Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand seems to attract a disproportionate number of traveling people wanting to start eco-communities. I hear it literally 2 or 3 times per week, every week. Accompanying that first "I wanna come and live here in an eco-community", there is often a fairly predictable stream of qualifying statements:
- no one understands them
- they have disowned their family
- they're completely broke and often heavily in debt
- they use a fake name
- they are a victim of everything from the government to financial extortion, the health system, rapacious ex-lovers and stalkers
- they have absolutely no idea what they want to DO in this community, beyond smoking weed, sleeping and foraging for natural abundance
- they want other people to teach, show, encourage, support and uplift them
- the community will save them.
Having had a health and natural products store in the extraordinarily busy touristy part of the 720 year old walled city (enclosed by a moat) for many years, "I wanna start a community" has been an almost everyday occurrence. To the extent where my go to response to the words ecoVillage or eco-community have, for many years, been *"FOOK NO!
And yet, here I am, planning a trip to the mountains along the Thai-Burmese border in the next 10 days, and one of the items on my agenda is scouting for a large piece of land. Because I am already well down the line on the thinking and planning to start my own eco-Village community.
What are - and have been - the 3 most important things in my planning?
Community of Purpose.
The WHY factor is everything. If you're seeking to escape Life and to have things done and created for you, you need a therapist, not a community. Cos a community will only be as strong and healthy as the sum of its contributing parts. My favourite question to throw into the "I wanna start an eco-community* chat is, "What specifically will you be CONTRIBUTING to that community?"
The Purpose of the community will automatically self-create its constituent members. Reading the many responses so far who hailed "diversity" as being so important, that diversity splinters and ruptures rapidly without the cohesion of Purpose. Because it is from the over-arching Purpose that the community can measure its decisions and determine its own future.
In my own exciting journey, our Purpose is the transfer of natural and herbal knowledge through the indigenous people. My natural products business will relocate in the 2-3 year window to a large and reasonably remote site. We will have spaces for people to live and engage in supporting our indigenous Karen interns and workers, who will also live on site. We will produce our products there, teach, invite workshops, share language skills and culture, and showcase a natural, alternative way of life through our Earthship Visitors Centre - the Earthship Artemis. My existential panic around "How will I ever manage this amorphous and growing herbal project?" has grown into an invitation for engagement, support, skillshare and yes, eco-community.
Security of Tenure
Can't tell you how many people have invited me to come and :make my project on their family's land". But investing decades into land that ultimately is "owned" by someone else - someone who may (probably) have a vastly different set of values? Just no. I'm lucky (smart) enough to have established a Thai public company limited which CAN own land outright. My evil, controlling, 61% Thai shareholder? LOL... none other than my beautiful 15 year old daughter. Sorted.
Proximity to Conventional Farmland
Do I want to be close to a pesticide-riddled conventional farm? Heck no! As pretty as this image looks, it's covered in the toxic agro-chemical Paraquat. Never heard of it? Google it. Makes glyphosate look lightweight.
My travels this next week will be specifically to do some big-picture surveying. They're planning to build a bigger road here in 5 years? Cross it off the list, cos bigger roads bring farms which (mostly) bring chemicals.
Siting is everything. It MAY (and probably does) mean I will need to pay for a second site in the small town of Mae Sariang, for pragmatic and logistical reasons. And that's fine. But the Big Picture of eco-Village requires a HUGE discussion on siting, politics, geo-politics, climate change and issues like changing rainfall patterns.
I AM EXCITED that our Community of Purpose has evolved naturally (from necessity) and will be self-funded by the business I have worked 12 years to create. Will there be free seats on the bus? LOL. I have one ex husband and one former lover who will always have a freebie cottage down the back, if ever they need or choose. I work with the dying here in Thailand, and am an advocate of natural death as a part of life. So yes, I will be building one or two small cottage-earthships so people can die naturally, peacefully and without worrying about what dying costs. But the rest? No. The people who self-select to share in this work will need to contribute, actively, the things this community needs. So that the Community, as a whole, doesn't just function but CONTRIBUTES to a new world and a new paradigm.
Blissed and Blessed on a Beautiful Tropical Thai Sunday Morning.
Ouch... it is quite a lot of work but with so much already outlined and a 12 year business built behind it, you got this!!!!
That sitting bit is quite important, I wish I had been more selective and patient before buying our land but that's what it is, we love it regardless! I like your attitude on those who are only looking to smoke and use the community for therapy... I will use that as a reminder for our tribe in New York, the mental health of the whole is very important!
Thanks for the read. We will have to start building a web of sister communities 😁
Inspiring post! You have a wonderful vision of the eco-community, @artemislives and you are not blind to how the community can be taken advantage of by a certain type of person who will not contribute but will expect to reap all the benefits.
JFK had a great saying reworded by @likedeeler to fit the post.
Yup - @likedeeler absolutely nailed it, didn't he?!
