Hello all.
I thought I would just write a quick note about what my wife and I got up to last weekend, since I think it is vaguely related to Druidry (at least it is in my mind!). We’ve been thinking about where we live and how we live and decided to do some investigations into living in a community. We are a long way from committed to the idea yet, but we want to live outside London, in the countryside and in as close a communiuon with the land as possible. So… we spent a weekend here:
…the community has been running for 30 years, is the closest to being self sustaining of any community in the UK. They grow all their own vegetables, keep chickens, pigs and cows for meat, milk, cheese and eggs. They have arable land for growing wheat to make their own bread. Everyone works on the land to provide food for 60 people. Meals are eaten communally.
For me, working on the farm – milking cows, tilling the fields and bringing in the harvest is a very attractive proposition. Having to work in close harmony with nature to provide food for the table, and knowing the provenance of everything is a very appealing prospect. The countryside around the house is amazing – it’s a 5 minute stroll to Flatford Mill – where Constable painted “The Hay Wain”.
I’m not really sure why I’m posting this here. I guess I was just enthused by our short stay and looking forward to the next visit. All the talk about struggling to find somewhere for our rituals is quite frustrating when you consider some people can just walk outside their front door and there they are! Hopefully we’ll be invited back and will be able to learn more about whether the life would be suitable for us.
Does anyone have any experience of community living? We are taking our first faltering steps and any advice or opinions would be gratefully received!
- Andrew.
My only experience of community living was as a kibbutz volunteer many years back, (so long ago it was before the intifada), but they had grown beyond the original idea and tend to have some industry as well as the growing of oranges etc. Also you don’t tend to feel a strongly connected part of that community as a volunteer, you are there to provide cheap labour in return for time spent in sunnier climes. I think the decision to live in a community is a brave one. I think I am too entrenched in an urban mentality to live that way permanently but it is something admirable.
I get immensely frustrated by the whole business of where to have rituals – I think more rural druids have it much easier in that respect!
Comment by Lorraine — 16/3/2005 @ 9:33 pm
It looks a lovely place – and if you’re handy at and enjoy those kinds of outdoor and agricultural jobs it’s a wonderful idea. I wonder what the balance is between privacy/collectivity, or if each participant has the option to make the choice for themselves? Also, is there anyone ‘in charge’ as it were? I think that’s the kind of thing I’d find hardest, but it so depends on how sociable and adaptable you are! I sometimes feel abashed, as an aspirant druid, of my lack of knowledge of basic rural/agricultural tasks and spoilt-by-proximity-to-Sainsburys urban weediness. Myself I have not the foggiest of how to milk a cow, recognize an edible fungus, skin a rabbit, spin wool etc etc and I agree with you Andrew that learning to do those REAL things is a very attractive prospect. I remember being on holiday once in a very cold cottage where there was no heating other than a wood fire. Gathering fallen wood from a nearby forest, making the fire, keeping it going,(which I can about manage) was such a fundamental, satisfying thing, it was one of the most enjoyable things about the whole holiday. Let us know if you decide to go ahead Andrew!
Comment by francesca — 20/3/2005 @ 9:15 pm
Of course only having paid one brief visit for a single weekend so far, I can’t profess to be an expert on life at Old Hall, but it seemed that the balance between privacy and collectivity was about right. Everyone eats together (the bell in the tower is rung for meal times!) but there is a real sense of private space – essentially everyone lives in private flats or “units” that they are free to retreat to whenever they choose. I think the only aspect of collectivity that gave us pause for thought was that bathrooms and showers are shared, although most units have a wash basin in them and one had a roll top bath! As for there being someone “in charge” I got the impression that the system was built to prevent this. Decisions are made at a weekly meeting and everything is arrived at by concensus – which means 40 adults have to agree on something before it happens! This sounds quite tortuous and they said that it did have a tendency to favour the staus-quo, but that “concensus” did not have to mean “uniform acceptance” ie. on most topics if someone disagreed but could see that the majority were in favour of something that they could go along with the group decision on the basis that the vast majority favoured it. Apparently the only issue on which someone imposed a “veto” was on the question of whether the community should buy a gun to keep the rabbits off the crops! In practise any single individual can withold their agreement in this fashion on any topic, so it is quite remarkable and a testament to the people there that a concensus is reached 99 times out of a 100. We’re due to visit again in May and might spend a week there during the Summer. So far we’re open minded. I find the notion of stepping out into the fields to perform a ceremony of thanks after a meal consisting of bread made from wheat I had grown and soup from the vegetables I had tended a very seductive one! Community living and organic farming aside – after the struggles we have to find suitable ritual sites in London – just being able to step out into the fields exerts a pull I am finding hard to resist.
