I miss the clean air, being outside, surrounded by mostly untamed (if recovering) wilderness, walking barefoot everywhere, swimming in the pond daily (sometimes twice), the stars, the fireflies, the food. I miss the culture of openness and honesty, of egality, of body freedom. I miss the land and the rabbits (real ones, hopping all over the place). I don't really miss the ticks. Well, I kind of do.
expand to read full post
It was a very simple and enjoyable life that I had there for those three weeks. I had the space and freedom to be myself without anyone giving me funny looks. Women needn't shave, and men needn't wear pants (skirts and dresses are not uncommon for both genders)... I fit right in! Sort of.
There are some things that I don't particularly like about Dancing Rabbit. They are an eco-village and they intend to grow as big as one (500 people). They are by no means a tribe. A tribe could form within the village, but I don't know how likely that would be. They are also out to save the world, which is more just an annoyance from my standpoint. But their method of doing so, as shortsighted as it is, is to model to "mainstream society" (a very common phrase heard at DR) a more sustainable way of living, but one that isn't so drastically different that people from the outside world automatically think that they couldn't do it.
Dancing Rabbit is off the power grid (all electricity is from solar panels and wind turbines) and mostly off the water grid (via filtered roof runoff). They use only sustainably harvested lumber. Members cannot have personal vehicles on the property. Buildings are often built with strawbales or cob. They grow most of their fruits and veggies (and buy all the rest of their food in bulk from an organic supplier). And they're trying to restore the rest of their burned out ex-farmland to its pre-civilized state. That's what they're modelling to the world as what will save it. Somehow. As if the world needs saving. There's a lot of issues with purity and guilt there. They've got a bit of the puritan work ethic going on, too.
I'll go into more of what I took away from DR and what I'm thinking (right now) about the future later. My life is in transition and upheaval, which makes it exciting (read scary) but hard to think all that clearly. But more on that tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment