Nathan's Bio

Nathan Brown

I'm Nathan Mackenzie Brown. I was born on June 14th, 1980 in San Antonio, Texas. I was born at home, breast fed until I was about 2 years old, and I grew up eating things like tofu, rice cakes and carob. These are somewhat common practices now, but in the 80's in Texas, our family had about as radical a life style as you could get while still living in the suburbs.

My dad is a college professor at Trinity University in San Antonio (a small liberal arts college that is not religious even though the name might implies that it is). My mother was a stay at home mom until my parents got divorced when I was in middle school, and she now is self-employed working as a group facilitator and organizational development consultant in Austin, Texas.

I grew up in San Antonio until eighth grade, at which time my mom and I moved to Austin, Texas. This move probably had one of the biggest impacts on my life. I moved out of a school that was about 50% Hispanic and where I was fairly popular, into a school that was almost entirely white, contained racism and bigotry, and were I was immediately deemed a social outcast because I had an earring. This was the first time I ever experienced social injustice directed at me, and though it was certainly minor compared to what it must be like to experience racism or sexism, it impacted me in such a way as to be far less inclined to accept mainstream values or ideas simply because of their prominence. I think it is fair to say that my experience being a social outcast in middle school created the fertile ground within me to eventually live a lifestyle that is radically different from the majority of the industrialized world.

After a few years in Austin my mom and I moved back to San Antonio when I was in eleventh grade (this time with her boyfriend who she is still with). I finished high school in San Antonio and attended college at Trinity University where my father teaches. At first I enjoyed the extra freedom provided by college, but I soon became very unhappy with the way I was being taught, and I began to realize I wanted more power to determine my own learning path. I struggled for a while being very unhappy in college before deciding to take time off to figure out how I could live a life that would contribute to the well being of humanity, while avoiding employment and debt. It was during this time that I found Dancing Rabbit and I decided to apply for an internship at DR. I was not accepted for the internship, and ended up going to Twin Oaks instead, where I stayed for 3 months as an "Eco-intern." After my time at Twin Oaks I visited Dancing Rabbit for a week before returning home. I was very impressed with DR, but didn't think I could handle staying in a tent while I built my own building (something a number of people were doing at the time). I hoped that DR would continue to grow and prosper so that I might sometime in the future feel comfortable coming back to live here. Despite this hope, actually living at Dancing Rabbit seemed like a very distant dream.

After my time at Twin Oaks and my visit to Dancing Rabbit I seriously considered dropping out of college. I, however, eventually decided to return to college, I think largely because of the fact that I got free tuition since my dad was a professor at the school I attended. It seemed at the time like a bad idea to pass up a free college education.

In spite of the fact that I didn't want to pass up a free education, I was worried that when I got out of college I might fall back on getting a full time job, which I felt would limit my ability to have the kind of positive impact that I want to on the world. So, I told myself that I was finishing school not to get a degree that would help me get a job, but to learn how to change large stagnate institutions into dynamic sustainable ones. I figured trying to change my college to be more sustainable was one of the best learning opportunities I could ever have in this respect. As a result I set about to change my school, and in many ways succeeded. I think one of the most impressive examples of the success I had was that I managed to change my university's curriculum to let students create their own interdisciplinary majors. I also didn't achieve everything I set out to do, and I learned two very valuable lessons in the process. 1) If I try very hard to achieve my goals, I'll do things that many people say are impossible. 2) Just because I try very hard to achieve my goals doesn't mean I'll get everything I want.

After graduating from college I had a few months of house sitting and a few months staying with my mom while I figured out what to do with my life. By this point I knew I wanted to live in community, and I had an interest in seeing how cohousing compared to the other kinds of communities I had lived in or visited. I also knew I didn't want to have to buy into a cohousing community, I didn't want to own a car, and I didn't want a full time job because I wanted to have enough free time to develop my own online business.

I eventually decided to explore living in a cohousing community in Washington, DC called Takoma Village Cohousing, where I worked as a live-in nanny part time, allowing me to experience cohousing without a job, a car, or the need to purchase property. I lived there for a year and seven months and I learned a lot! I realized I loved community, but I wanted a community that had more of an environmental focus and that had people both living and working together, not just living together as neighbors. I also got to spend a lot of time with kids and realized not only that I love spending time with them, I also really like having the freedom to send kids back to their parents when we are done playing together.

Prior to my time in cohousing I had assumed that I wanted to have kids, but now I'm not so sure. Knowing that I can have kids be a very significant and important part of my life when I'm in community, without having to raise them myself, has caused me to think long and hard about whether I really want kids for myself. I have not come to any conclusions for the long term, but it is now a question for me instead of a given, and I know I need more time to decide if I really want to be a parent.

After I had been in Takoma Village Cohousing for about a year I started to feel anxious and realized that I was ready to move on. I was considering my options when I came across Dancing Rabbit again, and I was very pleased to see that Dancing Rabbit had in fact continued to grow and prosper. It soon became clear to me that I might be able to live at Dancing Rabbit without needing to build my own building, much less do so while living in a tent. I was also pleasantly surprised that the cost of living at DR was so low that I could easily support myself with the income from my online business that I had been developing. I decided to visit DR in the winter of 2005 to make sure I could really handle the DR life style in a Missouri winter (remember, I'm from Texas). I was very pleased when I visited and I decided to go ahead and move here.

I arrived at DR on July 28th of 2005. I had some complications with my housing situation when I arrived, which as of January 24th, 2006 are still not resolved, but I think I'll get everything worked out before the summer of 2006. After being here for five months I feel like I'm just starting to get really settled in and become more involved in the life and work of the community.

I am now supporting myself entirely from my online business, and I'm excited about expanding my online business activities in ways that I hope will help DR achieve its mission, while providing lucrative income earning opportunities for myself and others in the community.

Last of all, I think it is important to note that when I first arrived I thought I'd want to stay at DR for about two years and then move on to another intentional community, possibly one doing something similar to what DR is doing, but in an urban context. However, after less than half a year I'm seriously reconsidering staying here longer. I love this community, the work we are doing in the world, and the friends I've made here. I'm not sure what the future has in store for me and Dancing Rabbit, but I'm so happy and fulfilled here that I shudder to think what I'd be doing with my life if I hadn't found this place that I now call home.