I’m afraid that by just reading this site you will get the impression that this personal growth stuff is all very serious, hard work that involves a lot of suffering. It can be that way, but it doesn’t have to be. If you find the right healing group this work actually becomes tremendous fun. Yes it is still very challenging, but it just feels right. You are not alone. Others are doing similar work as you and you are supporting each other every step of the way. There is a knowing within and a sense of flowing in the right direction. That is the heart of organicity. We learn to trust that our organism is always striving towards health. Always. We intuitively know what we need, we just need to get out of our own way to let it happen.
This work is best supported by groups, but Americans have gotten so hyper-individualized that they have forgotten how to be in a group. That is where Cohousing comes in. People who champion the cohousing movement are called “burning souls”. I love that name — it captures both the passion and pain of it. I watched one of these “burning souls” give a speech once. He started off by asking some questions. “How many names of the children in your neighborhood do you know? One? Two? Three? More than Three?” Some hands went up initially but quickly went down as the numbers went up. Next question. “If you needed to borrow a car how many neighbors could you borrow from? One? Two? Three? More than Three?” Even less hands this time. Next question. “If you needed a ride to the hospital is there a neighbor you could ask?” Even less this time. Then he continued. “Now I’m going to spend a little time talking today about a very radical experiment in housing. Don’t worry — I will spend most of my time talking about the traditional Cohousing model. But first let’s talk about this set up where everyone lives alone. This is a very new, and I’m not sure it is working out that well. I personally would not feel comfortable putting my kids in such a radical experiment. I prefer to stick to the time tested ways of living like it always has been done!”. The audience laughed, but they got his point.
People are tired of being lonely. Cohousing is a response to that. A group of people come together and build an intentional neighborhood. The group buys the land, hires an architect, and has a builder do the development. The group decides what they want each step of the way. Almost always the group decides to shove parking way off to the side to make it safe for kids to roam. Units are usually smaller than normal to make it more affordable.There is a common house that has a kitchen and dining room to share meals. Usually there are rooms for crafts and places for kids to play. The common house also has guest rooms so not every unit has to have their own guest room.
Everyone still owns their own home, and they still get a bank loan to pay for their unit. What is different is the culture. We have forgotten how to live together. The thing is — we were meant to live together. It just feels much better. When I first moved into cohousing I had spent years working to build another cohousing development. So I knew in my head that this is what I wanted, but I confess I was still a little nervous. What surprised me is how strongly I felt it in my body after I moved in. It felt really good. My thirteen year old son who was only living with me part time felt it too. He has always had a strong bond with animals and he pointed out that “the cats feel like they belong here”. I was surprised at his reaction. For years he had watched me go off to endless cohousing meetings and he probably thought of cohousing as some weird church that he wanted no part of. So first he sees the cats and then shortly after the neighbor boys meet him and warmly welcomed him. And he was in.
Sometimes peer pressure works in a really good way. The cohousing kids had grown up in the community and you could tell that it had really worked from them. They all were doing really well and that helped my son who was struggling. He had grown up as an only child and all his Japanese friends kept on getting ripped away from him when their parents inevitably returned to Japan. He was lonely and now he was with friends. And they guided him in a good direction. One of his friends encouraged him to start a drawing journal and to draw every day — my son is a talented artist. Both my son and I had gotten into a bad habit of eating fast food. But now we were signed up for common meals. The community had frequent shared meals in the common house. The teens would sit off in the teen booth (a booth they had appropriated) when we ate. I remember watching with fascination as my son was first confronted with some weird goulash we were having. At first he tried to rally the others against this weird thing, but they all looked at him blankly as if to say, “Dude. It’s dinner.” They were used to eating whatever came their way. Within a year my son was, quite rightly, chastising me for my poor eating habits.
The thing to know is that this global healing and shift that I am calling for is the thing that wants to happen. We will know we are heading in the right direction when we feel the delight in our bodies. And just like my son getting guided by his peers and then turning around and guiding me we will have to do this together as a group. The key thing is to set things up so that the magic can naturally flow. People naturally want to be part of something bigger than themselves. Trust that. What doesn’t work is to stay in suffering and tell ourselves this is just the way it has to be. Tell ourselves that we are helpless and there really isn’t anything we can do. We get scared of change because as bad as things are now we (correctly) fear they can always become worse. We forget that the change that comes from organicity feels wonderful. Or maybe we never knew. Let’s go there next.