a community living la vida open space

[Frank Deitle]

Tree,

Thank you for the inspiring story and wow, I'm actually about a half
an hour away from Amherst, MA right now. Is Pioneer Valley Coho still
around?

Peace,
Frank Deitle

On 5/27/06, Tree Fitzpatrick <therese.fitzpatrick at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 5/27/06, Frank Deitle <commoikos at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I'd like to hear more about the Spirited Work Community and open space
> > intentional communities in general. Ever since I discovered OST (or
> > did it discover me?) this year from the wonderful Lisa Heft, I have
> > fantasized about what a large-scale residential intentional
> > community/ecovillage/sustainable human settlement would
> be like if it
> > was visioned, organized, planned, executed, maintained, and governed
> > in Open Space. What kind of crazy, wonderful creature would that
> > become? What kind culture would emerge out of that? Are other people
> > out there thinking about this sort of thing? How do you see it
> > unfolding/coming about?
>
>  I was a steward and convenor of Spirited Work for a few years, Frank, and I
> could tell you more about it sometime but  my first response to your inquiry
> is to tell you about a co-housing community I lived in for two years in
> graduate school.
>
>  I rented an apartment in Pioneer Valley Co-Housing in Amherst,
> Massachusetts for two years.  It was a little different being a renter than
> being an owner, mostly because folks assumed (correctly) that I was not
> permanently committed to the community the way an owner was committed.
>
>  The folks at Pioneer Valley Coho deeply understood concensus.  And, in my
> humble opinion, they also deeply understood open space.  Here is why I say
> that.
>
>  When I joined the community, everyone was assigned to a work team.  There
> was a series of rotating weekly assignments and each team took a turn at
> each rotation.  I think it took about four weeks for one team to work
> through all the different assignments.  The assignments were evenly
> apportioned when I first moved in.  Everyone took a turn cleaning the main
> house, everyone took a turn mowing the law, everyone took a turn doing
> dishes, everyone took a turn doing supper, etc.  This worked pretty well but
> there was always someone grumbling about having to do a task they didn't
> really want to do.
>
>  Pioneer Valley Cohousing had an annual retreat each year.  One year, for
> their annual retreat, they conducted an experiment in what I consider open
> space but no one called it open space. Together, we made a list of all the
> chores that needed to be done for the community.  Then we gave everyone
> stickers and asked them to put a sticker on a task they would like to do.
> We just wanted to see if everything could get done if we used an open
> approach.  We wanted to experiment with what it would look like if everyone
> was free to follow what had heart and meaning for them.  Would the garden
> still get weeded?  Would the compost pile still get turned?  Would the snow
> still be plowed?
>
>  After the sticker exercise, we could see in a glance that there was someone
> willing to do every single task that the community needed to have done
> except for one.  Only two people had put stickers indicating their
> willingness to take responsibility for doing the dishes for the twice-weekly
> group suppers.  Not surprisingly, virtually no one weanted to do dishes for
> sixty or more people twice a week.
>
>  So the Pioneer Valley Coho decided to let go of rotating community chores.
> They decided that they would step back and let folks do the chores they
> wanted to do, as a one year experiment.  The only 'required' chore was that
> everyone had to agree to do the dishes once a month.  A one year experiment
> was declared.  And it was a great success.  All the chores of the whole
> community got done, including the dishes.  Although there was not a lot of
> clear passion for one person to do the dishes all the time, there was, it
> turned out, enough passion for the group suppers for everyone to be willing
> to pitch in on the dishes once a month.
>
>  And everything got done.  There were people who loved riding the lawn
> mower.  There were people who loved weeding the garden.  There were people
> who loved cleaning the shared main house.  There were people who loved
> managing the community's bookkeeping and budget.  There were people who
> liked organizing activities for the community's children and organizing
> social hours for everyone. There were people who liked to organize the
> pantry.  There was someone who wanted to do everything that needed to be
> done. . . and more.
>
>  When the Pioneer Valley Coho stepped back and trusted that each member
> would follow what had heart and meaning for them, that all the community's
> needs would be met, that's exactly what happened.
>
>  I think this was an excellent experiment in open space, intentional
> community, Frank.  And I particularly love this story because no one called
> it open space.  It was living.
>
> This was a community of thirty two households, over a hundred members.
> Their core organizing process was a deeply understood concensus model but
> during the whole time I lived there, I always felt myself to be living in
> open space.
>
>
> --
> Warmly,
> Tree Fitzpatrick
> Hearthkeeper * *
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