Sometimes, the entire character of an area becomes profoundly changed by a single entity. Something as small as a new family pulling up in their moving van, or something as large as a casino moving in to your hometown. “There goes the neighborhood,” someone will utter, no matter what.
For me, it was growing up in a town defined by architecture. It was watching long-time businesses go under when a nearby town became the “Walmart town”. It was the growing number of unfamiliar faces downtown who were in town to see a play at the theater. It was hearing that there weren’t enough restaurants to support the amount of people. It was hearing people grumble when a Mexican family came in and opened a traditional restaurant. It was hearing the same grumblings when a Hmong family started a flower farm, and driving by I couldn’t see anything but beautiful rows and rows of color.
Nik here, writing this week from Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, orbiting around the quiet Missouri town of Rutledge, pop. 109. Once defined by the passenger trains that rolled through, Rutledge is now well defined by the incredible Zimmerman’s General Store, which carries almost everything under the sun; the summer flea market; and by the intentional communities (Dancing Rabbit, Sandhill Farm, and Red Earth Farms). In an otherwise very pastoral slice of American pie, it is almost impossible to argue that the intentional communities have a profound effect on the surrounding area. (For those who believe in the word of the internet, Rutledge’s Wikipedia entry mentions the three communities in the second paragraph.) The smaller influences are what I would like to focus on.
One quiet part of DR culture that I am most proud of is our midwives. Scientifically trained, caring, and knowledgeable in the simpler and less stressful ways of childbirth, local families, Mennonite and otherwise, seek out their help and leave happy and assured, even those who were very wary of treading into the “hippie commune”.
Other ways traditional medicine shows up here: perhaps the only licensed acupuncturist outside of Kirksville, for one, and the wide variety of homeopathic and herbal remedies lining the shelves at Zimmerman’s.
An entire village can’t spring up without a number of extremely talented carpenters and woodworkers. Just walk into the Milkweed Mercantile and marvel at the craftsmanship, especially the Bed & Breakfast upstairs. Or the intricate joinery and woodwork of Strawtron, or the bordering-on-art details of Casa Caterpillar. When I went to the Handworks Tool Expo last Spring with a number of other woodworkers and builders from the area, we all spoke the same language with folks from all over the country. Politics, worldview, and dietary preferences never came into the conversation. I love that about artisan skills…people take to them for so many different reasons, but they all meet over the love of creating useful and beautiful things.
Connecting on these more immediate issues always makes talking about bigger issues easier. Even when there’s no hope of changing someone’s mind, it can create a ground of respect where both sides can begin to have a dialogue instead of just yelling into a wall. Many people around my hometown love their Walmart, and maybe it made their lives easier to buy things. The truth is bigger than bad and good; for some it was a good thing, just as for my reality, it was a bad thing, seeing my friend’s family struggle to keep their business alive in that town.
Residents of the Rutledge Communities and the Possibility Alliance near La Plata do a good amount of advocacy work as well, like the Climate March and Climate Ride, Veterans for Peace, and the Superhero Ride to name a few, and while there are plenty of people who may disagree with those causes, they do change the world we all live in, and I admit, it feels good to be part of that change.
The communities influence the area in smaller ways as well. The best example that comes to mind is when a group of us go out to socialize or just have fun on the town—bowling in Memphis or Kirksville, dancing, the ArtWalk in Fairfield, or just last weekend we braved the karaoke microphone at Amigos Grill in beloved Memphis.
I’m used to our group getting strange looks; we’re usually dressed a bit strangely and are overly boisterous, lacking some bit of social decorum that society puts in place…but everyone knows the Rabbits. The MC at karaoke kept the place swinging even though we were the only ones left at the end of the night. I highly recommend coming out there on a Saturday night for excellent margaritas and general silliness.
No place lives frozen in time, as much as we’d like it to. My hometown is vastly different than it was during my childhood, some things better, some things not so much. We can be the change we want to see in the world, even if the world will never become exactly what we want. But you will still make a change when you put ourselves out there, even when people give you funny looks.
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Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is an intentional community and nonprofit outside Rutledge, in northeast Missouri, focused on demonstrating sustainable living possibilities. Find out more about us by visiting our website, reading our blog, or emailing us.