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Thanks, Tony, for this post. I keep coming back to it as I talk to people here in Alaska. Caring for land and for each other is key. I am starting to understand how mutual self-reliance makes for truly resilient communities. Yes, skills are key but getting the big picture is all important.

Thanks Tony, I enjoyed this article of yours and I appreciate your efforts in trying to establish an ideal place where people can learn to be good stewards of the land and develop meaningful loving relationships in the process. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said the foundation of successful human villages as been about the caring and love that each of the members of the village/family has for one another that makes it successful. I think this bonding that can come by working together in such a way can go a long way in cultivating those close relationship with the land and each other. However it sounds like your whole foundation to a successful family/village is based on having this family business as you say. I come from a traditional Italian family where there was a care and love for one another, what made it successful was not dependent on whether we had a family business or tended the land together. It was the care and love that we each had for one another. This foundation is the glue that will hold the village or family together no matter where it finds itself. So why then are there so many dysfunctional families or villages in rumble? Ultimately it's a lack of God in there lives. Not necessarily religion but a personal relationship with God, who is the creator of all life and has a plan for you and me. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Now if one doesn't believe in God then naturally we rely on our own understanding of how to bring about this ideal family village. However all our efforts will be in vain if our foundation is not in God. "So take care how you listen; for whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has shall be taken away from him." In other words "So pay attention to how you listen! Those who understand these mysteries will be given more knowledge. However, some people don't understand these mysteries. Even what they think they understand will be taken away from them. I believe What you're really looking for is God, whether you realize it or not. We all have this deep rooted desire to live in peace and harmony with the earth and all it's inhabitants. Some such as yourself act on this to the best of there abilities and there are others to varied degree are living in darkness and do not see nor understand these truths. The world can never give us this peace we are looking for. "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you." John 14:27

There have been successful and unsuccessful intentional communities. A common thread with the successful ones is their answers to some basic questions - What is the community's mission and purpose, what are the rules and how do you deal with someone who doesn't respect the answers to the first two questions. The success of the community doesn't have to do so much with the substance of the answers, as it does with the degree to which the answers are explicit and coherent.

This post is wonderful food for thought as we prepare for our quiet journey through the wilderness. Thank you. By mid July we hope to have reached Hartley Bay, a First Nations village that lies sixty miles from the nearest road. Here's what we observed last year. This time we will stay and try to discover the secret of these self-reliant people who take very good care of their elders, their children, their land and their heritage.

You're on the right rack with this essay. Let me expound a bit on the idea of a village from a Gaelic Traditionalist viewpoint. I offer it only as food for thought, not necessarily as a template for imitation. Each culture must create, from within the womb of it's own unique cultural matrix, it's own methodologies and templates that must flow organically from it's own survival imperatives and it's own Creation mythos. A village takes a minimum of 3 generations to build, and after that, mindful dynamic maintenance becomes the key to survival and thrival. A village is a group of extended family groups related to each other by: (1) blood; and/or (2) marriage; *and* (3) a minimum of 3 generations of shared history and experience. It may be on that particular piece of the Earth, or, in the case of Travelers and the Rom, it may be as Nomads. An extended family group are related to each other by blood and marriage. This relationship includes, in the case of children only, free-will agreements of mutual fosterage that may reach outside the extended family group to make connections with other extended family groups. An extended family group begins at it's core, The Family at The Hearth and extends out from that Holy place in concentric circles. What we consider a "nuclear" family is too small even for the Hearth. At the Hearth you find the parents, children, grandparents, single aunts and uncles, & orphaned cousins. This is what is sometimes called a fine in Irish. A small group of 3- 4 of these fine living in very close proxiimity, would constitute a clachan. Thisnk of it kind of the way a cul-de-sac in the city organized itself around a central green. A group of these Hearths constitutes the extended family group, is sometimes called a derbhine in Irish, if, all members are descendants of at least five generations in depth from a common ancestor, usually male. A small extended group of perhaps 3 - 4 of these finte and derbhinte living clustered together in close proximity, might also constitute a clachan. Think more of a neighborhood of 3 -5 blocks square. A larger extended group of these derbhinte (plural) living and working in concerted effort together, on the same area of land from which they derive their living of combined agrarian, merchantile, service, and manufacturing activities, and having been in these combined effort together for a least 3 generations, often constitutes a tuath and what we could legitimately call a village today. Think of a small town of 500 - 1000 people. Best Regards, Kathleen O'Brien Blair McMinnville this contents of this post copyright Kathleen O'Brien Blair and Clannada na Gadelica 2010. Limited rights to reproduction for education purposes and with attribution granted to Trackers only.