Villages in the Sky: DIY World Change

(sara)  There are really only three neighbors within close range to East Wind Community.  We’ve already met the Satterfields and gotten permission to park festival traffic on their land–which will work brilliantly as long as we can keep the cows from making nice with the cars.  The third neighbor is Mrs. Miller.  She’s eighty and in great health and lives all by herself on a piece of enviable land that bumps up to East Wind’s property.  The view from the top of the foothill she lives on is pretty breathtaking and her front porch, in my humble southern girl’s opinion, begs for rocking chairs.  As Qn and I pulled into her driveway I was taken aback by the awesome beauty and the isolation.

And then I met Mrs. Miller.  She, like the Satterfields, has lived on this land for decades and has no desire to leave it–despite the tireless persuasions of a son in Memphis.  And, like the Satterfields also, has a great fondness for East Wind, great appreciation for the big and small ways they’ve been a neighbor over the years.  We talked about other business and then mentioned the festival that would be literally right next door.  She was unphased, again trusting the judgment of a community that had put itself on call to support her as she was taking care of her ailing husband, and soon we’d moved beyond business.

Mrs. Miller showed off her new stove to me and sent Qn off to look at an industrial refrigerator-freezer she thought East Wind could use, so that her and I could have “girl talk.”  It was wonderful!  I scratched the surface of her stories, her history here in the Ozarks, her fondness of the country, but the trip was brief and my curiosity was well piqued.  Already I’ve talked to some of the women here and soon I want to plan a spontaneous cookie fueled girl talk session with Mrs. Miller.  I imagine I’ll visit her semi-regularly while I’m living here and I am certain we’ll become best friends.

It’s refreshing to be here and to see how these unconventional neighbors really support and love one another.  And it’s just another unexpected perk of my work here to get to make friends and build personal relationships with them!

(sara)  But it sure does go slower.  Two days ago we got about 8+ inches of snow here in Tecumseh, MO which has thrown me into a childish tailspin.  The morning I woke to see snow falling I hurried into warm clothes and rushed to RB–which is the main dining hall community building here.  I found a couple of likewise delighted friends and we made french toast and played with thousand piece puzzles and drank coffee.  It was kind of wonderful.

The snow has made getting out onto the festival grounds a bit difficult, so Pilgrim and I have switched gears a little.  We’ve been plotting how to manage the influx of volunteers coming west at the end of February, shifting around priorities so we can house and feed a small crew out on the land much sooner than anticipated.  It will be great to have extra hands early, because as amazing as Pilgrim is, he can’t do it all by himself.  We’ve got clearing and building and planning to do all at once and in just four months.  The sooner we can get started, the better!

And Matthew, a member here at EW, and Pilgrim have been doing the foundational work on the map our expert architects need for their master planning.  As soon as the snow and ice melt away a little and we can get back to the site safely, they’ll be walking the land and filling in the details requested by the architects.

Things are coming together even when the weather is delightfully distracting!

(paxus) One of the cool things which has happened with the project is that these professional architects have offered to help us.  They will be coming in late February and helping us develop a multi-year masterplan for the site.

Of course they need things from us.  First they want a site survey.  Since we are building tree houses and zip lines they want to know about the trees on the site, their size, type, suitability for these applications.  So we have a crack team of Matthew and Pilgrim to find these trees and bring back surveys of them for the architects.

The other things they want is a project descriptions which tells them what we want.  This is of course a bit tricky, because we want more stuff than could possibly be completed on time.  I got good marks from Al Ross for the outline below as the template for the information they need for the masterplan.  Thought i would share  it here.

• Goals of the Project
• Project Time Table (including estimated work force)
• Architectural elements planned to be included in the project
• Known functions/events the space should host
• Special considerations for reused and recycled materials
• Multi-year considerations (what is important in 2010 and then 2011)
• Zoning of the site for different types of spaces (kid friendly, supervised use only, construction areas, etc).
• Availability of Garnie limbs and other special tree house constructing equipment.

Sara and i will start kicking out the answers to these, and anyone else who has an opinion on the topic.  Which of course brings up my big failing in the project to date, which is that i have not implemented this cool wiki project management plan i have had for some months which would permit people who want to help to know what we need to have help with.

What is also exciting is that Harley and Robert who are friends of Haydens are talking about coming out in the Feb trip and volunteering.  More hands on deck – super cool.  Hopefully they will be introducing themselves soon in the comments or posts here.

