There’s no doubt that we’re living through a remarkable time in human evolution, both because of the urgency and severity of our challenges, and because of the possibilities that are available to us in meeting them. There is an imminent existential threat to humanity, from global warming, biodiversity loss, toxic waste accumulation, soil depletion, and so on — not from some new capacity for self-destruction, but simply from our unwillingness to wake up and take action in time. At the same time, many people are waking up, and building communities and organizations designed to address our most important challenges, from reducing carbon emissions to actually restoring the climate to what it was for the most recent ten thousand years in which humanity has flourished.
Some of the people responding to this situation are doing so by building communities founded on different principles and seeking different outcomes. Joel Rothschild, of the Ecovillagers Alliance (EVA), is one of these visionaries, who has laid out much of his thinking in several articles in Green Horizon Magazine (beginning with this issue), will be introducing the Alliance’s new programs on Sunday, November 10, at the IYCC in Princeton, along with updates from a growing number of communities in formation.
Sunday, November 10 … 2:15pm
Princeton Integral Yoga Community Center
301 N. Harrison Street, Bldg A, Suite 1E, Princeton, NJ 08540
The usual potluck, so bring something yummy to share. If you can’t make it, join by Zoom at https://zoom.us/j/8283857296.
EVA’s program involves a high level of engagement, a deep and experiential dive into what it takes to develop a thriving ecovillage, starting with the people who will bring that ecovillage into being.
Joel and his expert team have a vision and a plan for educating, incubating and helping to launch ecovillages all over the Mid-Atlantic region. Ecovillagers Alliance’s financial and legal approaches are designed to enable ecovillages to be established, at scale. Joel will also be highlighting Community Land Trusts, as some of our members are looking into this legal structure for their new communities.
Meanwhile, our members have been busy gettin’ around. So at our November Meetup there will be report-backs from visits to the first cohousing community in Connecticut and the first Community Land Cooperative in Pennsylvania. We’ll hear about progress toward a farming-based intentional community in West Windsor, the vision of an urban cohousing neighborhood in Trenton, and updates from Altair, as well as a report from a visit to Lancaster planned for November 5.
Whatever our focus, we need to build strong movements, communities, and social bonds that are manifestations of the paradigm shift from conflict and competition to cooperation, from the dirty economy to the clean economy, from humanity against Nature to humanity that is an integral part of Nature. This massive global transformation is what’s needed to ensure our common future, and Ecovillages and the Cohousing movement can and should be in the vanguard of it. So please join us on November 10, and see if one of these communities or programs is right for you.