Why?

My husband Jeremiah and I both work well-paying jobs and have a modest home in Sarasota Florida.  He does real estate management and leasing for the county government and I do contract work for local agencies and schools as a speech language pathologist.

Many of our friends and acquaintances weren't surprised when we told them about our decision to leave, but some have asked the question "why leave all this?"

The short answer: Life is about more than just making money and living the life that everyone expects of you.

We have known this for awhile, but it truly dawned on us a year ago when we visited Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in Northeast Missouri.  It was a life-changing experience.  Here were people who didn't "buy in" to capitalist society, lived off the grid, grew their own food, and were some of the happiest people we had ever met.  Although on paper many of the residents at this intentional community would be considered "poor" or "below poverty level", they were rich in many ways we typical Americans don't even know.

Jeremiah and I have been vegetarians for awhile (he much longer than me) and we've tried to live our lives as "green" as possible.  Needless to say, the idea of living in a home built from natural materials, eating an all organic, local, vegetarian/vegan diet, and using solar/wind power was so cool to us.

When we returned to our home in Sarasota we immediately started making changes.  We sold our television, which was one of the best things we've ever done.  We also started a food buying cooperative in Sarasota, for families to buy natural and organic foods in bulk from a local distributor, saving 30-40% off retail prices.  In August, after discussing the idea with friends, we (along with some of those same gung-ho friends of ours) tore up all the sod in our backyard and began creating a type of community garden, to be shared by several families and individuals.  That same garden is now thriving and has come to be known as the "Fauna Street Community Garden" or "Fauna Garden" for short.

With all of the changes we have made, we still long for more.  To do something daily that has a direct impact on our lives and our world, to wake to the sun and not an alarm clock, to do good hard work that is meaningful rather than sit behind a desk and shuffle papers.

Why do Americans in today's society work hard 40 hours a week (sometimes more), coming home in the evenings, exhausted, to care for kids, do laundry, etc?  What does that hard earned money go toward?  Stuff.  That's it.  The nice car that you need to drive back and forth to work.  The dress shirts and slacks and ties that you need to wear to work.  Toys or video games for the kids.  Cable, internet, electric.  Gym memberships.  The 42" flat screen you just have to have to watch....  New clothes, new shoes, haircuts.  Food (usually the fast food or restaurant variety).  The list goes on and on. 

What if you didn't need a car to go to work?  What if you made your own clothes?  What if you didn't have a television or video games?  What if you grew your own food?  The work involved would take care of the gym membership.  What if you used rainwater instead of paying a water bill.  What if you were off the grid and used only solar power?  Well, you take all that away and one person could live on $5,000 to $10,000 per year.  This would feed you, clothe you (consider second hand/do it yourself), and put a roof over your head.  We don't need much more than that.

Which brings us to our decision to embark on this journey.  We have talked about moving to an ecovillage or intentional community ever since we returned from Dancing Rabbit.  Recently Jeremiah was presented with a situation at work that we both perceived as the Universe telling us "DO IT!" so we decided to start making plans for a move.  We ordered a copy of the Communities Directory from the Fellowship for Intentional Community and when it arrived, we looked through it and narrowed ourselves down to about 15 or so communities that we were interested in.  Some are on the west coast and some are on the East coast.  Our next question was "how do we see all of these places? we can't take that much time off work".  Aha!  Start saving, and take off in June on a road trip, cross country, to see things that we might not otherwise have a chance to see and to tour some of the wonderful intentional communities in the U.S.

And so the journey begins....


Written by Rebekah