Common Ground Ecovillage

Abundant August 2026 Almanac

Power is the drive of everything living to realize itself.  -Paul Tillich

Summer doesn’t try to protect herself.  She winds up and pitches the ball hard and fast, sparing nothing and no one in this, the seventh inning of the year. She encourages us to give it our all because there is everything and nothing to lose.  She urges the ungainly overgrowth to stretch to its last strand of stalk and gift of seed before falling to the ground.  Even summer’s song is made of loudness, the primordial seething of life as surround-sound, swirling on air as soft and sticky as breath. 

At Common Ground, we are ever at the juncture of what’s possible and what’s do-able; what we intend and what’s happening; what we are hungry for and what’s on the plate in front of us; leaning in and listening for what wants to happen though our minds may have other plans; always with the awareness that this Community is alive and has a nature of its own.  

This Almanac shows but one snapshot in the scrapbook of this long and beautiful journey.  If you can imagine yourself In this picture, we hope you’ll find your way to us in a way that inspires you.

See you at Common Ground

Journeying July 2026 Almanac

Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.
    —Mary Oliver

Dear friends,

Summer is a force of Nature where all in is in full swing.  Though we are in the midst of a severe drought and searing heatwave here in central North Carolina, there is exuberant beauty and abundance all around, revealing and expressing a powerful vital force that will not hold back no matter our comfort and preferences. 

At Common Ground, we are in the flow and catching the waves of Summer’s bounty.  This Almanac will help you keep up with all that is happening here and offer ways that you can dig into the richness of agrarian community, too.    

In the noise hubbub of modern life, take a moment to think about what really matters to you.  What and who you most value.  The light within that wants to be seen and shine.   Then come as you are to our table and join in the feast. 

See you at Common Ground

Jubilant June 2026 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….From the inside, it can feel like confusion; only slowly do we learn what we really care about, and allow our outer life to be realigned in that gravitational pull….Only from the outside and only by looking back, does it look like courage.

—David Whyte

It’s nearly Summertime and Earth’s energy rises with the sun.  The more daylight, the more ebullience abounds in northern climes.  Flora and fauna burgeon and our spirits glow and grow right along with them.  This is a time when the fruits of the year’s cycle bust out all over, and we can both bask in—and burn under—the intensity of it all.  

In keeping with the season, all is afire at Common Ground.  After many years of cultivating community through land and garden tending, generative gatherings and a gazillion meetings, we’ve hewn a pathway to also enable devoted Members to live on the land in a compact village.   The folks and families who plan to build here got together on May 30 to sign 99-year leaseholds on the lots they will call home.  It’s taken skads of time, skill, thoughtfulness, creativity, money, and yes, courage, to get to this point.   And it is but a step towards living into a vision to dwell in justice and harmony with each other and the land.  

In this Almanac, you’ll find many pathways to participation in all that is growing here.  We have a leasehold or two still available for people who resonate with what they see and feel and who want to be a part of it. 

Summer is not a time to hold back, and our world needs us to step up to help create the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.  

See you at Common Ground. 

Magnificent May Almanac

Dear friends,

It’s May, and the natural world is painting every corner of its canvass with trees leafing, frogs leaping, flowers budding, birds trilling, crops rising, birds laying, and bees humming everywhere they’re given half a chance.  “Let me out of here,” the plants seem to be saying to the ground, the leaves to the branches, the chicks to the eggshells.  It’s time to seize the day, to bloom and grow, prance and play, and make love with life that all may be fruitful and everlasting. 

At Common Ground, we are in sync with the season.  In this Almanac, you’ll find much to inspire and nourish you from hands-on workshops and volunteer opportunities to shared meals with farm-fresh food.  Come and enjoy the company of humans who are digging deep to grow community based on love–of land, of each other, and beauty in all its forms. 

This is a time of year that favors decisive action and deep engagement with the fertile forces of creation.  What are you waiting for?

See you at Common Ground.   

Audacious April 2026 Almanac (Photo: Abigail Porter)

We’re not here because there’s hope.  There’s hope because we’re here. 
  –No Kings Day protest sign

Dear friends, 

In the Spring, life erupts from the earth like music from an instrument, propelled by a single impulse yet spreading everywhere.  Once unleashed, there’s no stopping Spring.  We can’t push the tree leaves back into their buds, halt the birds from nesting, or prevent April showers from falling.  Ready or not, the power of Spring cracks us open, inviting surrender to the magnificent beauty and miracle of life renewing itself. 

At Common Ground, we’re riding the waves of possibility, challenges and change of these times as best we can.  Showing up for the journey, for each other, for the values that pulse in our hearts.  It’s not easy and sometimes seems impossible—even absurd—to try.  But one idea, one conversation, one potluck, one event at a time gradually spurs a spiraling growth towards grounded, authentic Community.

In this Almanac, you’ll find many pathways towards connection, contribution, nourishment, learning, and fun!   Just show up—the door is open. 

See you at Common Ground

Malleable March 2026 Almanac

Dear friends, 

Spring is in the air.  This season of emergence is marked by the Vernal Equinox which divides the day into equal portions of darkness and light, tipping towards ever-increasing sunlight and warmth little by little until summer arrives.  The shift may seem slow, even stymied by unseasonable snow, ice, and cold temperatures.  But suddenly, a green blade shoots up from the ground, a swollen bud pops open, and all that has been preparing for this moment for an entire cycle spills out.

After the dormancy of Winter, the icy cold snap of February, this March is a time for nourishing MOVEMENT at Common Ground.  In this Almanac, there are plenty of events to get you going.  We’re milling and shifting hundreds of board feet of lumber on then land and building a solar kiln, and these activities need many hands.  We’re moving into fundraising and educational events to energize our aspirations.  We’re exercising our ability to develop policies and agreements to live together with social and economic justice.    And Full Table CSA is launching its Warm Season Harvest Shares program (April-November) to nourish our bodies with healthy, local veggies and more. 

So check out this Almanac and join in whatever moves you.  We hope you’ll come and experience the joy of working together towards life-giving goals. 

See you at Common Ground.

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