The Art of Community Northwest Conference
This weekend we attended the Art of Community Northwest 2006 conference. About 250 communitarians gathered together to share information about their intentional communities.
Our intentional community had a minimal presence -- just Lisa and myself, at least on Saturday. We represented (unofficially) our community and (officially) our group house and (of course) PolygamyNow.org. We seemed to be the sole source of information on polygamous communities at the conference.
Much of the work of the conference was done by members of the local Songaia community. You can see them celebrating May day in the photo to the right.
We attended a session on community networking, another on creating rituals, and another on utopian communities like Twin Oaks, which was inspired by B. F. Skinner's Walden Two. There were always nine sessions happening at the same time!
There were farmers, activists, seekers, professional facilitators, and aging hippies, to name a few labels. Many of the men sported beards, one of them colored purple. Half-naked men lay together under teepees made of poles and Christmas tree lights. Tie-dye shirts and gypsy costumes were abundant. I guess you could say there was considerable variety.
Lisa is drawn to the exotic and colorful nature of the hippy and gypsy lifestyles. She wanted to stay for the Gypsy Nation dance, but pooped out instead. Anyway, she says, she could never get used to not shaving her legs.
Our intentional community had a minimal presence -- just Lisa and myself, at least on Saturday. We represented (unofficially) our community and (officially) our group house and (of course) PolygamyNow.org. We seemed to be the sole source of information on polygamous communities at the conference.
Much of the work of the conference was done by members of the local Songaia community. You can see them celebrating May day in the photo to the right.
We attended a session on community networking, another on creating rituals, and another on utopian communities like Twin Oaks, which was inspired by B. F. Skinner's Walden Two. There were always nine sessions happening at the same time!
There were farmers, activists, seekers, professional facilitators, and aging hippies, to name a few labels. Many of the men sported beards, one of them colored purple. Half-naked men lay together under teepees made of poles and Christmas tree lights. Tie-dye shirts and gypsy costumes were abundant. I guess you could say there was considerable variety.
Lisa is drawn to the exotic and colorful nature of the hippy and gypsy lifestyles. She wanted to stay for the Gypsy Nation dance, but pooped out instead. Anyway, she says, she could never get used to not shaving her legs.
posted by Martin at 4:30 PM
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