Common Ground Ecovillage

Flowing February 2026 Almanac

There is so much goodness in the world.  We just have to show up for it and refuse to leave.
          Anna Popova, of Brain Pickings

We’ve entered February, the space between Winter and Spring where we know that renewed growth is coming but it’s hidden beneath cold, hard ground.   Today, the sky drops snow like confetti in celebration of Winter seldom seen in our part of NC.  Peering outside, it’s hard to imagine that the wheel of the year is turning, that something deep underground is stirring (serenaded by the birds, even now), and that a whole new blueprint is taking shape to undergird and guide new growth.  But this process is as old and wise as time, and we feel it in our bones.    

In this Almanac, we are banking on warmer days, planning many events that call for many hands to work with wood from newly felled trees in many ways.  This most tangible way to build a community mirrors ways in which we are re-shaping ourselves to belong together in service to an agrarian mission whose shape is yet obscured, but nonetheless present in our hearts. 

Community is a continual work in progress.  This Almanac is a window into our world that we hope will inspire and encourage all to feed the fires of love and possibility, no matter the view outside. 

See you at Common Ground.

Judicious January 2026 Almanac

Dear friends,

It’s said that the month of January is named after Janus,* the ancient Roman god of beginnings and endings, doorways and transitions, who symbolizes the closing of one year and the opening of the next.  He is oft depicted with two opposing faces looking both at the past and future.  He reminds us to pause and reflect before we rush ahead with our hopeful plans; to embrace the dark and dormancy of Winter as a time to slow down and take stock before fully turning towards what is yet to come.  

As we look back at 2025 at Common Ground, we can see that the agrarian community we’ve been envisioning for well over a decade is taking shape across all areas of endeavor.  This Almanac gives a glimpse of what has come to pass through the efforts of the many people, past and present, who have given their hearts, hands, time, wisdom, and resources so generously and persistently, year in and year out.   

Yes, it’s good to look back and important to discern forward directions.  But may you also let Winter have its way with you for yet a little while.  Feel the stillness, breathe in the darkness, gaze at the stars, keep company with Nature’s way of rest, and nourish your life force.  We have much do to create a more beautiful and life-giving world together in years to come. 

See you at Common Ground

*Goddess Iana is the counterpart of Janus. She is associated with arches, portals, the moon, and more.

Daring December Almanac

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.

Notable November 2025 Almanac 

An Autumn Night—
don’t think your life
didn’t matter
—Bashō

Dear Friends, 

We’re at the mid-point between Fall and Winter.  Temperatures are falling and sunlight is becoming sparser by the minute.  At a time when it would feel nourishing to slow down and go within, there is a lot to do at Common Ground.  Farmers are working at full tilt, getting ready to launch the Cold Season CSA (there are just a handful of slots left).  Contractors are working to complete the erosion control portion of the village infrastructure.  Community members are coming together regularly to move into this new reality in a way that honors each other, our values, and our land.  And it’s both wondrous and complicated on a number of levels and dimensions.

In this Almanac, you’ll get a flavor of how we are moving into this new phase of our evolving Community.  For example, this weekend (Nov. 1 & 2), we’re offering a panoply of events that meet the moment—harvesting, celebrating this Threshold season, connecting heart-to-heart, playing volleyball, and honoring the trees and land beings who are making way for our village to be built.  We hope you’ll join us as you are able, moved, and inspired not just tomorrow, but throughout the month to come…

…because each of us is a part of something greater, a member of a cosmos and lineage that stretches behind and before us, a single breath in the body of time.  Yet our feelings, beliefs, and actions matter immensely. They send out ripples that are felt throughout the field of all creation. Every one of us adds ingredients to this cosmic soup, and it will take every one of us to improve its flavor.  Let’s see what wonders we can imagine and create, together. 

See you Common Ground

Optimistic October Almanac

Dear friends, 

We are a community of mere mortals attempting to craft a way to co-create an agrarian ecovillage while honoring the needs of each other and the rights of the land that supports and sustains us–all within the confines of capitalism and County and State rules and regulations.  Our years-long careful and collaborative work has brought us to the brink of beginning infrastructure construction.  The excavators are on the land and the contractors are waiting for the green light from us.  And it’s complicated!  Are we ready to take this irrevocable step?  Do we have the human cohesion and the financial ability to sustain this community?  Is it possible to build a village, even a small one, while working with the land in a good way?  Can we create a culture of gratitude that honors all the blessings we’ve been given and the gifts each one of us brings to the whole?  

Our dream to live in justice and harmony with each other and the land seems so close. It feels like the only sane way to live in an age of global disruption, greed and individualism.  And yet, will we really be able to balance all these factors, coming through what seems like the eye of a needle, with our multi-dimensional relationships thriving?  

We’ve chosen the path of most persistence.  We’ve come a long way.  This work is difficult and we’re wrestling with how we can bring ourselves with all our diversity and preferences together and find Common Ground.  Maybe this song by Alexa Sunshine Rose that Caleb brought to our Community on the Ground meeting last Saturday will bring us strength?  It’s a 3-part round called, Weaving our Lives. Click here to listen and read the lyrics below.* 

We are each a thread in the tapestry of life.  Let’s embrace the beauty we can weave from our hearts, together.

