Hello to all, I found this discussion very interesting and nourishing. I am from France and I had to look where the
Appalachian are:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_Mountains I did not sleep all night searching for
Permaculture communities around the world, but I am happy to engage in the discussion with you here, waiting for the Sun to rise again...
I have also deep rooted
the idea and the wish to share life and project with like-minded people, and it is already a long journey to arrive to the step of sharing for free, just for the pleasure to be, and it might only be just the beginning. Nature, wild life, the elements, the connection between the ground (soil), the plants we grow (seeds) and the food we eat and share (soul), are great for contemplation and fulfilment, and an endless learning, but sharing good life with others, being truly understood and cared for, being able to interact simply and directly, make the "dream" even better and more enjoyable, it is like
the joy of being together, being more than one, or reaching the oneness in the many... I wish you Greta and all listeners and other practitioners the best in life,
Peace, Love and good food 
My understanding of communities is not too much of
goals (everybody need to be sufficient in one way or another, eat, drink and sleep), nor
practices (we are all the fruit of the environment we living in and taking care of the sea we swimming in is essential, preserving the branch we are sitting on, and the resources that sustain us in a daily basis is a priority for everybody, for now and the future generations too), but the
land is important because it enables to settle and grow one's
roots (it is not a question of who owns the land but rather if one can invest, create and participate and make flourish this land). The
people are also important because it gives to one individual the extra dimension of humanity. I understand many are looking for the right place to be, and a few are willing to host some other, and there is kind of a bridge missing, and
this bridge is to be happy together, to love one another. There is a lot of mistrust, uncertainty and fears that are "embedded" in our so called modern society, and most are still blinded by the false light of modernism and its compelling competition, that we don't even see no more the beauty of our environment and the preciousness of our fellow people. I practice
Buddhism, and I learn through the lecture of the Dharma, that there are more in life than working all week to hold a fake suit that doesn't even fit, that the peacefulness of the mind, its clarity in the present and the understanding or the wisdom it provides, are much more of goal than being alike the "idol" on TV that we know better than our own neighbour.
This bridge is the compassion for ourselves and the other living beings, the other ourself we can see with our eyes and our heart, that are not so different, just maybe with another vehicle, at another position, in another situation, but basically the same conscious living being trying to survive and experiment love in a great conscious living world.
People are kept in loneliness and stress, in ignorance and rage, from childhood to the grave, for the purpose of an unreachable and imaginary progress, and for the benefit of some unknown privileged, and it is not easy to open our eyes, to refuse the consent, to pass the distress and to replace the conditioning with new and more reliable passions, it takes lots of time and courage, then people need to know themselves and learn how to communicate and find those others that they can communicate with, and these are not easy tasks, when everything is made for compliance, distractions and illusionary urgent manufactured goals. This is where
the bridge of light and love is required, to meet at last our humanity, then people need to relearn the good practices to be in harmony with their environment (because this was known by the past generations but was lost while going in the
city for success), and then people need to cross again the bridge to show others the way they have discovered in order to bring more people to the truth and diminish the insanity of our civilization. Because we are all connected and our own lives is dependent of other's. To do so, we have to find the way to break the loneliness that separate us, to give to the other ones what we have and what is good, nourishing the other, not only with kindness and peace, but also with some pleasure and useful things, filling the gaps that are between a possible relationship, waiting for the rare moment of openness when true and unbiased communication can occurred... We don't have to wait for the extreme to happen and react in the urgency, we can softly act in our every day life and be as transparent and as kind as we can be...
The bridge metaphor implies that there are two sides, and this is where the
transition skills are needed, like holding one end with one hand and the other with the second. The transition process works by iterations, tries and errors, and requires to be able to step back if needed, especially when something went wrong or doesn't please someone, starting small and betting on what is well known and works well allows to experiment and go further. To keep the motivation to continue forward, there must be some satisfaction along the way, shared satisfactions, maybe not always for the same reasons, but satisfaction for everybody, a yield per say in a
Permaculture way. And
this notion of satisfaction or positive relationship becomes the bridge itself, what puts people together, what keeps them together, what makes them want to be together, in
freedom and in respect, with responsibility and aware choices. Like the
bees playing together and sharing the same
honey, caring for each other,
insatiably filling the void of loneliness and misunderstanding with the golden liquid of mother earth. Regenerating the fertility of the land, and keeping the flow of the resources on site, are creating indeed real wealth, but isn't the true wealth, just the quality of the relationship and the well-being of all the participants in the ecosystem ? Working with nature is accompanied it the way it likes and prospers, and isn't it the same with people, with consciousness and moderation ? Asking what is the
gift I can offer you to be happy and in peace...
Anyway, the Sun has
rose again here and the birds are singing, I will go out in the sky, refresh the
water and give them some seeds, I wish you all well, and would be happy to get news from your project...
Blessings, Patrick from France
http://hautrive.wordpress.com
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I live in Greensboro, NC and bought a tiny house on a 2/3 acre lot 2 years ago with the intention of reducing my dependency on money and modern society. Yuhl Gibbons was my celebrity crush in the 70's but I got sidetracked into mainstream lifestyle until now (still clinging to my late 50's 
