I though really hard about last week's QOTW (that I missed) What 3 things are most important to you in the eco-village of tomorrow?
I dream of an ecovillage, as a matter of fact we're in the middle of building one in the Hudson Valley (New York state, USA). Yet this question is nothing I had ever really thought of too much...
In short these are my most important things:
Tribalism, a sense of belonging to the group where hiarchy is replaced by egalitarianism. We are idividuals, but open hearted and ready to help one another when needed.
Education, in my dream there is intention to teach four main areas to those willing to learn, Self-reliance, Building with natural materials, Nutrition and Art. I could go much deeper into those four and brake them down into many more, but for now that's the idea.
The result: Living green, being earth friendly or ecologically conscious become byproducts of the life we lead in this ecovillage.Re-Wilding, learning to be fully functional and thriving in a more “natural human habitat” while integrating aspects of our modern way of life.
Well there it is, quite late, but anyways thank you @eco-alex for creating questions that are awesome visionary exercises!
For this week's question What does your perfect day look like in the ecoVillage of tomorrow?
We've had many a long meetings with a prior ecovillage community in the making, which unfortunately never got off the groind... we had nearly bought land together, our governance was well built up with beautiful intentions and policies in place, but as we lost momentum, we lost members and the project eventually faded.
Now it's just the three of us (wifey, little monster and me) looking to build an ecovillage on a property we purcgased a couple years ago.
Lets look at what a good day looks like...
Imagine this to be a nice summer day:
I wake up, birds, animals and maybe some little people can be heard coming from different places. Because I am typically up before my family, I can give last night's food scraps to the chickens, go on a "trail run" through some of our permaculture zones that are further away, to see if they need a little help. On my way back, I'd grab some eggs and fresh herbs for breakfast.
After some cuttles and a good breakfast I'd want to go tend the garden, try to repair whatever needs repairing. If there isn't anything on the list I'd spend some time in the makerspace working on a sculpure.
I always have to make time for art or I go insane a little!
Around lunch time I would see my family and and whoever stopped by our place (an earthship hybrid home) and we'd make lunch together.
After lunch, it's play time with the little ones at the natural playground of their choice. If they chose to stay on the property, it gives me and Jess an opportunity to see if anything needs repair (I'm always kind of thinking in terms of stacking functions). Once the little people get bored of us or just don't need us, we can move on to our own play time...
Ecovillages are in a constant state of evolution, new structures are being built from time to time, old ones need attention, gardens and animals have to be tended to, and the tribe needs to be cherished.
As nighttime approaches, we don't have a very structured schedule for dinner, but we do get hungry pretty much at the same time, so when everyone's home we'd prepare and eat a delicious meal and than, depending on the activities of the day, head to the bonfire to play with whomever is out there that evening or chill at home with a movie or a book.
Our vision for the village we are building is open for changes as people join in, it's only natural to let it evolve organically.
Our doors are open to receive new members into the tribe, if you're in the New York area or want to be, don't hesitate to contact me. I will be writing a more in depth post of our dream and vision for this Neo-Tribal EcoVillage at some point soon.
See you next time!
