More basic to the Great Turning than any ideas we have about it is the act of courage and love we make when we dare to see our world as it is.
—Joanna Macy, Coming Back to Life
Dear friends,
As the Earth retreats farther from the Sun’s warming rays and heads towards the heart of Winter, we’re deep into construction season at Common Ground. An agrarian ecovillage has long been envisioned here, but manifestation to date has had little impact on the land. We’ve focused on getting to know these precious 112 acres, cultivating a farm, and growing human community in concert with our values. All the while, we’ve been laying the groundwork for (some sort of) a village where humans can live together in justice and harmony with each other and the land.
And we’re at that point. The bulldozers are here to create the required infrastructure to enable us to build homes in Orange County. Though this is an inevitable—even exciting—process to realize our village vision, the resulting impact on the trees, soils, waters, and beings has been hard to see; hard to hear and feel in our bodies; hard to witness the daily losses while trusting that something more beautiful and fertile will emerge.
This Almanac offers many perspectives and ways to come together to both honor our pain and dare to be open to what may come as we continue to co-create this community. We remember that the approaching Winter Solstice brings us to the farthest reaches of darkness and then hovers there for some time before turning towards the light. The life force retreats within and below and holds its breath in the space between death and life, all the while spinning the invisible threads that weave Spring’s emergent pattern in ways that we may attempt to influence yet cannot predict or control.
May we continue to dwell in this matrix of creation together.
See you at Common Ground.
