For some nights now, I have had a series of dreams where I am in community, and it’s rich and fulfilling. I don’t remember the specifics of these dreams, but maybe what I remember is enough.
Since my teens, I have dreamt – in waking life – about community. I have wanted to live in a co-housing community or eco-village, or something similar. Since my early twenties, I have been strongly drawn to Vækstsenteret in Denmark, although I never got to live there.
During the pandemic, I also had many of these rich night dreams of being in community. I suspect it’s coming up again now since I have been relatively isolated for 2-3 months now, living in my parents’ house in Norway on my own, getting it ready for the new owners, and not having extra energy to leave the house (apart from brief trips to the neighborhood grocery store) or to socialize.
The dreams remind me of what’s missing in my life right now, and my wish for community.
I have had some experiences of this. I loved living at Kanzeon Zen Center in Salt Lake City in the ’90s. I enjoyed living in a co-housing community in Eugene briefly in the early 2000s. I had an experience of community in Madison, although we lived separately in different places of town.
Even now, in Barichara, there is a sense of community, and one I wish to nurture more – for instance, by inviting friends for shared meals more often. (Now, we finally have the space for it.) I am also drawn to organizing gatherings around the Practices to Reconnect (Joanna Macy, Molly Brown), TRE, Breema, basic meditation and similar. It all depends on what else is on my plate, and how my health is.
The image is from the Wikipedia article about Findhorn EcoVillage. I love the story and intention behind Findhorn, and loved my stay there some years back.
