Sitting in the dining room the other day, sipping a cup of tea brewed with rose hips gathered from our land, Cecil and I were talking about my recent move here to Dancing Rabbit. "It seemed to take a long time. I was afraid you might not ever make it," Cecil told me. I'd been in contact with the Rabbits for years and had been talking about the possibility and hope of my moving out here. I got to thinking about this, as it hadn't seemed like such a long time to me; rather it seemed just about right. I had various debts to pay off, a job I was invested in and a whole life in Chicago that I wasn't about to just up and leave. Still, I was maintaining and increasing connections with the Rabbits while preparing for a move away from the city. On the other hand, I haven't spent years planning for other major transitions in my life, so I could see that in some ways this had taken awhile. The difference was that I was really aware of how important this transition was. The move to DR marked the turn of devoting my life to environmental activism in a way that went beyond recycling, composting and weekly volunteer efforts (though I was glad to be doing that much already). I have no illusions about being able to predict the path my future will take, but it's my intention to try to make Dancing Rabbit a home that I would happy to stay at forever.
While recently talking with some new friends from another community, we were talking about our relationships to our respective communities. Several of them thought they might move on to other things within the next few years. This is by no means a representative sample of community living, but I realized that compared to many others, DR has a very committed membership. Many of our members come here hoping to build a home for life. This bodes well for the strength and stability of the community.
The social and economic structure of Dancing Rabbit is also one that I believe will create a more stable population than many other intentional communities experience. The key to this is our society of communities model, which will foster having individual households as well as cooperative and communal groups all within the umbrella of the Dancing Rabbit ecovillage. One advantage of this structure is that people will have the flexibility of living within a variety of different social and economic settings while still maintaining their involvement and ties to the project and land of DR. For example, someone moving here might start as a member of Skyhouse. If later, they decide they didn't want to be part of an income sharing group, they could move into another arrangement without leaving DR. Or take the example of a family moving here to build their own home. Building a home can be a daunting task on top of moving to a new location. Through cooperative programs like our Eating Associates program, people don't have to tackle everything at once. They could take advantage of the existing structures and resource pooling to get locally grown organic food while they build their house and begin the work of starting their own garden. Or someone could try moving here and doing it all on their own, only to have unforeunforeseen circumstances thwart their plans. Instead of having to give up their dream, they will have other options and support networks around to help out.
The commitment of our members and the inspiring vision of Dancing Rabbit are both factors in creating a stable community. But I think the gel that will really make it stick is the structure and flexibility of the village. My hope is that we will see in Dancing Rabbit a return to commitment to a place in the natural and social worlds that will stand in contrast to the current American tendency to constantly relocate job, family and life.
Building commitments that will last that long, takes some time to craft. But with the time it takes to build well, comes strength.
Read an ongoing journal of life at Dancing Rabbit!
Now published publicly are Jacob's "Sedentary Travelogues": the account of his moving to Dancing Rabbit and stories about the life there. It's one glimpse into the life of a member of Skyhouse and Dancing Rabbit.
Intentional Community Bookstore