spiffy: Would you join a cancer-killing community?

First, some ground rules.  My thread my game.  That's why we're in the cider press.

This thread is for discussion about the idea of transplanting your life to a Wheaton-Labs-esque place in pursuit of healing from big illness by means of amazing, clean food and gardening, clean living environments, and community.  
This is not a thread to discuss specific treatments or practitioners, to share your treatment story, or to prove or disprove the validity of the concept in general.  


I hear every few months about somebody setting up a hub, center, or community pointed at this goal.  
There is a lot written about this way of thinking elsewhere - I made this post a wiki so we can add links to some of that stuff if they came up.

Folks are known to move adjacent to Sepp Holzer's farm to treat major illness with superior food and clean environment.  
That's something like what we are trying to build here at our place in Kansas, though we are a number of years off from beginning to actualize that plan.

It seems to me that there must be thousands of folks interested in spending a season or a lifetime in this sort of context.  

Would you come?  What would you need to make the shift?

if I were thirty years younger, I would seriously consider such a thing. I researched intentional communities at the time, as well as I could, but never jumped...and then life happened and I was tied to others.

Christopher Weeks wrote:if I were thirty years younger, I would seriously consider such a thing. I researched intentional communities at the time, as well as I could, but never jumped...and then life happened and I was tied to others.

I think "then life happened and I was tied to others" is probably a biggie, although I can see moving somewhere like this with a young family being a great thing for all.

Beau, this broad motivation is precisely mine for spending a month this summer at Wheaton Labs. I'm SO EXCITED that Boots will contribute time, effort, energy to the project of building a dog run with my partner Jessie and me, because that makes this a communal project. Communal projects bond us into community. Jessie and I have spent the past four years questing for our forever community. We haven't yet found the geographic locale for our forever home, but our work with other farmers and gardeners has created a web of mutual concern within which we move.

My aim when considering where to sink roots is along the lines of finding and growing a community devoted to holistic nurturance. I look as much to the quality of the social network, as to material and tangible benefits. There must exist a fundamental devotion to spiritual harmony with all resonant beings, as much as to material harmony with the natural world. If not, a lot of underhanded undermining erodes the social fabric that unites us for common purposes.

That spiritual harmony will be effectuated differently in different communities, but it always must be grounded in respect for individuals. It helps if we are glad to give and to receive, to be there, to do our share, because then we are more able to create and sustain equality and shared purpose.

This is such a great question and I spent the good part of the last twenty years figuring out my answer.  Turns out it came down to privacy, autonomy, dogs and nudity for me.

Back in rural Oregon, originally, I was very curious about and interested in community living even though I also loved having my own land.  Then an intentional community moved in right next to me.  The people who run it are still dear friends.  We adore them, have met so many wonderful people in the process of knowing them, and I value their community mission - I even fully aligned with it.  But in the process of living next door to an intentional community, I learned that I have an extremely high need for privacy, like having my own animals and being the sole one who chooses their method of care, I want to be in charge of all gardening decisions, I don't like to have to wear clothes all the time, and I absolutely hate to be surprised.  

Those needs of mine finally made me recognize that what I want out of community living is the perceived unity of purpose, but I wouldn't be able to handle all the interaction, give up control, work together with anyone other than my husband (and that's hard enough sometimes), and I NEED privacy.

Now my husband and I live in this unusual rural area in the SE Arizona.  It's about 2.5-3 hours in any direction from the nearest cities.  This distance and isolation has had an interesting effect.  Over the years, this town has spontaneously organized it's own support system and entertainment.

The town (under 500 people spread over about a 30 mile diameter) has two email groups for informing people of community events, another email group for sharing and bartering goods and services, a volunteer fire department, a post office and internet available.  People start all sorts of groups here from clubs (hiking, tennis, writing, gardening, crafting clubs) to talent shows and dances, to the volunteer fire department. Decent small bands come out and play regularly.  Someone started an Azure Standard drop out here years ago (which was so great - saved me from doing it myself).  And people get together in all sorts of friend groups.  If we wanted to hang out with friends every week, we could easily do that (but nooooooo)... many people here have bigger social lives than I would ever have imagined.  This is all an effect of the isolation that was once much more so here (both pre-internet, plus cell service only came here about 7 years ago.  Internet was first.).

So I ended up finding a community in a non-intentional community.  It's not a permaculture community, but I have some permaculture friends out here and we are each working on our own projects while cheering each other on and sometimes helping one another.  We also have five sets of friends here who are building (or finished building) their homes.  We've helped on some of their builds, they've helped on ours.  We've helped with off-grid builds, a modified earthship, putting up a yurt, and others have helped with our alternative build-in-progress, too.

I know this is special.  I know this doesn't exist everywhere - it certainly didn't back in my home community in rural Oregon.  I do wonder if there is a renaissance going on country wide, though, as least among the work-from-home set.  I still subscribe to Communities Magazine and look forward to reading the articles out loud to my husband each time it arrives.  And I hope more people who are right for community will continue to build and design intentional communities with shared purposes, love and support, awesomely clear governance setups, building wonderful things together.  It turned out it's not for me in the intentional community sense, but it works in the un-intentional one.

Beau, directions and a list of what to bring with me!!  Ready at any time!

Peace

In a cancer situation I would not wish to join an intentional community, and here's why: I would not want to be separated from my family during such a stressful time. I can do the same things at home with the good food, clean living, etc, and then I could see my family every day. If I had no family, then absolutely I would want to go to an intentional community.