(sara) being at east wind is important for me, and the delightful balance of my life continues.  it’s sometimes hard to get motivated to sit in front of a computer when there are so many easy distractions.  the downstairs kitchen in anarres* provides ample amusement for a slightly silly organizer who enjoys all things childish.  the other morning, a handful of us were making breakfast together, which led into a couple of games of rummikub, which, in turn, bled into a raucous game of ants in your pants.  yes, three adult bodied people sat around the kitchen table trying to shoot small, brightly colored plastic ants into a pants shaped bucket.  and the satisfaction of success was maybe a little too great.  it took all my will power to step away from the table after getting every last ant into the target.

but as fun as little kid games can be, i was moving off into the realm of equally exciting fundraising, with a success satisfaction level even greater than bouncing an ant off of the suspenders and into the pants.  villages in the sky is an ambitious project and we’ve got lots of incredible work to do.  which means we need some kind of funding.  i am currently working on grant applications for three different foundations, but i have little experience in this realm and am always seeking other editors and foundation leads.  if you know some more progressive foundations or have experience writing grants, i’d love to get your help!

and soon we’ll be creating mechanisms for personal donations, so that all of our funding doesn’t come with foundational strings attached.  slowly, we’re growing up and digging in.  but it’s going to take a lot of hands to help us thrive.

* annares is the anarchistic egalitarian planet from Ursala Le Guins brilliant science fiction story The Dispossessed.  It is also the name of one of the residential buildings at East Wind

Four months ago as i was walking the magic meadow site and looking at the tremendous volume of brush that needed clearing i said “we need to get Pilgrim here, way before April.”  And now Pilgrim is there, with a shiny new chain saw and he looked around and said “We need to get a bunch more hands on this problem way before April.”  East Wind has been helping quite a bit, but it is not the communities job to build out festival site.

So i have started recruiting, which is my favorite job actually.  First it was Hayden who is on the edge of finishing his GED and in conventional classifications would be a a “kid at risk”.  What i see is a jem ready to reveal itself and choose important cuts.  With some luck and some tutoring he will come out on the next trip from Twin Oaks (Virginia) to East Wind (Ozarks) on Feb 18th.

What is also exciting was that Erica and her young daughter Wrenagade (see photo above) are probably coming out as well.  Below is the CraigsList ad she recently ran.
(t)hey say it takes a village to raise a child. so where is it? why aren’t we living in this village, raising each others children? we all know the answer. simply put, the alienation of families makes life difficult, and consumerism more productive. we’ve replaced grandmothers with talking bears and bouncy chairs. anything and everything to give mommy a break. as a new other, this is NOT acceptable to me. I want our village, without mind-numbing TV, electronic babysitters, instant formulas, all things that only make life easier for that instant, but at a dire familial, social, and cultural cost that we all see the effects of.

I’m tired of complaining about what my daughter and I don’t have. I want to go out and get it. We want to live simply primitively, supportively, communally, spiritually, maternally, matriarchally, openly. some of these terms might scare some people off because of being red-tagged, but I assure you – if I say carefree, i don’t mean careless. when I say open, i don’t mean anything goes. when I say communally I don’t mean lack of personal space. when I say matriarchally, I don’t mean anti-male. I think all the mothers reading this know exactly what I mean because it pulls at our primordial strings in a very familiar ancient way.  so how do we get what we all need? how do we make it work when we get it? what do we have to give up? how do we get the support we need to accomplish our goals?

we’re so used to living autonomously. there are plenty of individuals wanting to live more simply, in the woods, farming, bartering…..by themselves, because they have their individual vision and want things to go the way they imagine things should go. plenty of groups who’ve tried to live in a village have failed for that very reason – because their visions could not be lined up. but with the way this system is going, I don’t see it possible to do it any other way. we need each other now more than ever. we need story time around the hearth, drumming, chanting, chopping wood, initiations, direct interactions with everything and everyone, reflecting Nature that knows no good vs. evil, shame or blame, just cause and effect. i come to you all with nothing of my own…..except this vision and the drive to make it happen, to pull resources together, network, and realize.

Looks like her village is looking for our village.

we’ve been here three days and already life is falling into an interesting balance.  rachel woke me this morning before sunrise with a kiss on the cheek and asked if i was still coming to play with the horses.  we were both confused; east wind doesn’t have horses.  of course i slipped into my jeans and went downstairs to the anarres kitchen where there were scrambled eggs and coffee all ready for me.  we woke slowly and then walked out to do our ranch chores as the sun rose over the valley.  really, i don’t think i could think of a better way to start my day than having calves follow closely as i carry their feed to the trough midway through the pasture.  oh and chasing the chicken, of course.

we finished our chores and went back to the main dining room at east wind to see what the day would be like.  i ran into qn, who has good relations with the neighbors and had offered to take me to meet the satterfields.  we wanted to pay them some sum of money to park festival traffic on a corner of one of their pastures nearest the entrance to the festival grounds.  so, fresh from stomping around the ranch, i decided to change into a plaid jumper dress and flannel shirt complete with my workboots and alfalfa caught in my hair.  it was perfect.

mr and mrs satterfield are sweet and they want to help east wind, they want to help their neighbors.  after doing a bit of background checking, asking about the kinds of people who’d be coming, the kind of event we were hosting, they were satisfied that the risk was limited and immediately agreed upon a liability free contract with villages in the sky to lease enough land to park the cars that carry festival goers to the ozarks.

and this will be the unique nature of our work over the next few months as we prepare for build up camp.  there will be lots of flirting with the neighbors.  we need crumbling barns for salvage, we want an old farm truck for hauling brush, we are going to need to find outside sources of volunteer labor and outlets for local promotion, in kind donations from local businesses.  this revolution we’re building will take all sorts: the 78 year old lifelong neighbors, the chainsaw wielding boys, the web maniacs and the money husslers.  if you’re looking for your niche in the work, find us at villagesinthesky@gmail.org.   i promise you there’s some super power you have that will make our team stronger!  and keep coming back; life at east wind promises to be an adventure in itself.

