There are no anomalies here today, so you have my leave to explore elsewhere. [not that you need it, I know]. This post is "inspired" by the "moment". The moment is being in a world where I can watch a small band of teenage boys [with terrible non-parenting] hurling disrespect and gross comments at women, and then screaming crazily at the man who asked them to stop doing so---even picking up a couple of bricks to punctuate their remarks. This was the scene that I watched yesterday on the street near where my mother is being housed. These were the band of truant punks about to become thugs, "smoothly transitioning" from obnoxious elements of society to actually hurting people in their time. Evolving right before your eyes into criminals-to-be without a chance to find out who they are on the positive scale of life. Everybody in the picture was/is losing. The police of course felt that they could do nothing since no one had physically assaulted anyone [yet]. When I embed that wonderful experience into a world of violent militia, tea party fringers, terrorists, and screaming talk-radio rabble rousers, I believe that today, on April 1st, we are April Fools indeed. So I console myself with publishing something that I and several "romantic" friends worked upon for a long time. It is a "Covenant" for a hoped-for ecovillage project that we have been in process of one day bringing into being. If the state of the economy ever gives us the chance, we are resolved to make a living community based upon the following ideals. We are very far along. We are just looking now for a "few good men and women" to be our partners in this dream. It is a spiritual ideal, not a religious/dogmatic one. Anyone who could agree to the following would be more than welcomed. Anyone who would want to take these statements and publish/use them as their own, is welcome as well.
The covenant is a living and real thing for us. We try to honor it during our meetings and each of our decisions. In this we are "All-The-Way-Fool". Even if the economy never lets us succeed, it gives me some peace to know that it is at least possible to think of such a dream.
There are no anomalies here today, so you have my leave to explore elsewhere. [not that you need it, I know]. This post is "inspired" by the "moment". The moment is being in a world where I can watch a small band of teenage boys [with terrible non-parenting] hurling disrespect and gross comments at women, and then screaming crazily at the man who asked them to stop doing so---even picking up a couple of bricks to punctuate their remarks. This was the scene that I watched yesterday on the street near where my mother is being housed. These were the band of truant punks about to become thugs, "smoothly transitioning" from obnoxious elements of society to actually hurting people in their time. Evolving right before your eyes into criminals-to-be without a chance to find out who they are on the positive scale of life. Everybody in the picture was/is losing. The police of course felt that they could do nothing since no one had physically assaulted anyone [yet]. When I embed that wonderful experience into a world of violent militia, tea party fringers, terrorists, and screaming talk-radio rabble rousers, I believe that today, on April 1st, we are April Fools indeed. So I console myself with publishing something that I and several "romantic" friends worked upon for a long time. It is a "Covenant" for a hoped-for ecovillage project that we have been in process of one day bringing into being. If the state of the economy ever gives us the chance, we are resolved to make a living community based upon the following ideals. We are very far along. We are just looking now for a "few good men and women" to be our partners in this dream. It is a spiritual ideal, not a religious/dogmatic one. Anyone who could agree to the following would be more than welcomed. Anyone who would want to take these statements and publish/use them as their own, is welcome as well.
The covenant is a living and real thing for us. We try to honor it during our meetings and each of our decisions. In this we are "All-The-Way-Fool". Even if the economy never lets us succeed, it gives me some peace to know that it is at least possible to think of such a dream.
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ReplyDeleteFolks, i deleted the above post as it was a fairly violent rant that showed that the commenter did not even have the courtesy to read the original posting and understand what the post was all about. The whole idea of my posting was to indicate a gentler more neighborly way of living, not a confrontational "I'll blast you before you can blast me" divisiveness.
ReplyDeleteIt seems violent/sociopathic behavior is on the uptic amongst teens. But then it may just be we're more aware of it than in the past.
ReplyDeleteThe national news has been following a tragic case that occured in a town near where I live in - the Phoebe Prince suicide (South Hadley, MA). An Irish immigrant teen killed herself after being chronically bullied in school, in text messages and on Facebook and MySpace. Indictments came out and the accused are not what we'd like to think of bullies as. They're middle-class, popular, involved in school sports and other activities.
The Manitou Covenent is interesting. I wish you well on your endeavor. These types of communities have been around before.
Make sure to have legal resources to get everything passed by your town (or city's) Planning Board, Health Board ect. The status quo of local politics doesn't always like someothing 'new', unless it's bringing money into the town.
We've done our work with the local government and also the county and the state--there is no opposition there and the local folks are supportive and feel that the village is right in line with their land use plan. Our troubles are that it is difficult to even get the word out to potentially interested persons [not being advertising geniuses with a big budget] and fighting the psychology of a weak and confusing general economy which makes people afraid of making commitments to change what they have. This whole project began as a matter-of-the-heart and an act of faith anyway, and the three "elders" of the thing will stick with it until whatever must happen [up or down] does. I have a dream of helping make a sustainable community within which my own "partnership" could be given to whomever of my nieces or nephews gets caught in bad economic times to come, and they would find a safe and welcoming community of food, water, energy, and caring people, regardless of the times.
ReplyDelete