I am writing this in March 2021, and I moved to Dancing Rabbit in October,  2016, at the age of 62. I first heard of Dancing Rabbit by clicking on a link in the Tiny House Blog while I was spending a long, lovely winter house- and cat-sitting for a friend in St. John’s, Newfoundland. I was not looking for a way to change course in my life, but everything I read on the Dancing Rabbit website spoke to a core part of me. After an April overnight visit on my drive back home to central Kansas and attending a 2-week visitor session in June, I moved here permanently in October as a newly-accepted resident.

Having lived as many decades as I have, life has been filled with a long collection of experiences that I am grateful for. What to say in a short bio? As I listen to folks here talk about where they have come from, experiences they have had, what brought them here, and what they find interesting, I can only sit back and think that if a writer wanted to put these experiences into written form, it would make for a really good read (I do find anyone’s life interesting since I have not lived it). Some of my snippets: raised in a large family in a Kansas Mennonite community focused on church, farming, education, and service; a two-year training program in nonviolent social change while living in a large intentional community in West Philadelphia; dipping toes into the Peace Corps in Tunisia; learning auto mechanics and having children in Fresno, CA;  moving back home to raise children and discovering the profession of nursing (earning degrees/working/teaching); working for a couple of years at an international boarding school in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains in India; house renovations in various locations; travel nursing and almost immediately settling into addictions work in central Connecticut; moving back to my home community to lend a hand with my aging mother; spending parts of the last 17 summers on the eastern coast of Newfoundland; discovering and living at Dancing Rabbit.

I have found that Dancing Rabbit is a place where various parts of myself have been able to reside and flourish in a more unified whole, i.e., in a nonviolent, sustainable approach to living on this planet, in relation to each other, and with oneself (a commitment to personal growth and change). I love the inter-generational aspect of this community, and how I can easily avail myself to the wide-ranging knowledge, skill, and inner wisdom that folks here hold. I love the closeness to the land. I love that fun and laughter are valued. Fortunately, we are not perfect, so this encourages us to keep learning, expanding, and holding each other and the totality of life with care.