After a conversation with Hilde on Sunday, here’s another link that is interesting… it details all the communities in the UK, urban as well as rural:
http://www.diggersanddreamers.org.uk
Comment by Andrew — 21/3/2005 @ 10:58 pm
Alex and I have a pipe dream. We would like to build a community with our ‘extended family’ of close friends. We would make quite a luxurious and urbanised kind of community. We’d like to purpose build it, where there would be a covered atrium in the middle, with a huge kitchen and living room and other community rooms on the ground floor. And then each couple/family would have their own space to sub-divide into rooms any way they like. Every unit would have a bathroom as well (just like Andrew we’re not too keen on sharing that part of our lives). It would have to be in or very near an urban area, so that we wouldn’t have to make all our own entertainment and could escape whenever we felt the need. And although the house would have to be built to high environmental standards, we would not try to be self-sufficient in any way!
We floated this idea in our group of friends years ago, and people still bring it up now and again. There is clearly some appetite for living in a community, but I don’t think anyone takes it seriously, really. Yet I find myself wondering, what if…? It would be a great place for Alex’s parents to spend their old age (they are both in their 70s), and for children to grow up in. I think I will have another go at getting the conversation going. You never know…
Comment by hilde — 22/3/2005 @ 9:43 pm
Yeah, I think somewhere in the back of our heads everyone has that kind of dream. I am still a bit torn – while I sometimes wish I could do that, on the other hand I need lots of privacy, and cannot stand people being too close. So while I would like to live in a community, I am afraid I would spoil it, and then be terribly disappointed – which is why I never tried….
Comment by Petra — 30/3/2005 @ 4:19 pm
I don’t think I could do it either because I like my space too. I don’t know anyone who has ever done it, as far as living goes, the nearest I ever got to it was in one job I did where everyone was supposed to be equal and to have equal clout in making decisions, but it didn’t work well at all because of peoples’ different personalities – some were naturally more dominant and took charge all the time, steam-rollering the quieter more passive types and getting their own way. I guess it would work rather better in a larger group (we were only four) where there would naturally be more exchange and debate!
Comment by francesca — 31/3/2005 @ 10:17 pm
How do they deal with the meat issue?
Anna
Comment by anna — 13/4/2005 @ 11:46 am
They keep pigs, sheep and cows. I think the pigs and sheep are regularly slaughtered in as humane a way as possible, and the meat eaters within the community eat them. It is not a vegetarian community, but of course the vegetarians don’t need to have anything to do with the rearing of livestock. An interesting perspective on all this… the community’s expert cheesemaker and chief cow carer is totally allergic to dairy! It’s the craft aspect of cheesemaking that she enjoys. I think this gives an interesting insight into the way the place functions – it’s all about putting the needs of the tribe above your own.
Comment by Andrew — 13/4/2005 @ 6:51 pm
And I just remembered something else about this… quite a few people who arrived at Old Hall as vegetarians are now meat eaters since they know exactly where it comes from and that the livestock have been looked after. I thought this was quite surprising!
Comment by Andrew — 21/4/2005 @ 10:09 pm