A Day in the Life at Lost Valley Educational Center
photo © Gilles Mingasson
Without leaving my futon, I switch on the DC-to-AC adapter which hooks my laptop computer to my photovoltaic system. I lie on my stomach and swivel my computer so it's facing me. I'm finally ready to email a friend whose message yesterday afternoon provoked strong responses in me. I almost answered her immediately, but decided to wait, partly because once I started writing, my message might have become quite long. Now, however, I'm too preoccupied by all the things I want to do today to answer fully. So I suggest we talk in person, hopefully later this week.
Living and working in an intentional community presents an ongoing opportunity to practice balancing personal needs with work-related needs and with the needs of the larger group. I've learned that in most cases, by making conscious choices, I can find ways to meet all three to my satisfaction--perhaps not instantly, but relatively rapidly and painlessly. In fact, a little appreciation of delayed gratification seems to go a long way in helping create a culture based on "living in the Now" rather than "wanting it all Now!"
One nonnegotiable personal daily need is for exercise. I dress, step outside into the crisp morning air, and climb onto my bicycle. My customary early-morning ride takes me past the meadow, across Anthony Creek, past our main garden and young nut orchard, and up the gravel road which defines the far edge of our 87-acre property. I lift my bike over a gate and climb the gentle slope paralleling the creek for a while until I reach a dozen old-growth trees spread out over a quarter-mile stretch. I visit the largest of these trees almost every day. Along this road I've also encountered cougar, bear, fox, elk, countless deer and rabbit, as well as owls and numerous other birds.
After riding back and stopping by my yurt to pick up a few items, I cycle up to the main lodge and kitchen for breakfast. Oatmeal with frozen blueberries is my current favorite. We generally fend for ourselves at breakfast time, eating weekday lunches and dinners together (each taking turns cooking and/or cleaning, generally in teams of two or three). Today, we have a visiting conference group, which means a special breakfast has been prepared, and I am able to get some leftover oatmeal before it finds its way into the refrigerator or chicken-food bucket.
I cycle on down to the office of Talking Leaves. I'm the editor of this journal (subtitled A Journal of Our Evolving Ecological Culture), which Lost Valley publishes roughly three times a year. My mission is to choose from among 200 low-resolution photo images sent by a photographer from the French edition of Rolling Stone. He and his journalist colleague visited us in October for an article in their December 2003 issue. The article is a mixed bag of understanding and appreciation of the choices we've made to live communally, along with some exaggeration, stereotyping, and just plain inaccuracy, much of it comical. In addition to marrying off one of our members to the community's founder, the author described us as a "free love" commune, characterizing another member as engaging in polyamory "furiously." ("Yeah, I wish," was her response.)
Despite the French reporter's impression, we are not what most would call a "free love" community. Monogamy, celibacy, and polyamory are all accepted and practiced here. While physical affection is expressed openly, privacy is also highly valued in intimate relationships. Nevertheless, we do share love "freely" in a more spiritual sense, as we value openness, honesty, sharing, connection, and the loving energy that arises as a result. Perhaps the reporter confused this love and emotional intimacy with sexual intimacy.
I select 30 or so images and request higher-resolution versions by email. Then I switch into my other job--coordinating our organic gardens. We grow a significant portion of our own vegetables, supplying large amounts of our salad and cooking greens, garlic, squash, and other crops that grow especially well here.
I meet our two garden interns in the main garden across the creek. Tangela arrived a week ago, and Sam arrived just yesterday. I feel very good about both, although we're still just getting to know one another. Interns come to help the community with various areas of our work, usually on a work-exchange basis, with previous experience and a willingness to take on some degree of responsibility as prerequisites. People wanting to learn in a more formal "student" role apply for our apprenticeships, which involve fees.
While still in their early twenties, both garden interns strike me as emotionally mature and empowered. Tangela seems as if she has already taken all the personal growth workshops we offer (though she's taken none yet), as she's fluent in the communication skills and self-awareness that help define the community's interpersonal atmosphere. Sam also seems fluent in communication skills and emotional self-awareness. Tangela has spent much of her life helping the ill and alter-abled, and perhaps as a result, generally embraces diversity in lifestyle choices. She has what I experience as a "soft" energy. Sam has put more of his focus into a harder-edged kind of activism than Tangela has. A strong disbeliever in the petroleum-fueled economy, he has stayed out of private vehicles for the past four months, choosing only to walk, bicycle, or use public transportation.
One of our conversations this morning involves the politics of lifestyle. As we weed around our over-wintered garlic and kale, prepare some areas for peas, appreciate the pleasant spring weather, and listen to the birds, I mention how, after boycotting computers until I was 30, I've grown to appreciate what amazing tools they are. Sam says that no amount of small-scale positive impact they might have could possibly offset all the damage done by their manufacture. He believes our civilization needs to crumble and we need to start over from scratch.
I used to see things the same way, I tell him, but something has changed for me; I'm not sure that life on the planet, let alone the human race, could recover easily from the kind of apocalyptic process he recommends. I no longer see things in such black and white terms. Tangela lends her perspective, especially when the discussion turns to the appropriate or inappropriate use of cars. (Sam has stated that no one, no matter what his or her economic circumstance, truly "doesn't have a choice" whether or not to use a car.)
