Living Near an Intentional Community

Paco Dennis said:
The group that formed this community started in 1975. The founder had been teaching Integral Yoga in Columbia and had quite a few ( 20 ) people that wanted to live a simple lifestyle, somewhere in the country. They applied with the State and were granted a "Church" status. It has bylaws and the whole shootin' match. Paraphrased it's objective as stated is something like " Formed to study and practice Vedantan/Buddhist philosophy/psychology, and an educational institution for horticulture, economics, forestry, construction and repair of property, and the spiritual history of mankind". It remains an income sharing community, and we have a handful of personal possessions ( I have a guitar ). Our Dentist has been on the Board of Directors for 30 years and provided the monks with free dental care. The Chair of the whole Psychology Dept. at MU also has been a Board member for about as long. One of our long term projects was to refurbish computers and give them to poor people. We had meetings with inmates at two prisons nearby and shared info about meditation and eastern philosophy/psychology. The same with bi-monthly meetings at the Columbia Library that was free and open to the public. We invited the public to Spring water balloon festivals, and many potluck gatherings.
As with everything in life some people loved what we were/are and others....not so much. :)
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If you don't mind a question about the community you live in, do you each have your own house or do you live in one big house together with individual rooms?
 

The housing of the community members has varied over the years, but each person has had their own room.. There have been females in the community also. When we had the old house in the forest, there were 2 bedrooms. After we converted the old tavern building there are 4 bedrooms. One of our agreements here was to not particpate in "we" spaces. Like me and so in so think this way, we express our own thoughts, ideas, and feelings. We don't have physical "intimacy" here. We consider each other as spiritual friends.
 

That is interesting. So you prepare and eat meals together daily? It sounds like a nice peaceful life.

I used to go with a friend to a monastery to buy sheep. They were all women and it was Catholic. We loved going there and they would invite us to eat with them. Each nun would be responsible for a certain type of animal, sheep, goats, chicken, cows, etc. They were vegetarians but ate eggs and milk too. It was beautiful place and not far from where I live.
 
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