My primary identity these days has to do with visioning… and not just visioning what is possible and desireable, but what steps need to be taken to get there.
The vision which I have played with my entire life has to do with community: a place where all ages could live together to share resources and create the kind of daily life that they would like for themselves, with flexibility to continually change it, if so desired. I envision a community which values creative expression, cooperation, and kindness to others, as well as practicing good stewardship of our environment.
I am also a writer in the beginning stages of writing, “Terra Haven 2030”, a sci-fi/fantasy book about the community that I want to start, written from the vantage point of the future when it already exists. This year I’ve been studying the concept of jumping timelines. Writing this book is an effort to jump the timeline we’re on of a world grossly out of balance, environmental degradation and species becoming extinct, sometimes before we’ve even discovered them, wars being waged, billions of people enslaved in a capitalistic global economy, working most of their lives to enrich the 1% of the grossly wealthy who rule the planet.
The timeline that I want to jump to gives people freedom, and involves a spiritual shift to understanding each other better, and caring more for each other, and all life on the planet. My greatest passion is for people to evolve in consciousness, and my thinking in this regard has been strongly influenced by Teilhard de Chardin, Carl Jung, and William James.
This year I have been living at Arcosanti, an experimental community in the Arizona desert started by Paolo Soleri, an Italian architect who was also a visionary, and wanted to create an arcology, a kind of architecture that structured living spaces so that architecture and ecology were merged. However, the dream apparently died with the founder. Soleri died three years ago at age 93, and the present management has become entrenched in wielding power in a way that has divided the 60 or so residents into a kind of generational war that impedes progress.
Although many people before me had challenged this management and failed, I decided to give it my best efforts anyways, because it would help me understand the challenges of living in a community and growing it, whether I succeeded in bringing about change or not. I think that I have succeeded in lighting a spark in the hearts of some of the residents that will make it happen, but I am being expelled.
I see myself as a problem solver. Unfortunately others see me as a troublemaker. So be it. Getting kicked out of Arcosanti gives me the freedom to settle into getting some writing done. So getting invited to join in Infinite Conversations comes along at just the right time. I would like to engage with this online community of writers and readers and thinkers who are willing to pioneer exploration of the edges of human consciousness.