The discussion goes in several additional directions, with us weeding all the while. Increasingly, we discuss the conversation itself-what we've each felt during various parts of it, what we've heard one another say, and what that has brought up in each of us. This self-reflection and emotional openness, in fact, has been happening throughout most of the conversation--which is what distinguishes this kind of discussion from a political debate in which each person is anxious to be "right." Sam reports that the adrenaline-rush he was experiencing earlier has subsided; we are all hearing one another better now, respecting divergent viewpoints, and finding that we agree on many fundamental things.
The first lunch bell rings and we wrap up work for the morning. We walk to the main lodge and join the approximately 20 community members and interns and 45 mostly teenage conference participants for lunch. Since this particular conference group has requested a menu heavy on refined starch and cheese, some of us have prepared leftovers of a more whole-foods variety. In both cases the food is organic, but for many of us, "organic" is only a start. There's a fairly high consciousness about food here, and we accommodate a variety of different approaches, from meat-eating (prepared by those who eat it in a separate kitchen) to vegan and raw-food diets.
Many of us Lost Valley members eat on an outside porch, both to enjoy the sunshine and to get away from the hubbub inside. Sam talks to some friends about the morning's garden discussion--how he'd been able to work through his reactivity at hearing two people older than him offering a "mellower" viewpoint, how he'd been able to hear past the phrase "I used to be that way, too," and understand what we were actually saying. He appreciates that Tangela and I are both sympathetic toward his point of view and his feelings, but have both made just slightly different choices.
I am on lunch cleanup today--a process facilitated by some '60s folk music on the kitchen stereo. It's a lengthy shift, due to the conference group, but it goes smoothly. After the shift, I cycle back to the office to quickly check the mail, then to my yurt to check email.
Then I'm back in the garden for the rest of the afternoon. Tangela, Sam, and I continue our work on the garden beds, and also wheelbarrow the greens we've cut and the weeds we've pulled into the compost area, ready to be layered next week into a full-fledged compost pile. We talk some, sing some, listen to birds some, and before we know it, the afternoon is gone. Before dinner, I take a walk through our 45-acre new forest--up along the creek, then following the paths weaving up and down near our top boundary, then back down past the basketball court and the pond.
At dinner, I sit outside at a picnic table with two of the coordinators of the visiting conference and one community member. I find out a little more about the visitors, and we trade stories of what the winter weather has been like in Idaho and here in Oregon. I have met one coordinator from the conference group many times before, and he (like most of the group) seems to sincerely appreciate the kind of environment we make available for the teen personal-growth workshop he helps facilitate. They also like the food this week (better than we do, but we don't say that).
My two meal cleanup shifts for the week are both on Tuesday, to reduce potential schedule conflicts on other days. My second clean- up of the day is not the easiest, since it's a large dinner and the two of us on this regular shift are expecting a third person to come, but he never arrives. Several people come late to take out food we've already put away. Then the wife of the "missing helper" arrives in the kitchen. "Are you here to help?" I ask hopefully. "No, I'm here to eat--and could you turn the stereo down while I'm getting food? It's too loud for me."
As someone who often prefers music softer, I understand her request, but I'd feel a lot better about granting it if she were here to help clean dishes rather than to inadvertently undo some of the cleanup we've just done. I turn down the stereo and do my best to communicate my mixture of surprise, disappointment, and reluctant amusement. We talk about it a little more, but I still feel this way--largely because cleanup is still not finished, and so I'll be late to our community meeting this evening. (Tomorrow, we will discuss this incident more, clear the residual "hurt" associated with it--which, even on this very minor scale, seems worth dealing with--and feel able to laugh about it. It will turn out that the "missing helper" aspect was a misunderstanding--he hadn't volunteered to be on this shift after all.)
I arrive late at our Community Purpose Circle, which we hold every two weeks to discuss and decide community business matters. I've missed announcements and committee reports, but am present for appreciations and the main agenda items. Someone appreciates my work on the magazine--which helps dispel some of my kitchen-cleanup/lateness angst. We agree to support a new conference center plan, in which we'll facilitate more individuals, groups, and events that we are excited about inviting. This is in contrast to what we have sometimes done in the past--hosting random conference guests with whom we may feel significantly less connection. Already, our main personal growth workshop, Naka-Ima, has provided a model for how events we put on can reinforce the sense of connection we feel as a community. Now, we are excited about expanding that spirit further into other areas and increasing our own opportunities for on-site education and growth. The Ecovillage and Permaculture Certificate Program planned for this summer is one model for the kinds of programs we would like to foster, and will bring many outside speakers to share their knowledge and life experiences with us.
After the meeting, I return to my yurt. I check my email again, and am happy to find that my friend and I can meet on Friday.
I contemplate writing this article about "a day in the life" at Lost Valley. There is no absolutely typical day here. There are just unique days, like today, one after the other. I don't know what each one will bring, but they are inevitably full. I live and work in a beautiful natural environment, interact closely with many people, and also have time for self-reflection and self-expression. The mix of these aspects of my life varies continuously.
For now, I am content to shut down my computer, curl up in bed, and read before I go to sleep. After turning off the light I drift off to the sound of western screech owls hooting in the distance.
Chris Roth has lived, gardened, and edited Talking Leaves at Lost Valley since 1997. [email protected]; www.lostvalley.org; www.talkingleaves.org
© Copyright Fellowship for Intentional Community
Originally published as "In Deep Forest and Meadow" in Communities, Summer 2004. Reprinted by permission.
Sample copies $6, subscriptions $20, from fic.ic.org/cmag .