This spot in Kentucky just off of 64 is fast becoming a second home for our traveling misfit toy army.  A little over half way between East Wind and Twin Oaks, with extra rooms, yummy cereal and a gracious Dad, we’ve stopped here every time we’ve made this trip.

This time, it’s me and “the boys:” Pilgrim and Milo.  Pilgrim is coming out early, to manage a number of early priority pieces of the project.  We’ve got tons of brush to clear, water catchment systems to install, monitor windmills to throw up, and Pilgrim is going to make sure it all happens.  Milo is a new member of our merry band of trouble makers.  He’s a friend of community electrician and engineer extraordinaire and we’re hoping he’ll play the part of lead geek–with his experience with renewables and running transmission lines.  These are boys that work hard and play hard and it’s been an experience traveling half way across the country with them in a tiny little four door saturn.  You should hear the stories they tell.

We’ll land later today, hopefully getting to East Wind just in time for dinner.  And when we get there, we’ll settle into life at East Wind, seeking out community members interested in supporting the project, walking the land and creating maps for our architect master planners, meeting and playing with all different sorts of misfit toys.  And this is just the beginning’ we are but the first wave of VIS miscreants to hit East Wind and start raising Cain.  I can’t wait!

So January 3 is coming to a close and we are happy that 1) Sara did not break her foot when she saw her own blood and fainted and 2) That we are currently leading the Brighter Planet poll by 166 to 45.

In case you tuned in late, Brighter Planet will give us $5000 if we out poll 6 other projects between now and Jan 15th. Please vote for us early (like now) and often (up to 3 times), Go to TinyURL.com/voteVIS

Brighter Planet: Vote, vote vote!

I’ve never wanted to be a politician, the idea sort of makes me shiver, but today I will campaign for your votes.  VIS recently submitted a grant application and project description to the Brighter Planet website.  Brighter Planet is an online foundation of sorts that allows different grassroots, carbon fighting projects to submit brief descriptions and then let’s the public decide which project will win a grant of upto $5,000.  And this happens every month. People can already vote for VIS at www.brighterplanet.com.  You do need to take a whole minute to create a quick account, but otherwise it’s simple and hassle free.  And then you can vote three times by Jan 15th.  At the end of the second full day of voting we are leading 109 to 24 and typically these online elections gather about 5000 votes, so we definitely need your help.

We’ve got some tough competition: a project of Al Gore’s has been submitted opposite of us and we can be certain that he will use his full marketing muscle to win.  But while Mr. Gore might have money to throw at marketing and networking, we’ve got a ton of friends and allies of the project, who have friends of their own.  This is the thing of viral facebook statuses, quick gchats to encourage all of our friends and networks to take three minutes to vote for a real, radical project that wants to wrest the power of renewable energy from the hands of politicians by taking up hammers and doing it ourselves.
So as oft as you can over the next month, please help us promote VIS and our bid for the Brighter Planet January project winner!

East Wind Update

We traveled 1,000 miles crashing along I-64 most of the way: reading The Phantom Tollbooth, staying with extended family and laughing a lot.  We were going out on our first visit to the community since they agreed to host Villages in the Sky 2010 and we knew that it was going to be critical.  When we got to East Wind Community things were shaky: the community was dealing with FDA inspectors and long time members struggling with cancer.  But still people were eager to talk to us, to ask questions, voice their concerns about the project they were donating 40 acres of their land and other community resources to and, overall, to reassure us of their support and enthusiasm for Villages in the Sky.  We held a couple different meetings to talk about what we wanted to do with the festival, how we wanted the festival to interact with the community and to hear how the community wanted to interact with us.  Questions of resource sharing and guest worker hosting were raised and the community, while maintaining an overall generosity, made clear its boundaries.  In addition to finding some clarity around the relationship between VIS and East Wind, we met steam power experts interested in powering our build up camp, self-appointed protectors of the trees and many eager members ready to get involved!

They Might be Architects
Turns out we are not the only ones interested in pirate ships for kids and tree houses.  Paxus went to visit Al Ross who is the  senior associate at the architectural firm Flansburgh Associates.  At Al’s home there was an impressive small pirate ship which he had designed and built in the back yard as well as a respectable tree house (digital pictures coming soon).  Al and his firm are willing to assist VIS in the development of a master plan for the tree house village and supporting structures.

The plan is for Al Ross and David Croteau (who is the president of the company) to come to Missouri around Feb 22 thru 24 and do a site walk thru and review our survey of the magic meadow area (which will hopefully be completed by then) as well as a document on our goals for the project.  With these inputs in hand they will create a draft master plan which shows where tree houses and other structures can be (both in year one and year two) given what we want the functions of the festival to be.