Two communities with long histories and potential, but both known for high drama. What's the latest on them?
I heard that East Wind has hit a population low. I heard that after the founders of Alpha Farm departed this life, things got ugly in new ways.
Those 2 communities absorb the energy of hundreds of visitors, so potential visitors should be aware of their current state.
The first time I visited an intentional community was long ago. Many years ago. I chose a large secular commune with successful businesses.
I took Greyhound to a city rather close to the IC, where I transferred to my last bus. This final bus would take me to a crossroads where I would be picked up at an abandoned gas station.
As I waited for my next bus, I called the community to let them know I was on schedule. No one ever answered. I called several times and never got an answer.
The bus dropped me off at the crossroads. It was night. Also, it was November, and off-and-on, there was a light rain. I waited, and I waited.
Finally, I unrolled my sleeping bag under the cloudy sky. I was unaware that feral dogs were a problem in the area.
Feral dogs.
But I quickly gave up on the notion of sleeping, and I started walking and found a house. The people there were a little spooked, but I convinced them to give me a lift to the commune. I paid them a few bucks.
I got to the commune and stayed for the 3 week visitor period. I discovered that the day I arrived at the crossroads, the Greatful Dead had been playing at the city where I transferred busses.
What an excuse!
Lovage. Perennial. Flavors soups.
Butterfly weed. A not-so invasive milkweed.
What other edebile perennials would be good to throw about the world?
I guess that every rural income-sharing community that I've ever visited has had a high rate of turnover. Decades ago at East Wind, a member told me most people were gone after 2 years, and recently I saw someone post somewhere that it is 3 years, now, at East Wind.
Once, when I brought up the topic of turnover, someone countered that turnover is no big deal. They reasoned that many people simply decide that the lifestyle isn't for them.
I see it differently. I think that life in the mainstream is so bad that most people who take the time to visit an IC KNOW it is what they want. And that unresolved problems at those communities are a turnoff for most people. Perhaps those who remain in the communities long-term are the origins of the problems.
What are your opinions?
My title uses that line from George Orwell's book, ANIMAL FARM.
Visitors. Provisional members. What is their position in egalitarian communities? Has everyone evolved beyond simple animal behaviors of dominance? Doubtful.
At East Wind decades ago, I saw a full-member getaway with verbally abusing others. I gathered he was a bit famous in the world of IC for his behavior. My visitor guide told me that East.Wind betrayed its commitment to non-violence by allowing the guy to carry on and drive people away. At the same time, I saw visitors and provisional members shown the door for much less.
The verbal bully had seniority. The newer people lacked seniority.
I learned that when I saw a dispute between members and that one was acting unethically, I put myself at risk by chiming in with my opinion. I could be targeted with a smear campaign, guilty, until proven innocent. It may be advisable to bite one's tongue and turn a blind eye to injustice when you are a visitor or provisional member.
All are equal, but some a little more so. Like in the high school lunchroom.
It goes like this: If you work hard, you will get ahead. Be like those immigrants who only work and sleep. Anyone can get ahead in America. Get an education, and it will pay off.
Business wants cheap labor as a vampire wants blood. Your success is a cost to business.
And when you fail, business leaders will tell you to blame yourself. Not the corporation that made all jobs part-time so that you needed 3. Not the landlord that took most of your paycheck.
I just watched a video in which a black conservative chastised black Americans and told them to be like African immigrants. It made me remember the many ways our society tells everyone to succeed when that success is a cost to business that it would prefer to be without.
This is why I like the idea of the rural income sharing community that operates its own businesses.
Yeah, some can pull success off, but it's becoming harder and harder.
Elsewhere on Reddit, I brought up how a member of Twin Oaks had told me, back in the 1980s, that Twin Oaks had some members who were "paranoid of people with mental illness." A responder to the thread correctly mentioned how Twin Oaks' over-reaction was because of losing a member to suicide.
Keep in mind that these instances of member suicide are not solely of recent years.
These suicides might be no more common in IC than in the mainstream, or they could be more common. Either way, rural communes might both be attractive to people with severe emotional problems and toxic environments for such people.
All the more reason why it is important that people considering IC learn as much as they can.
People with depression or trauma might be going to places that worsen their conditions. ( But, all I can say about Twin Oaks is that I felt humiliated by its asking me to inform the whole damn place of my medical history.)
