Our Big Idea
Let’s design communities with flourishing for all as our primary metric.
We are what we measure. We’re excited to re-examine everything about our built environments—keeping what serves us & reimagining what hasn’t.
Since we can only heal things by wholing them, we want to reimagine & build one whole community at a time.
What would it look like to go all out in healing our communities?
Not just put some bandaids on them, but really come together & dream up the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.
A Disconnected Machine World
trauma = disconnected = separation
A Connected Living World
healing = flourishing = peace = connected = whole
“Perhaps, the deepest truth is not what we see, but what we can imagine.”
— Glennon Doyle
What does a Healing Community look like?
It’s alive & whole
It has its own unique, authentic identity.
It is self-determining & adaptive.
It cultivates life & loving connection in itself & with those around it.
Healing Communities ask questions like:
What do the people & ecosystem here need to flourish?
How can we design circular systems that get the entire job done (without waste)?
Would I be willing to step into the life of any person here despite their race, gender, sexual orientation, financial wealth, age, religion, etc.?
Can everyone play? Does everyone have the time, energy, resources, & emotional safety to be able to play at times & enjoy life authentically?
How can we do things more beautifully & more aligned with life (growing in diversity, not cancerous, etc.)?
Does everyone feel heard?
How can we build & live in a way that will make this place better in 300 years?
How can we express more of our essence in ways that meaningfully & lovingly connect with others?
How can we use the best of past wisdom & technology as well as the best research & tech available today?
Where there’s a will there’s a way
No one of us has all the answers or resources to accomplish this vision. But together, we have everything we need—plenty of resources, skills, creativity, & wisdom. If we all give a little, we can take down giants & co-create something new.
It’s like a big, ongoing Kickstarter!
Choose an amount to give monthly:
“If everyone demanded peace instead of another *television set, then there’d be peace.”
— John Lennon
* or Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO subscription
Where does the money go?
1. Build a virtual community
We’ll gather like-minded people through Dinner Clubs & social media. This dispersed community will crowdfund but also crowdsource ideas, land, talents, dreams…whatever feels right to contribute. Dinner Clubs will mostly be hosted by volunteers but a small staff is needed to run point & social media.
2. Build prototype communities
So far we know of three tracts of land that could become Healing Communities: 1000 acres already zoned to be a full city, another 1000 acres & 400 acres would be a more rural network of villages. These pieces of land just need the capital for development.
3. Share what we learn
One reason we’re a nonprofit is so we can openly share what we’re learning. Best practices & advancements in place-based healing should not be proprietary knowledge. We’re all in this healing work together & the more people & places that jump in the better! We’ll learn & heal the most if we all work together. Some funding is needed to document & share our knowledge well.
4. Iterate & multiply
As the first communities get on their feet & become self-sustaining, we’d love to keep going, always with a perpetual-beta mindset. Should the climate keep changing at the rates predicted, lots of current communities (especially coastal) will become uninhabitable & we’ll need to build a lot of new communities. We’d love to help fund more places that are built for flourishing for all.
Ok, now…get ready for the twist…
One key part of all of this working might sound kinda (or really) weird…
Just hear us out before you make up your mind…
Part of making this work means starting a religion.
It’s so we can have healthy free & affordable housing that gets through current zoning.
Start a religion? Really?
A lot of us bring a lot of baggage to the word religion. But as Fr. Richard Rohr points out:
Religion comes from the words re & ligio, which means to re-ligament or re-connect.
If we can embrace that meaning, why not make a new religion/container that is simply about reconnection & flourishing?
And, funny enough, we may be able to get further legally with ecologically- & socially-minded building practices under the banner of religious freedom.
So…monasteries
It sounds pretty out there, we know. But monasteries are the best solution we can come up with for the low/no income housing part of a community. Right now, it’s basically illegal in most places to build anything that’s not status quo in all the normal, problematic ways. We’ve got to get creative to incubate new systems of wholeness & connection within current zoning & codes.
Tested across time, cultures, & geographies, monasteries have proven themselves to be durable organisms. Residents of a monastery can live well without having money. In our case, residents could receive free housing, health insurance, childcare, & some wages, in exchange for 20-40 hours of contribution per week to the community.
In order to be a monastery, residents just have to take “a religious vow.” Ours can be simple & inclusive like:
“While I am here, I will prioritize the flourishing of myself, my community, & the natural world.”
No robes, lifetime commitment, celibacy, or kool-aid required.
