I have been reading the entries in my blog of the time just before we moved to Ganas, I.e January 2015-July 2015. We moved to into Ganas in July 2015 with the intention of staying there for a long time. As you know we moved out of Ganas in May 2021 into the housing Coop that we are now living. I am somewhat surprised how clear I was in 2015 about what we were looking for in our journey. I wrote about the “Breakthrough” of moving”, “Preservationist” communities, and “The Villaging Project” with much clarity. And then I stopped writing for two years until November of 2017. Our priorities shifted somewhat from looking at Healthcare in the United States to looking at the social systems that can establish the mechanisms for communities to take charge of their own lives. This was a time of great learning and personal growth for me and led to the creation of our newest movie “The Dream We Choose” which portrays how we have dealt with our lives to move beyond the traditional American Dream as well as our search for communities that have done the same. Ganas has been one of those communities.
I have a great deal of respect for intentional communities like Ganas. I have some understanding of the courage and commitment it takes to create and live in one. It is very difficult. I also understand that most intentional communities operate in the paradigm of what Jack Reed has called an “everyone for themselves,” paradigm. That is the paradigm in which they exist. They have no choice. I am not saying this as a criticism. The mindset and structure they have as a community exists in an everyone for themselves world. They are trying to be an island of cooperation in an ocean of individualism. I don’t have a solution to this if there needs to be one. But I do have an example that helps me when I get stuck.
I use to counsel couples. Along with my successes many couples never made it past the fourth session. What I discovered was that around the fourth session couples become conscious of the fact that change in their relationship will require personal changes and not just changes for their partner. New consciousness forces a decision. They have got to decide individually and as a couple whether to continue with their counseling, I.e. move into a new stage (paradigm) of their relationship and make personal changes or to stay put. When I become conscious of something new I have to decide to make personal changes or stay put. It is a personal “Aha!” experience. Personal changes change the world and new relationships are made and new communities are born.
Our time at Ganas was a time of personal reflection and growth that was modified and amplified by the hyper political divisions happening in the country at that time and by the effects of the pandemic. Along with everyone else in the country this time has changed our life. I lost my clarity. I am gradually getting it back.
Personal growth is always somewhat traumatic for me. Although I invite it I also, almost always, resist it. And that is the core of the matter. Living at Ganas I discovered how difficult developing productive community life is and I began questioning my ability to do so, i.e. to make the personal changes. I was (am) not sure I could do those things.
Recently I remembered I DON’T HAVE TO DO THEM! (At least by myself) That is a kind of thinking that must evolve. It originates and resides in the “an everyone for themselves world.” What is a required is… “a shift of consciousness.’ And the first step toward that paradigm is not gaining the skills. It is making a decision. And the decision is as Reed says “to expand your (my) consciousness to include the welfare of the entire planet.” Jack Reed, The Next Evolution, p.5)
Even though I know this I have many desires and habits that get in my way that I seem to be unable to give up and make me feel that if the existence of the planet were up to me we’d be doomed. Can an individual struggling in his own evolution help save the planet? I hope so because that seems to be most of us.
Three areas of growth seem crucial. 1. Economic growth that moves us away from dependence on a financially based system, 2. Social structures that encourage and support cooperation between groups, and 3. Expansion of personal consciousness and good will.