These ecovillages are not all that extreme. They are people working towards cultivating a sustainable lifestyle in a healthy fashion. The question is: "Is this enough?" While some would give a "thumbs up" for effort, for these critics the effort is not good enough. More radical strategies are necessary.
One such ecovillage model is Project Tri Star.
The mission of Project Tri Star is to create off-the-grid, eco-friendly, sustainable, and conscious communities that provide a safe and harmonious lifestyle for those who choose to live their lives based on natural and universal laws. They hope to create a community model that is both revolutionary and evolutionary in the world of long-term sustainability.
The intent of the Project TriStar initiative is to create a lifestyle and an environment that supports the community goals of self-sufficiency, healthy living, mutual respect, individual responsibility, and personal growth. Their initiative is to bridge the gap between the physical world and the spiritual world in harmony with planet Earth. In essence, Project TriStar provides a realistic and attainable alternative to living in the social and economic structures that are commonly practiced throughout the world today.
The members define successful planned community in terms of people, planning, and location. They understand that people form the heart and soul of any community endeavor. This fact underlines the importance of attracting like-minded people in order to ensure a cohesive and peaceful existence for the entire community.
Their plan defines the creation of a sustainable environment where people can live comfortably and in peace and harmony through a period that could result in some of the greatest challenges to human existence in known history. The location of the Project TriStar communities will be chosen based on extensive research into the potentials and challenges surrounding these uncertain times along with a firm understanding of the balance between the risk, resources, practicality, and convenience.
In essence, the lands that they choose will be very remote. In that remoteness, they are interested in inventing a lifestyle and environment that supports self-sufficiency, mutual respect, healthy living, individual responsibility and personal growth. Ideas even include facilities for growing food underground should our air, soil, and water become too polluted for healthy agriculture.
Project TriStar is not for the faint of heart. Their intent is to live very close to Nature in remote locations. Within these locations, they desire living totally off grid. No energy, for instance, will go into generating electricity. They also support a total raw vegan lifestyle. Since animals such as dogs and cats are by nature carnivores, personal pets would not be welcomed in the villages. There would be no access to manufactured medications.
In these very disturbing times of global warming, constant warfare, high rates of extinction, and immanent collapse, according to Project TriStar's Ivan Stein, these extreme measures are needed. True community and spiritual growth would more truly meet our hungers, needs, and longings better than possessions and technology. Isolating ourselves from the evils of the dominant culture and evolving toward participation in the universal law of harmonious interdependence would protect the community better than guns and fear.
As I write this, I think of the reactions many will have: "Oh, my God! Off the grid? Without man's "best friend"? I'll have to bust my a*s to survive? I might starve to death. No meat!? Not even cooking? Oh, my God! A tree might fall on my head, or I might be eaten by a 6 foot gator. Marauding outsiders might threaten our carefully achieved community resilience."
Upon discussion, my wife and I have less extreme but, perhaps, valid reservations. Are these folks who are demanding so much of themselves and their members, simply visionaries of the true potential for human community or are they "realistic' eco-conscious survivalists? Would such a life--living in dormitory housing, eating in a cafeteria setting, devoid of interaction with pets, working for the needs and order of the community rather than following one's heart, accepting regimentation, working toward spiritual ascension--really lead us to deeper community and enriched humanity? It doesn't seem like the route we would choose into a more humane, Earth-friendly, co-creative future. We believe too much in the diversity and creativity that humans display by nature to want to go down a pre-determined straight and narrow path.
These are real concerns. Yet, if you read some of the studies on primordial cultures that were hunting and gathering types, it is reported that they work on average of 4.5 hours per day. Let me repeat that. Our ignorant and oftentimes naked savage ancestors worked an average of 4.5 hours per day. The rest of the time was spent being with their kids, telling stories, dancing, creating Gods and Goddesses while being with Nature, which many realized was the Self. This is why the term "Nature" means Essence. Essence is the Self. In Hebrew, this Nature became Yahweh, or I AM while in Hindu, He-She became Brahmin, literally meaning "the Self.
If this is true, could Project TriStar be the true beginning of the leisure society? Perhaps the new Genesis can say Adam and Eve went back to the leisurely way of being natural? Yes, our return to Nature is a return to the Self, which is OUR Nature. Our Self, which is more than the ego reading these lines, could then be recognized as THE Self!
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
2
1
