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Everything I Learned from a Year of Touring the World's Communes

Rich Thornton

http://www.vice.com

April 20, 2015

 

Meditation at dawn in the stone circle at Tamera eco-village, Portugal

When I set out to spend a year touring the world's communes I expected anarchic, possessionless wanderings. I wanted to burn my Air Maxes, quit Facebook, and forsake hygiene. I imagined dancing around a Druid pyre while downing cups of elk blood. What I found was a bureaucratic internet maze of credit card payments, application forms, and groups of middle-aged people making sure they washed at 30 degrees.

Two weeks of Intentional Communal Living

Sol Etzioni

The following report by former ICD secretary, the late Sol Etzioni, who was a member of Kibbutz Tzora, was copied from CALL No. 19.

It was a most stimulating experience to participate in the International Communal Studies Association Conference and the following International Community Meeting, held at the ZEGG commune in Eastern Germany, in the summer of 2001.

The Conference, with some 170 participants from 20 different countries, was a successful mix of academics, from many different backgrounds and fields of expertise, together with members from all the varied types of communal living. Apart from the mass of information gathered, it was most impressive to meet the great number of intelligent, thinking and feeling people, who take communal living seriously and were a pleasure to be with.

The common denominators of the communities I visited

Michael Livni

The impressions of MICHAEL LIVNI, a member of Kibbutz Lotan, garnered in the summer of 2001 from three conferences: the International Communities Studies Association, the International Community Meeting and the Global Eco-village Network (GEN). Copied from CALL No. 19.

The first common denominator - the experiential dimension for myself. I did not anticipate that I would have such a really good time at all these meetings. I can't recall ever having met so many fascinating people and ever having made so many friends all in one short month.