After the sun dropped behind the black locust trees by the Casa de Cultura, the outdoor concert became even more of a zen experience as we became breakfast for legions of hungry mosquitoes. The man playing a mountain dulcimer didn’t let a single note fall short as his fingers were most definitely being eaten alive. A crowd sat in the blue light, in solidarity, listening to his beautiful songs—it reminded me of Bruce Springsteen if he had wandered India for 20 years instead of sticking with the E-Street Band.
Ohioan is on tour from Tucson, AZ, and made a stop at Dancing Rabbit to play with a partially Sandhill band, the Slime Sisters. As a counterpoint to Ohioan’s dusky and intimate outdoor show, the Slime Sisters had blew out the dance floor with some seriously loud garage rock, complete with complimentary ear plugs for the audience.
Nik writing this week at Dancing Rabbit, and as an arts advocate I am the most excited when musicians and artists find their way to our wee village. We talk and do a lot about shifting practices to better serve the environment and the world—like not being reliant on coal and other fossil fuel power, water conservation, developing sustainable local food sources—but without art and creativity, it feels like playing to an empty room.
“Creativity can solve almost any problem,” writes George Lois, the creative revolutionary ad man, “The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.”
The defeat of habit, or at least replaces old habits with new, is one of the most important parts of life we adopt at Dancing Rabbit. Composting food scraps. Habit. Plugging in the electric car and asking if anyone needs anything from town to save a trip. Habit. Slicing tomatoes and filling the solar dehydrator with them on sunny days. Habit. Even just turning off the light when leaving an empty room. All new habits.
Looking around the Common House at the brilliant, artful informational signs like “Is sunny enough to do laundry?” and such classics as “How much does an inch of rain amount to in our cistern?” (The answer is an amazing 1,600 gallons!) Just reading these facts on a sheet of paper might inspire a few, but not many. For that, I am thankful for art and creativity.
The DR grocery store, which was once a freight shipping container, is now a work of art, and ever evolving to meet the needs of a village that is working to develop sustainable food sources. Cob and Sam had the vision to make something much of the country takes for granted, available to the village. The nautical Japanese-inspired motif pays homage to what was a very non-local way of transporting goods across the world, to what now holds goods from an ever-increasingly local radius.
Photographers, artists, and musicians all have left their mark here and seeds of Dancing Rabbit have left with them, like burrs on your socks that you find even after washing them…
This past Saturday, the poets/musicians/advocates over at Sandhill Farm brought back a presentation from their stay in the Black Mesa area in Arizona. They also put on a dinner of traditional Navajo dishes to help fund more support to those people who are fighting for their land and rights to live there. I went for the fry bread, which was warm and nostalgic for me, but I left with a great need for more action against what happens when big energy and the government are too single minded. For more in check out Black Mesa Indigenous Support.
There was a big focus on solidarity, and not just charity. To take action and be an advocate. Our Sandhill friends dedicated their time to help people directly, but they said that one thing that would help even more is to eliminate reliance on coal power… and that they were so happy that their neighbor Dancing Rabbit is able to do that. That was a proud moment as a Rabbit!
Artists and advocates, working together to overcome the habits that are harming this world. That’s the power to change.
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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.