Page 3 - C.A.L.L. #46 - Summer 2020

Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, USA

Sweeter Milk Equals Better Cheddar: A Dancing Rabbit Update
April 14, 2020
by Ted

Like everybody else in the world we are learning and unlearning new things here every day in
these strange times. In my 45 years I have never lived through anything that has so
thoroughly gripped the entire world at once as this COVID-19 event.

Ted here to bring you the news from Dancing Rabbit, where intentional community has taken
on a different sort of meaning over the past few weeks as social distancing, purposeful
isolation, and sanitation practices have seeped in and co-opted our daily lives.

For several weeks now I’ve had the title of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel Love in the Time

of Cholera running through my head as I contemplate the changes in daily norms we’ve all
been rapidly adjusting to. In a place where hugs are a frequent greeting between fellow
villagers, where we often share potluck meals, walks, games, and other events with each
other, and where infrastructural elements like kitchens and bathrooms are frequently
shared between unrelated people, things
really feel like they’ve been turned
upside down.

Like any community, we are a mix of

people with different circumstances
here. Some are younger, some older;
some live with background health issues,
some not; some have more exposure to
the wider community through their work,
while others can go weeks or months
without venturing further than Rutledge,
Sandhill, or Red Earth – just a few miles’ radius. Accordingly there have been varying
degrees of concern about the possible arrival of the new coronavirus in our midst, but
increasingly a sense of common cause, all of us trying to adjust our habits to care for the
most vulnerable among us.

As more information and understanding about the particulars of this pandemic have

accumulated, we’ve been refining our strategies for keeping everybody safe and healthy. For
many years we’ve staffed an Emergency Response Committee for the village. For most of
those years (aside from a chicken pox event coinciding with the arrival of a new baby more
than a decade ago) the committee’s work has been mostly theoretical, but the team rapidly
scaled up a month or more ago, meeting virtually and regularly offering guidance and
information resources for the village. We are grateful for their work!

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