Yes! Now this IS exciting!!!! Gosh. Dare I say hurry up and buy it so we can come help out next year? I do think one needs DIVERSITY to achieve PURPOSE as every one brings different skills to the table to achieve same goal. The power of human beings eh, to CREATE something so purposeful, and your purpose is sssooo worthy and good and.. just wow. Even if its a few years off, we would LOVE to help contribute to your amaaaaaazing vision, even if is only for a few weeks one year!!! How cool would that be!!!
I've been in meetings all Sunday afternoon about our new solar dehydrator (prototype #2 needs mods) and funding (sorting the priorities so we can go public). The whole idea has grown from necessity - indigenous refugee interns, by definition, have nowhere to live. Sharing the herbal lineage, teaching them language and living skills etc is more than one person can manage, and also realistically beyond the skill set of one person. When you add in the logistic of running the business, making products, having a teaching space for public workshops etc - you ALREADY have a community. Thai families always live in extended family compounds - a loose eco-village really. The diversity for it's own sake fragments over time, but when it has the cohesion of purpose and value-based mission behind it, diversity becomes an incredible plus. Not sure my post explained that part well enough.
OF COURSE you can come and help. And contribute. x
Im just letting the deep wisdom of these words sink in... such a special post i dont yet have words or a response... god bless you artemis
So much of my thinking has been refined through discussion with YOU. Thank YOU. xxx It's a work in progress.
Dear @artemislives Lately I have read to you frequently, I feel that we have learned from you.
As for @eco-alex is much that I have investigated in recent days regarding your EatrShip project and I must say that it is wonderful.
In my country (Venezuela) any venture of this style would be considered crazy, but we are sure that is the right route for us ...
You imagine a big, spacious place (here we still have a lot of land), we almost live in a field and that wouldn't be a problem, in that big ship have daily sustenance through crops, self-sustainability and preservation projects, our own energy, but also that that big ship was flooded with children singing at all times, many children learning music while they sing, while they play and are happy in a place like this ?
Do you imagine? and that besides having the place to rehearse and live, we have a small auditorium where we can present our concerts to their parents and the general public? and that "in some way" this contributes to the maintenance of our institution? It would be simply great.
We are sure that "Papa @kantos" is already imagining all this and will do it, sooner rather than later he will do it here for us.
Lot's of magic can happen through steem!! I have an intuitive flash that if we raise some steem for @eco-alex that he will happily come to Venezuela to HELP YOU BUILD. I really love your musical work with poor children and yes, I CAN imagine a performing space. Lovely thoughts. Keep dreaming and it WILL manifest!!
yes true, 🙏 indeed
Thanks for stopping by. :)
Do not ask what your eco-community can do for you,
ask what you can do for your for your eco-community!
JFK
Yes!!!!!
Sort of applies to everything - your relationship, your family, your steem tribe.... Nice modification. It will be remembered in perpetuity when JFK is long forgotten. LOL. x
The idea of a community sounds nice in one way, but my concerns have always been similar to what you express here at the start. Also, could I be beholden to someone else? It's a question I'm not sure of the answer to. By choice, no, but if I had to then I could fit in as needed.
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So often communities - and eco-communities - are driven by an ego. Serving someone else's ego NEVER works and ALWAYS fails. But when we commit to a higher purpose, then the egos of EVERYone can be checked by that, including the founder's. I also could not, and would not, be beholden to someone else but I WOULD work with others on an agreed mission-purpose that was bigger than any-all of us.
Couldn't have put it better myself.
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What an incredible vision you have @artimeslives :) Your area is absolutely beautiful and I can just picture the village based upon your post. You have done a lot in the past 12 years, I'm sure your daughter is quite proud of you. I look forward to following your journey! Blessings my friend
haha... my daughter is 15 - mostly she rolls her eyes when she sees me coming. :) LOL... Jokes aside, she's an inspiration to me and it makes SO MUCH SENSE to work for something when you know who and what you're working for! Yes, Northern Thailand is stunning. IN fact, ALL of Thailand is stunning. :) Appreciate you stopping by.
You've got me hooked in one post.
I am really looking forward to following along to see how this journey unfolds...
I promise to post regularly about our journey - loved your 5 things post today btw. Thank you.
It is fun doing the 5 Things - focuses the mind...
oooh! Super exciting
We have a saying here, "Never a dull day in the Kingdom!" LOL and so it is. Exciting, challenging and evolving daily.
Wow, this article sounds like the seamless extension to this week's QOTW. Especially this one sentence: "Reading the many responses so far who hailed "diversity" as being so important, that diversity splinters and ruptures rapidly without the cohesion of Purpose." Although I'd probably add that without a purpose the most homogenic group would rupture and splinter rapidly.
I think you're right - everything splinters and fragments without purpose.
Exciting times! I wish you all the best in in the creation of your eco village!
It sounds like you have put much thought into this and how fortunate folks who become apart of this village will be!
I found out something new about you here and your work with dying people. You are such an interesting person and I do wish I lived closer and could be a part of your endeavors!
Thanks for sharing!