Why?

“One can acquire everything in solitude, except character.”  Stendhal

Living in Community is a Tool for Transformation

Living in community is an opportunity for personal growth, as described by Bruce Anderson – a founder of the long lasting Sirius Community.  The transcription below starts at 5:11 in this video here.

“When we talk about sustainability we are not just talking about where we get our food from and where we get our energy from.  We’re talking about how do you create sustainable relationships.  How do you create a sustainable relationship with the world around you?  This has always been very important to us.  And part of our understanding has been that the way to really go about that is to create a lasting sustainable relationship with yourself as well.

It is part of our spiritual belief that divine nature or spiritual presence or whatever you want to name it, or whatever you want to call it, exists in all things including all of us.  It is possible to come into a deeper relationship with that spiritual presence depending on the way that you live your life, your spiritual practice, and all that.  All that can bring you into a deeper relationship with the spiritual nature of life.  From there, a lot of things work themselves out.  A lot of possibilities emerge.

I feel that one of the reasons Sirius has been able to maintain itself over these many years is because we’ve had a deep commitment and connection to the spiritual process and we work very much with that with a lot of people here and who come here.  We help each other out and we see it as a journey; that community is a spiritual path in a way.

If you think about any kind of intimate relationship there is a lot of growth and change and opportunity to expand your own ability to love unconditionally.  You multiply that by thirty and you have a lot more opportunity to do that, big time.  I think that if you approach community from a point of view of it as a spiritual path and a way to deepen your spiritual connection if can be a very powerful tool for that transformational process.

I think that is one of the reasons that it has kept me interested all these years.  I see community not just for community’s sake or not even for educational sake, but as a tool for transformation.  Certainly, it is very transformational for people to get involved in community and I also see that it has certain applications for transforming society.

When you look around society, there a lot of things that are going on that are very unsustainable and there does need to be a massive change in the way we are going about things on the planet.  Creating a community that has spiritual and sustainable values is a way of addressing some of those different needs of society as a whole.”

Why live in a more communal way?

Because studies have shown, as many of us intuitively know, but may have forgotten, that by living in a supportive community most of us will become:

  • Happier
  • Healthier
  • Better partners
  • Better parents
  • More emotionally intelligent
  • More empathetic
  • Live longer

“Every Child Deserves 100 Parents.” Bodil Gråe

If you raise children in community, they too are likely to be much happier, healthier and wiser.  They will benefit from additional adult role models, mentors, and teachers.  They are also likely to be safer, able to roam more freely, have a wider variety of friends of all ages, become more confident, cultivate more interests, master more skills, and be more likely to reach their fullest potential.

Ten benefits when raising children in community.

  1. Friendships and socialization across a range of ages.
  2. Accelerated learning for all from multiple mentors.
  3. Safe places to play with playmates living next door.
  4. Freedom to be outside without constant supervision.
  5. More fun, free-ranging, spontaneous, social, creative.
  6. Parenting is easier, more supportive and less lonely.
  7. Parents can effortlessly trade off watching the kids.
  8. Easy spontaneous child-care swaps with other parents.
  9. Easy access to child-care support from adults & teens.
  10. Skip the scheduled play dates and commutes!

Additionally:

  • If you have habits you wish to build or maintain, whether a meditation practice or a workout routine, you are likely to find support in a like-minded community.
  • If you want to reduce your ecological footprint, living in community will do that.
  • If creating deep connection and relationships matters, community is a place to do it.
  • If you don’t already know, you’ll learn to cook and eat healthy tasty food.
  • Everyone generally has more fun, more free time, and saves money.