Following the Regenerative Rabbit
When I turned 40, this time last year, I announced my betrothal to a regenerative eco-village via the wedding announcement platform, Honeyfund. An earnest proposal with a sprinkle of bitter spinster, this was my middle finger to capitalism and to God for being a reluctant matchmaker.
Friends giggled and donated Home Depot gift cards while the chain reaction of intention sent the mystery of creation into motion. After two years of living in the Redwoods of Marin, we received notice that our landlord was moving back in and we had to get out. I had two months to translate hints from the universe into coordinates for where my new fiance and I were going to live.
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans. That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.
— William H. Murray
Why an Eco-Village?
I seem to suffer from “future culture nostalgia”, the feeling of missing the world I know I’ve lived in that has yet to coalesce in this lifetime. An embodied, diverse culture anchored in soil and soul awareness that knows we are here to love and play, feel it all, and co-create what is emerging through us. Think more Indigenous than imperialist, more Blackfoot than Maslow, interdependent v. rugged individualist. Sesame Street incarnate, shadow included. A place safe to feel, and be, and where everyone knows our worth is inherent and consistent regardless of anything external.
I’ve experienced pockets of it. Findhorn, a renowned intentional community, is a pocket on the northern tip of Scotland where humans gather from all over the world to learn how to live in alignment with land and people. Both international education center and residential community, it is an energetic juggernaut broadcasting the intelligence, technology, and ways of being, required to live beautifully. It isn’t perfect of course, no village is, but Founder Eileen Caddy helped birth a 59 year old community, not because she set out to, but because she received guidance in meditation to move her husband and their three kids to a wind and sand strewn Caravan Park and plant a garden. She and her husband knew nothing about gardening. She meditated from 9pm-Midnight each night in the outhouse after the kids went to sleep, wrote it down, and with Peter’s military inspired discipline, they co-created a village eventually awarded the UN Habitat Best Practice designation. An independent study found that Findhorn has the world’s smallest ecological footprint, per resident, half the UK average. “This means Findhorn uses 50% fewer resources and creates 50% less waste than normal.”
Most importantly, to me, is not the what but the how. In my 20s my hustle was largely fueled by an egoic longing to “save the world” by sheer force of will. You can Follow the Burnout/Awakening Rabbit here. I’ve been in rehab from this way of being for over a decade. Now, inspired by Eileen Caddy and many others leading the shift from extractive to regenerative ways of being, I want to follow the golden thread of aliveness and see where it leads. I want to be goosed by the mystery.
Spoiler: It eventually leads me to spend a winter solo on a ranch in Montana.
This time last year I was living in strict quarantine…
- watching: The Need to Grow by Rob Herring & Ryan Wyrick
- reading: Flight into Freedom: Autobiography of Eileen Caddy /Designing Regenerative Cultures by Daniel Christian Wahl / Overstory by Richard Powers
- listening to: The Second Mountain by David Brooks & On Being with Krista Tippett
- practicing: daily silent meditation (30 min.), singing (30 min.), and spontaneous riffing via FB Live about Regenerative Ways of Being (30 min.)
NEXT: Regenerative Ways of Being Step One: White Supremacy Rehab
