The March Hare: Summer '05
Issue 45

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Ask a Rabbit

Ted examining a young nectarine tree in Ironweed garden

What's the difference between an intentional community and a commune?
Rabbit 1: I feel like commune implies income-sharing, or being more fully communal in terms of property.
Rabbit 2: I don't think it's wrong to use ''commune'' to mean any level of sharing. To me, there isn't a whole lot of difference. Saying ''intentional community'' is a way to avoid the pejorative nature of the word commune. Some folks want to reclaim the word; others want to avoid bringing up the negative associations. Personally, I would be comfortable calling Skyhouse a commune.

Ask a Rabbit is a new March Hare feature. A few members gathered to share their thoughts on some intriguing topics. The questions were sent to us by Errol, a regular reader of the weekly DR column, which is published in our local newspaper and is also available by email and on our website. Feel free to send your questions for Ask a Rabbit to askarabbit@dancingrabbit.org.

Rabbit 3 [smiling]: Intentional community-- a commune with forethought.

What kind of care for the elderly will DR provide?
Rabbit 7: At Findhorn [non-income-sharing] community, there is a team of people dedicated to checking up on aged members-- to knowing who had what health problems, and who was taking medication for what. Things like that. I think it's important to have a system in place, even if you would hope that there would be enough community feeling to provide care.
Rabbit 3: I've had musings about establishing an elder care facility. It would be eco-focused, and welcome people who are not very interested in Western-type technology for prolonging life.
Rabbit 4: I think it would be cool if we ended up with more group houses, especially if there was a diversity of age within each house, with the younger people having some sort of commitment-- not necessarily a blood-relation-- to the elders.
Rabbit 2: Right now, the model in mainstream society involves paying for care. In the past, friends and neighbors were more likely to provide that care. I can't really say for sure which I think Dancing Rabbit will follow in the future. If someone coming in as a member was getting Social Security income, they would be rich by our standards, and maybe wouldn't mind paying for some of the more involved care.

Rabbits aren't the only ones looking for a healthy snack

Rabbit 7: I think it will be better here than in the mainstream because there won't be so much age-segregation. That leads to isolation so often, and depression in the elderly. Life in community seems like it would lessen issues of not feeling needed and valuable.
Rabbit 2: Here, though, there are certain physical tasks, like bringing in firewood or emptying humanure buckets. That would be more difficult, if not impossible without help, for certain individuals. But, hopefully, as we grow there will be enough people that no one will end up feeling lonely, unless that's what they want.
Rabbit 4: If we had some sort of fund-- like a DR social security-- that we built up over time . . . maybe that would be good. But maybe it wouldn't always feel good to everyone to pay into it.
Rabbit 2: I would pay into something like that. Not just for the feeling of security for myself, either. I would want to support care being given, even if it weren't a safety net for everything. Even if it just covered checking up on people, and chopping firewood, and things like that.
Rabbit 7: I definitely feel the need for some sort of set system, no matter what it is.
Rabbit 4: We've already had situations with people who have injured their arms where it's been difficult to find people able to give consistent help. How would we handle it better in the future? Do you feel like once we're larger, and less people are involved with trying to get their own basic needs met, that a sense of giving will come more easily?
Rabbits 2 and 3: Yes. When we're larger, it will definitely make a difference.
Rabbit 4: And with accommodations like Rabbit 3 mentioned, it would be easier to give daily care, since everyone needing it would be in the same building.
Rabbit 3: A lot of care besides chopping wood and such could be needed. There will be people who need help eating or getting out of bed, or getting to and from poopers.
Rabbit 2: Even here, I think we'll have people not wanting to leave their homes to go to a larger care facility, but if there was a common day building they could receive daily care there. Then, they could go home to sleep, and still feel like they didn't have to give up independence all at once.
Rabbit 3: It sure sounds easier than the situation with my grandmother. My mother had to spend quite a lot of driving time getting her to and from the day care.
Rabbit 4: People could also plan for having live-in care, if that was what they wanted, when planning their houses. If you built an extra room in, maybe you could have someone live rent-free with you in exchange for care. That would be a way for both people to get what they needed, and hopefully promote the inter-generational living arrangements.
Rabbit 6: Another way to do that would be to have four apartments surrounding a common space, with one apartment reserved for someone who needed care, including an elder.

And what about green burial at DR?

The Missouri regulations for home burial, and how it would work for a group of unrelated individuals living on a land trust-- whew, that's a fascinating and potentially complicated mix. Through some quick research, we found that it's fairly easy to get a family burial plot in Missouri. However, embedded in a long list of regulations, ''family plot'' was described as pertaining only to departed connected by blood or marriage. Hmmph. Further searching yielded basic information about ''fraternal cemeteries.'' Perhaps we could qualify for one of those. We'll certainly keep you posted with what we find out. Regulations aside, for the time being, all Rabbits polled agreed that green burial is definitely a part of their vision for DR. While there has been light talk from time to time about using it as a business venture, the majority of Rabbits simply want to care for their own dead.

Rabbit 2: That way you get the closure that comes with the burial process.
Rabbit 5: That way you also get to compost.
Rabbit 3: I wouldn't mind being chopped up and put in a compost pile, as long as it got up to proper temperature.
Rabbit 2: Okay . . . [resumes seriousness] I was more thinking that people could be buried in areas throughout the village, like in shady corners. You could put a bench in and plant a nut tree. That way you could sit by this beautiful, long-lived tree and feel close to the person.
Rabbit 4: Or, if you had to or wanted to cluster the bodies more, the burial ground could also be an orchard.
Rabbit 6: Permaculture at its best.
Rabbit 3: Or what about a prairie burial? You could wrap the body in cotton or in hemp, and prairie forbs could get planted over the top.

Editor: As you can see, there were a variety of specific ideas, and some amount of humor in the conversation. However, many spoke to the feeling of wanting to personalize the mourning process, and to return to the view of home burial as both a necessity and an act of love. Of course, the idea of enriching the ecosystem as one passes from life, rather than poisoning it, is also deeply appealing.

For more information about home burial in general, you may want to read these books:
Coming to Rest by Julie Wiskind and Richard Spiegel
Caring for the Dead by Lisa Carlson

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The March Hare: Summer '05 Issue 45

Ask a Rabbit

The March Hare: Summer '05
Issue 45