What are you willing to give up to have everything you’ve ever wanted? 

This is a question I found myself asking after two weeks in rural Northeast Missouri as a participant in Dancing Rabbit’s first post-COVID visitor program. I’ve been interested in living in a community for several years, and have been fantasizing with a growing group of friends about starting our own. We’ve even checked out various properties around Colorado where many of us live. Though I have utilized the communities directory through the FIC (the Foundation for Intentional Community), it wasn’t until I participated in a 5-week online course this spring called Finding Community that I felt like I knew enough to really begin the search for an existing community that might be a fit. 

As the founder of a nonprofit organization, I know the work involved in starting something from scratch (and that didn’t even include much in the way of physical infrastructure) so I can’t even imagine the extensive effort and time required to plan roads, systems, buildings AND a governance and leadership structure from the ground up. Part of the reason the FIC communities directory can be challenging to navigate is that many of the “communities” listed have never gotten off the ground, and I learned in my class that 90% fail within the first 1-3 years. Concentrating my search on those that had been around 20+ years with at least 30 members narrowed the choices, and Dancing Rabbit seemed to have the best visitor program (along with Twin Oaks, an income-sharing commune in Virginia). 

The two-week program certainly didn’t disappoint. Though presenting members claimed rustiness after 18 months without visitors, the sessions were surprisingly well-ordered, well-presented and well-structured, building upon one another and giving us a solid basic overview on the various components of the ecovillage – from alternative building styles (complete with a tour of various homes and buildings), to alternative energy (mostly solar and some wind), to land use planning and permaculture, to name just a few. We also participated in a few work projects, ate in different kitchen co-ops on a rotating basis, observed village council meetings and community discussions, and experienced community life in the form of game nights, potlucks, daily happy hour, poker night, song circles, ultimate frisbee (quite regularly) and even an 80’s dance party on our last evening. 

I chose to visit Dancing Rabbit mainly because of their excellent visitor program and to get a taste of community life, but had absolutely no intention of moving to an ecovillage with fairly strict covenants – one barring personal vehicle ownership (a big one for me), and lumber and energy covenants that have led to a predominance of buildings made of reclaimed materials and heated with wood. Some homes have running water (from a water catchment and cistern system), though heating it still requires a wood burning boiler system. Heating and cooling with electrical mini-splits, and building more traditionally with green materials on the fringes of the existing neighborhoods seems to be becoming more common, but is definitely much more expensive too. 

The community has connected to the local power grid as a backup system because expensive and maintenance-heavy lithium battery banks were challenging, and they charge five times the local municipal rate to members to discourage over-reliance on non-renewable energy sources. They strive to return twice as much power to the grid through their solar arrays as they use, but acknowledge that the convenience of having reliable grid energy – as opposed to off-grid solar that runs out after a long cloudy stretch – also makes it easier to use more. After nearly 25 years in operation, there seems to be a slight loosening of the covenants as the community strives to be more accessible to a wider range of people, though there is internal division around whether this is a good thing or not! 

I’m sure it’s a fine line between maintaining the founding principles and making it livable for members year-round. It’s interesting to note that none of the founders still live in the community, and there seems to be quite a bit of turnover. With cold, icy winters and hot, humid summers, temperature & humidity regulation of the buildings can be very expensive, even though heating and cooling through electricity is possible now. At the same time, many other aspects of living in this community are less expensive and time consuming than other places--including land use rents, building costs (for natural buildings), bulk food, etc. 

Shifting back to the visitor program itself, I find myself in the rare position of having no constructive criticism whatsoever. The program was much more than I expected, and the price was incredibly reasonable for what I got out of it. I had thought I was signing up to get a glimpse of the inner workings of a community, and I was blown away by the personal growth and development that were both intentional parts of the programming itself and a natural occurrence of getting to know amazing people – both community members and other visitors. Three sessions over the two weeks were devoted to inner sustainability, intention-setting, meaning-making and other personal topics. I am not new to these topics and they were among the most excellently facilitated I have ever experienced! 

I am still visiting other communities and pondering whether I can give up some conveniences and comforts in order to experience on a regular basis the kind of care and community I felt at Dancing Rabbit. I believe in signs and I received a powerful one as I was packing my car to leave. My keys had been sitting on the back deck of my car and as I closed the door I heard the unmistakable beep of the lock button being pushed by the weight of the door as it locked into place. This gave me a few more hours to visit on the front porch, swim in the pond, drink another cup of tea and ponder the fact that personal vehicles may not be all they’re cracked up to be after all.