See you at Common Ground

Prepared by Hope Horton, Karen Miller, and Janey Meadows

*We are weaving our lives

We are weaving our hearts and our minds

We are weaving the bright and dark threads

Of our journeys through

We are weaving our lives

We are weaving a blanket of light

We are weaving a basket to hold

All that’s true

The Autumnal Equinox, the tipping point between Summer and Winter, is nearly upon us.  It’s fitting that Common Ground, too, is at a tipping point in our long history of growing Intentional Community.  We’re headed towards breaking ground in the near future which is both exciting and challenging; creative and destructive, and we’re mindful that the time is now to move ahead in resonance with our vision to live in justice and harmony with each other and the land. 

In this Almanac, we’re sending out a call for partners in our dance to prepare for the big changes along the way.  You’ll find a wealth of opportunities to help shepherd trees, wildflowers, wildlife, soils, and neighbors through a disruptive process leading towards creating a more vibrant, diverse, adaptable and resilient landscape for the long haul. 

If you resonate with what we’re doing every day and further hope to achieve at Common Ground, then open this Almanac with its banquet of information and opportunities and choose to get involved. We hope you will.

See you at Common Ground.

Abundant August Almanac

Dear friends,

Throughout Summer’s heat, humidity, and record rainfall, Common Ground is going strong.  In these page you will see visionary yet practical initiatives to bring about a community culture that respects and honors each other and the land.  It’s slow going and sometimes discouraging, but it’s what we can do to create the change we want to see in the world.

If you resonate with what you see in this Almanac, if your mind and heart are stirred by what we are aiming to become, then we hope you’ll show up and explore all the possible ways to get involved.  You will be very welcome. 

See you at Common Ground

P.S. We’re putting together a team to publish this monthly Almanac.  Karyn Miller and Kathleen Biernat made this issue possible.  Want to pitch in?  Please contact Hope: hopematrix@fastmail.com

Jumbo June & July Almanac

Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work; a future. To be courageous is not necessarily to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those things we already feel deeply and then to live through the unending vulnerabilities of those consequences.

—David Whyte

Dear friends,

We are nearing the Summer Solstice when the sun is as glorious as she’s going to get; her influence the most powerful; her enlargement of our days the greatest.  Summer swells in her wake.  The landscape greens before our eyes, morphing from something shy and manageable to rampant and out of control, yet we thrive and dive as we ride her shimmering golden waves onto Autumn’s shores. 

This Almanac offers a taste of what’s in play at Common Ground over the June and July.  All that we can promise is published here.  And there will be more as celebrations take shape timed around the Summer Solstice, the veggie miracles flourishing on the farm, and irresistible ideas for learning, connection, and fun  spring up as the weeks go by.  We’ll tell you all about them when the time comes.  

In the meantime, take care.  May you fill your cup with beauty, nourishment, rest, friendship, love, and all that enlivens you. 

See you at Common Ground

With Heartfelt gratitude to Karyn Miller for stepping up and helping mightily to construct this Almanac!  We’re putting together a team to produce this in the future.  Interested?  Contact Hope 

Marvelous May 2025 Almanac

Dear friends, 

By the time the calendar page turns to May in North Carolina, the natural world has gone through the eye of Spring’s needle.  The specter of withering night-time freezes has faded.  The trees have leafed out, grasses are climbing high, and sunlight and rain are catalyzing Summer’s chemistry of abundant invention.  Beauty abounds and we are designed to fall under its spell.  The alchemy of soil, seed, air, and sun blends a batter that rises and transforms into stems and leaves, flowers and fruits, vegetables and grains to nourish yet another cycle of life as the latest word in the universe’s ever-expanding epic poem.

There is much to celebrate at Common Ground.  While our government is steering the world into dangerous territory, we are leaning into deeper relationship and connection with each other and the land.  This Almanac tells stories of beauty and, yes, struggle as we continue to grow a community infused with aliveness both within and without our borders.  We hope you feel inspired to tune in and show up where there’s resonance for you.

See you at Common Ground.

Ardent April 2025 Almanac

Dear Friends,

Spring is in full swing with new life emerging at every moment; so tiny and tender, yet containing the power and strength to burgeon and thrive through circumstances both kind and cruel.  It’s in the nature–the very essence–of every creature, plant, microbe, and mushroom to grow and thrive–and that includes us.   But we don’t do it alone.   

At Common Ground, we are ardent about growing community.  While so much is in flux in the world around us, we are finding balance, nourishment, and healing increasingly through our connections with each other and the land.  And yes, there are skads of challenges that we don’t yet know how to meet, much less overcome.  And there’s plenty of uncertainty about methods and means to achieve our goals while honoring our aspirations.  But as you’ll see in this Almanac, we persist.  

There’s so much goodness within and around us that we hope to share with you.  So take a close look at the News, Meetings, and Events in this Almanac.  There’s never been a better time to join together and support each other to co-create the more vibrant and life-giving world that we know in our hearts is possible.

See you at Common Ground.