Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Thank you from a new community!

[Craig Ragland (craigragland]

This interesting dialog reminds me of the phenomena that some have
shared here before. Sometimes, we have couched it in language about
burning souls, about cohousing communities shifting from looking
outward to looking inward. I sometimes hear of community activists
having a sense of let-down, of disappointment that the lives we create
do not meet our expectations.

Some early members, who jumped in to the unknown to create a new
community, shift their attention from the relatively radical acts of
creating something new to the more conservative acts of living and
being a part of something familiar, something safe and, hopefully,
good.

Creating, I think, is not a conservative act - but, most often, being
and living is.

Is this not similar to the life-cycle of romantic relationships? We
live, and hopefully love, through the exciting, radical act of
creating something that is more than us, as individuals alone...
Sometimes, we even add new life - forming families beyond the original
"founding members." From that point forward, those that "settle down"
and relax into stable relationships are most likely to sustain. This
too, is more conservative than moving to another partner or returning
to life as a single person.

Those who continue to seek that most exciting urge to merge may
explore new romantic relationships. Others, may pursue other acts of
creation - using their stable, long-term relationships as a platform,
a base that allow them to create in new ways.

I am hopeful that many cohousing communities "wake up" to their
potential, collective power to create anew - when we have these
stable, good platforms to stand on, we have greater opportunities to
create. Certainly not "all the members" of many communities will be
called to or even willing to support such acts. But, for some of us,
the act of creating our stable cohousing communities may only be the
first expression of who we are and what we can create together.

My hope is that after some communities settle down to their good lives
together, that they develop curiousity about what might be next. I
have personally witnessed established cohousing communities that have
done this - BIG TIME. I suspect some of you have as well. Perhaps what
some of us need are clear models? Well, this might help:

Coho/US has created a brand new $2,500 grant. Coho/US will award this
money to one cohousing community this fall. It is intended to support
a community improvement that accomplish one or more of the following:

- Increases the quality and quantity of social connections in the
cohousing community with a much-needed physical or organizational
improvement.

- Enhances the level of sustainability in the community, with
economic, structural, technical, or procedural improvements.

- Provides a model for other communities on how to establish and
maintain strong ties with the surrounding town or city and/or with
other cohousing communities in the region.

A link to this new grant just appeared on the Cohousing Website home
page, or you can jump directly to the details of how your community
can apply here:

http://www.cohousing.org/grant

Will your community apply? Will your community hold up your creative
act to help others learn?

Craig

P.S. I have asked Songaia, the community where I live, not to apply
for this grant. As much as I'd love to see how we would use it to
create, it would not look right given the level of involvement some of
us have developed with Coho/US. By the way, I see involvement in
helping to grow the Cohousing Movement as a seriously creative act and
hope more of you will similarly embrace and support this work.

On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 10:18 AM, Gerald Manata <gmanata2003 [at] yahoo.com> 
wrote:
>
>     In response to the last post of Sharon Villines: I too have found 
> cohousing, at least our place, to be a lot more conservative then I 
> expected-in my case to my disappointment.
>
> Gerry Manata
> Oak Creek Commons, CA
>
> Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com> wrote:
>
> On Jun 25, 2008, at 4:52 PM, Gerald Manata wrote:
>
> > When a cohousing community is very little changed culturally
> > speaking from any typical active, upscale American middle class
> > condominium complex, then I would refer to it as conservative. If a
> > community has "cultural creatives",and they have influenced the
> > membership to generally change cultural traits (manner of dress,
> > etiquette, ethics, customs, mores, etc) then I would call these
> > communities liberal, or even radical.
>
> Thank you for the clarification. I would call our community culturally
> sort of conservative. Compared to religiously fundamentalists,
> however, very liberal.
>
> It is more conservative than I expected cohousing to be with fewer
> people willing to try things. Not even radical things, just changing
> from whatever we are doing now. They are more accepting of the status
> quo and there is more inertia than I expected.
>
> My impression from questions on this list, other cohousing communities
> are as well. But that is also why I was attracted to cohousing -- it
> is comfortably not out there on the fringes. Economically sound.
> Stable family relationships. Middle class values.
>
> --
> Craig Ragland
>
> Coho/US executive director
> http://www.cohousing.org
> craig [at] cohousing.org
>
> Please try email first, include your phone number (w/time zone) - or give me 
> a call: 425-487-3550 (Pacific)... communicate!