Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community

by Diana Leafe Christian

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Product Description

Finding community is as critical as obtaining food and shelter, since the need to belong is what makes us human. The isolation and loneliness of modern life have led many people to search for deeper connection, which has resulted in a renewed interest in intentional communities. These intentional communities or ecovillages are an appealing choice for like-minded people who seek to create a family-oriented and ecologically sustainable lifestyle-a lifestyle they are unlikely to find anywhere else.

However, the notion of an intentional community can still be a tremendous leap for some-deterred perhaps by a misguided vision of eking out a hardscrabble existence with little reward. In fact, successful ecovillages thrive because of the combined skills and resources of their members.

Finding Community presents a thorough overview of ecovillages and intentional communities and offers solid advice on how to research thoroughly, visit thoughtfully, evaluate intelligently, and join gracefully. Useful considerations include:

Important questions to ask (of members and of yourself)
Signs of a healthy (and not-so-healthy) community
Cost of joining (and staying)
Common blunders to avoid

Finding Community provides intriguing possibilities to readers who are seeking a more cooperative, sustainable, and meaningful life.

Diana Leafe Christian is the author of Creating a Life Together and editor of Communities magazine. She lives at Earthhaven Ecovillage in North Carolina.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

4 out of 5 stars

finding pine needles in a haystack, 2008-11-14
To date I've read most all of this book save the last 2 chapters. I found this book quite realistic and informative. This author knows here topic and she has helped me come to know myself in regard ever finding my own place withing an intentional community. She suggests that it is best to locate a community which has a mission statement that you can wholeheartedly believe in. For me right now, no such intentional community exists, so I have some waiting to do until my community comes into being. Yes I will be patient and wait things out. This will give me time to finish the last chapters of Finding Community and also read her other book, Building a Life Together.

All is not lost. Some friends of mine have recently been granted 37 acres of rain forest near the City of Hilo on the Big Island of Hilo for the purpose of forming a retreat center. I study and practice with these folk. It is likely that I could come to believe in their mission statement once they formalize one.

In the meanwhile I might do well to enroll myself for a two month stint/s at the Mount Madonna Retreat Center near Watsonville California. There I could observe a long standing highly successful retreat up close in its day to day operations. I love to work and serve. I sense that I could fit in there as a productive participant. Because I do not do their form of yoga my stay at Mount Madonna could not be permanent, but it could be a fruitful learning experience for me. I did spend 3 days at Mount Madonna in 2006.

My friends with the 37 acres near Hilo are Kunlun Taoists. That is the form of yoga to which I intend to dedicate this old heart of mine. I hope my review has not been too personal. I did want to bear my heart and vividly illustrate what Finding Community has done for me in my own journey toward community.

The author really got my wheels churning. Apparently some sort of outcome will eventually emerge for me. Yes I believe that I am undergoing a process of emergence, and I hope the same for all of you that bring yourselves to reading Finding Community.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars

An essential addition to school and community library Environmental Studies reference collections, 2007-10-05
Environmental issues are becoming more urgent and more prominent with each passing year. More and more members of the general public are trying to live 'eco-friendly' lifestyles. For many, this includes living in eco-villages or communities of like-minded people. "Finding community: How To Join An Ecovillage Or Intentional Community by environmental activist Diana Leafe Christian is, quite literally, a 'how to' manual of instructions, case studies, anecdotes and information about life in an eco-village and becoming a member of a eco-friendly community. Of special note is a North American 'What It Costs' table coving both the United States and Canada and such issues as questions to be asked of community members and oneself, signs of a healthy (and not-so-healthy) community, the costs of joining and staying in a community, as common blunders to be avoided. Enhanced with sample community membership documents and an essay 'Can Living in Community Make a Difference in the Age of Peak Oil?', "Finding Community" should be considered a 'must read' by every environmentally conscious and conscientious man and woman in North America, as well as an essential addition to school and community library Environmental Studies reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars

The inside scoop on ecovillages, co-housing, etc., 2007-07-11
To me, Finding Community was even more useful and entertaining than Diana Leafe Christian's previous book, Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities. It is full of inside information and tips for those of us interested in the possibility of joining an intentional community. The book is also witty and highly entertaining, with lots of anecdotes from specific communities. The book explains the variety of communities on the spectrum from income-sharing communes, to ecovillages, to co-housing, to Christian communities. It de-mystifies the financial issues and also the process of applying and actually joining. Particularly valuable to me, in light of global warming and peak oil, were the forward by Richard Heinberg and the appendix on ecovillages as lifeboat communities after the oil crash.

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