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My dream for more than 15 years has been to live in community in right relationship with land. Instead, I traveled a bit and got married. This dream never went away, I have just spent many years aching.
I decide to learn (and teach) NVC because I didn't know how to get from where I was (married and living in an apartment in a city) to where I wanted to be. At least I could upskill and be ready to jump when the opportunity presented itself to me. When the pandemic started 2 years ago I turned my surprise and fear inward, harshly demanding why I hadn't made the community I longed for yet. Why I wasn't growing my own food like I had wanted to for so long? (I'll skip the rest of the self judgements.) I felt renewed commitment and urgency to reorient my life and work towards community living. Then, unexpectedly, my spouse chose to exit our relationship and I spiraled into deep mourning and life transformation. The gift of the loss of my marriage is I now have no reason not to create this dream of living in community. I don't want to live in just any community. I want to live with people who are as committed to living nonviolence as I am, or even more than I am, so they can help me when I am lost or stuck. I want to live with people who give openly from the heart like I do, who want to receive my gifts, who want to live in the flow of love and life with me. I want to live with people who will recreate the commons with me, who want to find radical structures for relationship and collaboration that help us to somehow step out of patriachy and into a new/old/human way of life. I want people who dont need me to explain my vision because their vision is so align we dig into the work together. Not a small thing to ask for. In the past year or so I had the joy to live in three small communities. I learned alot and also had so much support as I mourned and struggled to re-find myself. Connecting with myself over the past few months has brought me to a more centered place and a more clear sense of what I want (instead of prioritizing what other people want). What I want is to take the seed of this community dream, that has been laying dormant in my own heart for so long, and to plant it into the material plane, with trust in life itself to support me. I'm so delighted to already be joined in cocreating this dream. There are now two birdies on the Vibrantly Alive banner. One for me and one for Shua. We will add another birdie for everyone who joins us in our community as it grows. The two of us are drafting a clear vision and purpose etc for our community and we plan to begin inviting people we know to consider joining us. I'm dreaming about where in the world we will plant the seed of our community to grow. We are taking this journey step by step and I plan to share it with you here. |
Selene Aswell
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