for a community that could better meet our needs.

Our criteria was a community that:

We would fulfill our lease agreement and find new management for the house, but our focus would be on finding a new community.

To Be Continued…

(Please look for the continuation of the series describing my process of exploring and joining Earthaven.)