Abundance and Scarcity in the Goodenough Community

Kirsten Rohde has written an inspiring and thought-provoking article in issue #141 of Communities magazine about the ways mindset affects the experience of hardship.

In it, she discusses the trials experienced by a group of people attempting to keep their focus in the midst of economic and natural upheaval; and the ways in which their positive outlook was integral to the continued survival of their community.

Our community’s land near the Hood Canal in Washington State is called Sahale. Out at Sahale, when it rains, it pours. The metal roofs are pounded by rain that comes straight down from the low clouds. When the sun comes out, it is brighter and hotter than in Seattle. The sky is crystal clear or perhaps dotted with white puffy clouds. When the trees grow here, they grow really tall, and wherever blackberry vines get started, there is no end to them. We can grow fruit about which city-dwellers say, “Really? You can’t grow that here.”

We found this abundant land in 2001 and created our learning and retreat center, a budding ecovillage on 70 acres. Sahale is the Chinook word for “heaven on earth” and it has felt like that for us.

Yet we have also found ourselves tempted by perceptions of scarcity. At the same time that we acquired this land, we also began developing an urban housing cooperative for 19 individuals, families, and couples. This project included a community center and café for us and for the broader neighborhood and community of Seattle. Sahale has succeeded, while the in-town development failed.

We paid all accounts to outside vendors, leaving a loss of about $500,000 to members in loans and deposits on their shares in the cooperative. Even more than the loss of money, we grieved the loss of the dream of our community in service through this center. Some members left, and we lost our way for awhile. At the same time, many of us were working to develop the buildings and rejuvenate the land out at Sahale. We fell in love with her wonderful energy. Sahale sustained us through the difficult times of healing from our loss of an in-town center for our community-building work. Now, when we talk together we realize we still hold our dream dear to us, and plans are beginning for another way to create an “in-town” living and community center.

This is a picture of an experience of abundance and scarcity, woven together—loss and gain. In Richard’s words, “Our community believes in the power of learning together. In fact, as we engaged the development of these two properties, we stated that our first goal was learning about facilities development. In retrospect during our evaluation we realized that we had actually lost learning as our first priority and had been caught up in an “edifice complex”—caring more about building external facilities than about developing our inner facilities and abilities. Thus, one aspect of our learning is that our experience of scarcity and abundance starts inside of us.”

Read the rest at Communities magazine »