My experience goes back to the years from 1996-2001, so it can't be used to judge Alpha Farm as it is presently. The Founders are dead, also. However, my experience can show what can go wrong in an IC and what to look out for.
I learned about Alpha from an article in National Geographic. Before I traveled across the country on Amtrak, I did a phone call or two, and I asked about my student loan. I forget what I was told specifically, but it was vague enough that I undertook a trip. The person on the other end was a nice woman who later left Alpha for romantic reasons. I don't begrudge her.
But, get this: I found that it won't repay a members student loans. Fair enough. But, you can't work an odd job elsewhere after you have done your labor quota in the community. Okay. Then I discovered that 2 members actually lived in Eugene and that Alpha had financially helped one with college. The person was a white collar professional, so I sensed possible classism.
On another visit, I saw a paper on their bulletin board that showed the place had 5 full members. Which was odd, as it always seemed to have 12-15 people on the property. Only full members had voting rights. 5
Turnover was such that some of the people I met in 1996 were gone by 2000. Typical of IC.
I was an atheist. One day back home, I read that the founder Caroline Estes had told an interviewer that only people with a spiritual focus would fit in at Alpha. Funny how that wasn't said up front. That meant I had wasted hundreds of dollars.
On my first visit, my visitor guide told me that he was leaving the community because he felt it wasn't democratic enough.
Bears. I never saw one, but I did hike up the road one day, alone. I think all visitors should be made aware of bears and how to handle an attack. I learned much later on that they were a presence.
Back home, I was online one day and a guy told me Alpha had a reputation for getting new members to sign wealth over and then finding a reason to reject them. I got the impression that they got their money back in installments. I am not fully aware of those details.
Lastly, I learned that Caroline had told an interviewer that she didn't think Alpha Farm would continue as a community after her death. What a thing to say. Imagine allowing people to visit with the expectation that they might be finding a forever home. Abusive?
Again, Alpha Farm today is not something I know about. It could be ideal. I dunno.
Moral of my story? Some places don't give you adequate information before you invest time & money in visiting. Ask, ask, ask, before visiting.
All my life, I have heard about Sandhill Community in Missouri. Here lately, I have heard about other Missouri communities such as Dancing Rabbit but next to nothing about Sandhill. Is it still a community and accepting visitors?
I was watching a YouTube video on some topic that I now forget the theme of. In the video, the presenter spoke of sinister people wanting to make everyone live their lives bound to debt. Eventually, I developed an idea:
Indebtedness is a major reason that more people do not visit and join income-sharing communities. I'm thinking of the rural community that has businesses that function as a worker co-op because that is the form of community that can most liberate working people. (Sometimes, the members of such communities are in denial of this fact, perhaps because acknowledging the fact would require them to look at their own privilege.)
So, I say we focus a lot on recruiting those in the age range of about 18-24. We want to point out that they are in a window of opportunity. The older they get, the more that window closes.
There may be no way that a person can avoid aging out of the window. Try living in America without signing a car loan. Or, an apartment lease. Or falling back on a credit card. Or taking on student loans. Or, having a child or two and facing the costs, which might turn into legally enforced child support payments.
Get 'em before the mainstream does.
This idea might be resisted because some who are already in IC may not want to confront the reality that they have a bit of privilege that allowed them to get to IC themselves.
Anyway. I'm spreading the word. I wish someone had told me when I was young.
It's interesting to hear normies talk about income-sharing communities, aka communes. One hears these viewpoints:
Those places don't work.
Some do all the work while others won't do anything.
They're cults.
Communism is awful, godless, doesn't work, etc.
Hey, I'm all for getting rich. As part of a group. You could start sister communes. You could provide more health care for members.
While visiting a big "commune" many years ago, a member told me that he didn't think the younger members cared much about "socialism."
Yeah, there are Communists. There are anti-capitalist anarchists. But I've never heard that members are required to toe a "party line."
Income-sharing communities strike me as empowering worker co-ops. In the usually quieter countryside. Away from smokestacks. Where you can't get fired for no reason. Where you set your own hours. I never felt I had to take an oath with my hand on a copy of Das Capital.
Who ever heard of such a thing? But, we need more people who have visited intentional communities to leave reviews of them in relevant places. Or, any place. This will stop dysfunctional communities from wasting people's time and exploiting their labor.