Alone or Together??

 Back when the earth was early in its evolution, it was made of inert materials. This was 4.5 billion years ago and the earth was just forming in our galaxy. What we know now as our planet home went through many stages before it settled into a solid globe with scattered land masses surrounded by oceans. About .8 billion years after its initial formation, the very first life appeared. In the beginning, this life was made up of mostly one-celled bacteria: tiny and simple, tentative experiments in living form. About 1 billion years ago, multi-celled algae came on the scene. These first more complex life forms began in the water but eventually moved up onto the land. And gradually there was an explosion of diverse plants and animals spreading into every crevice of our world.

Looking from the human vantage point, where a year is a long time, the billions of years before us in the evolution of our planet can be mind-boggling. So much has happened over such a very long time span. So many, many creatures have lived here and died here. We are accustomed to categorize different early living forms in strict black and white lists of particular types: mitochondria, bacteria, algae, as if they lived independently in this new world. But evidence has shown us that from the very first, one-celled beings lived in groups and interacted together for the benefit of that local community. Not only that, but different types of early life interacted within an ecosystem of different life forms, and these ecosystems tended toward balance in ways that benefited everyone. It is important today to remember that from the very beginning, working together worked better than working independently. Interaction among members of a species or members of an ecosystem meant a healthier life.

Our understanding of the members of our own species has evolved over the years. When we have troubles with our culture in the current time, it is sometimes helpful to look at our beginnings and what influenced us to become what we are today. Some things in the history of humans are still unclear, but some things are now generally accepted. For instance, for thousands of years we lived as hunter gatherers. These were fairly small groups who lived and moved around together, supporting each other in finding food and shelter. These groups were usually tied with other groups and had large gatherings of many groups occasionally. One interesting thing about humans at this part of their evolution is that the groups tended to be egalitarian. Each person had their role and no one was more important than the others. It was only when humans became more sedentary that levels of inequality appeared. And continuing down through history, if a group of humans found a place rich in food and shelter so that life became easier and more sedentary, inequality proliferated. Some people became more powerful than others and there were many levels of relative importance.

As human population expanded geographically and numerically, the cooperation and mutual respect of the hunter gatherer groups grew fainter. Resources were unequally distributed in large populations. Power and influence became more top-down. And to those of us living today, this is something we’re used to. It is hard to imagine things being different, given the huge size of countries and even cities. Cooperating communities of people is a hard concept to make real now. Also, from the time of our first settlers in this country, the drive was to become independent, to overcome the domination of European countries, to have individual freedom. So we tend to be a nation of individualists. Yet I think we also have a longing for an egalitarian community where we can belong just as we are.

The good news is that there are communities like this! I live in one. And there are many more. Creating one takes determination and persistence, but the result is well worth the time spent. Our community here at Prairie Hill is a “cohousing” community. It is just one form of intentional community, but it is working very well for us. We are tied into the whole cohousing movement and can learn from other communities. The people who choose to live here have agreed on certain principles such as valuing diversity, honoring each person, working creatively when conflict arises to bring understanding and peace, living gently on the earth with sustainable practices. We have adopted a governance structure that is not top-down and includes seeking input from everyone. We are just normal fallible human beings, but we have found a good way to live that gives us the joy of belonging and working together on all sorts of things. Here are tasks we’re working on this week: planting native flowers on our West Hill, re-building a potting shed, planting fruit and nut trees, attaching a new railing to a sidewalk, and celebrating our accomplishments each Thursday evening after working together for a couple of hours.

If you live anywhere near Iowa City, you’re invited to come to our open house this coming Saturday, May 6, from 10-12. We do this occasionally to let folks in the area have a look around in case they’ve been wondering about who and what we are. Now that we’re almost finished with our development stage, all buildings built and the last home almost sold, we’ll be settling into our domestic life with no more development meetings. It’s something we’ve been looking forward to for a long time!