Two years ago, would I have imagined myself driving to an ecovillage in the middle-of-nowhere, Missouri? Probably not. Would I have imagined myself waking up at 7:30 every morning to go milk a cow when it’s 30 degrees? Like a milkmaid??? Absolutely not. I would never have guessed that Dancing Rabbit would completely alter the course of my life, but now I couldn’t be more grateful.

I found out about ecovillages midway through college, and I could never seem to shake off the thought of them. Like a lot of people my age, I’d been feeling hopeless about the state of the climate crisis and the general prospects of my economic future. As a coping mechanism, I found myself drifting off into daydreams about a kinder world, one where I’d find my food in the forest and paint flowers on the wall of my wood cabin. After subscribing to the Dancing Rabbit email list for a year, I applied for the internship at DR. Lo and behold, I found myself packing my bag one September morning and driving down to Missouri.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from DR, which made my first trip so exciting ⎼ and so scary! It’s hard to navigate this kind of journey alone as a young woman. It can be really scary sometimes. I was trying to act brave, but I was shaking in my boots the first day I got there. My biggest reservation about the village stemmed from that nasty c-word: cult. I kept a vigilant lookout for dominant personalities, group-think, and any potential predators waiting in the bushes, springing out to indoctrinate me.

To my relief, it turns out that Dancing Rabbit is the ultimate hodgepodge of individualists, which does not bode well for those with cult-like ambitions. I found that people settle here for a variety of reasons, which results in a village full of different sorts of people. Among the Rabbits, you will find quite the array of spiritualities, socio-economic classes, and, perhaps surprisingly, approaches to environmentalism.

The village is small, and before I knew it, I was on a first-name basis with all of the Rabbits. I felt welcomed immediately. People made sure to invite me to social gatherings, taught me much about the natural world, and supplied endlessly interesting conversations.

More than anything, the beauty of the place struck me. I love the eclectic homes with colorful, glass bottles built into the walls. The stars at night are stunning, something I never get to see back home in Minneapolis. Breathing in the fresh air while taking in the chatter of the birds will never get old. And the bugs? Never mind, forget I mentioned the bugs.

And, as it turns out, I developed a love for farming! When I came back in April to work exchange with Mae and Ben at Fox Holler Farmstead, I formed a deeper understanding of the land, and what it means to work with it on a daily basis. Mae and Ben were patient teachers, always answering my questions in detail and putting up with my naive mistakes. I never thought I would be cut out for hard labor, but I found the work to be so much more fulfilling than any desk job. The thing I never understood about farming, until now, is that it operates like a giant, living chess game, except the elements are your opponent. It takes a decent amount of strategy, and I love the challenge of it all.

The diversity of activities at DR is a great pull for those who are interested in work exchange (wexing). There’s a wealth of opportunities to learn from the Rabbits, whether you want to make cheese, herd animals, work in a permaculture garden, take a swing at natural building, or observe the process of building intentional community.

For those who are interested in community, Dancing Rabbit provides the perfect platform to learn about the benefits and challenges of pursuing intentional community. I would like to emphasize the fact that DR is not a utopia. In fact, if utopia is what you are searching for in community, you are going to be disappointed. People are complicated wherever you go, there’s just no escaping it.

Like any small nonprofit, DR struggles with the kinds of complex, structural issues and interpersonal strife that make momentum a constant effort. I deeply admire the people at DR who pour their labor into keeping the organization afloat. After spending almost all of my young adult life working for a small nonprofit, I understand the energy it takes to keep something like that going, and it isn’t easy. You only have to attend a WIP meeting to understand how laborious this whole thing can be.

Regardless, if I could spend more time at DR this year, I absolutely would. I miss getting caught up in conversation with PK at Ironweed while I filter the milk in the morning. I miss befriending the village cats, walking around barefoot, and watching the moon rise over the swimming hole at night. I even miss 6-year-old Arthur tracking me down in the village, pleading with me to draw him another Pokémon.

My whole experience at Dancing Rabbit has been priceless. I can already feel an internal shift now that I know I can live my life in a way that I used to chalk up to fantasy. If anything else, my experience at DR taught me that it is possible to live a rich life outside the snare of consumerism. It is possible to live comfortably without fossil fuels. And, thankfully, there is a community in rural Missouri that makes me feel welcome.
 

Ecovillage Experience Weekend is coming up May 27-30! Spend a long weekend with us at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage and gather ideas, concepts, and skills for living lightly wherever you live. This unique program blends the “eco” with the “village” of our community life. You’ll have hands-on opportunities with natural building, low-carbon gardens and kitchens, alternative energy systems, and organic resource recycling. You’ll also interact with alternative economic systems, skills for human connection and cooperation, and creative fun – all part of life at Dancing Rabbit! And, most importantly, the course will guide you to take what you’ve learned and create an action plan for bringing it home with you.

For more information and to register for this event, visit our website: www.dancingrabbit.org.