A Fellowship of Equals.

Maybe 30 years ago I joined this community. At the time the fee was $800 which I have yet to pay because I never went there. Once I took a train through Deming thinking I would stop in but I didn’t. My life is filled with such events. The California Rosicrucians once invited me to come live at their center in California but I never went there either. I’ve lived in some community situations. Some I had a leading role in and some I was just a part of for awhile. Some were right on and some were very strange but useful for the purpose of observation.

A regular reader, Richard, sent me some real estate pages for locations in France because I was talking about putting together- with the help of others- a living community that would allow for some shelter from the storm. You’d be amazed at what you can get for about a million five or even less than that. Some people might think that’s a lot of money. I don’t think that’s much money at all. Money is not nearly so hard to get as people think. If you have a creative mentality and a persistent sense of industry there is no limit to what you can achieve. I’m writing this today in a general way in relation to the idea of something that I will see happen sooner or later so it might be useful to talk about it a little.

I toy with money making ideas in my mind but I don’t do much about them. For me there are far more important things than that. Still... there are a number of ways that a collection of willing minds and hands could generate significant capital. I’m not going to lay any of them out here but I’ve come up with some good ones and I suspect that others around here could be even more savvy if they wanted to. Some of these ideas are not only lucrative they are as great deal of fun as well. In some cases you can make yourself the attraction which generates the income. This aspect is not the hard part. The hard part is in the collection of the right personalities within the right commonly agreed parameters of interaction. The latter is easy if the former is accomplished. A solid core group will generally be stable enough to manage features like expansion, which can be tricky for various reasons.

What I know about communes at the moment is that a lot of them tend to reflect behavior patterns that aren’t all that much better than what they left. There’s alcoholism and habitual drug use in a lot of them and some of those, which are based around a particular personality, entity or philosophy can be either too rigid or seriously wack. You can look into communities around the world and get a taste of the kind of things that go on. People are people and they tend to act out in certain ways.

For myself, I am looking for the company of people who combine spirituality with intelligence and humor and who are industrious because they enjoy it. This doesn’t mean one can’t take off large amounts of time to do nothing at all... it depends on the quality of ‘nothing at all’. I’ve lived as a recluse for a number of years and it suits me fine. Still, the idea of common purpose and the force and transformation that can be generated in group endeavors is an intriguing idea. I know a lot of communities are based around giving people a place to come and work out their changes on the way to some further point. Personally, I’m not interested in group therapy situations or watching the peace makers engaging the combative types, the power junkies against the iconoclasts ...or vice versa. I don’t care for games and pecking orders or any rules besides common sense. This is why you need the right chemical mix of people. A collection of self-governing individuals requires no other framework of organization. I’m not out to save the world or to create something that could have been wonderful and which turns into a job.

There are enough special individuals that fit this description running around to fill any number of small communities and in some cases already do.

I have it on pretty good authority that I am going to come into a certain amount of resources that will make it possible for me to generate something like this without any other help. My intention is to generate it and just be there with the limited personnel I am already aware of. What follows will follow. I already live in a situation that would sustain some number of people but I don’t think it’s the final location and there may be no final location in that respect. What I am saying is that I plan to do this regardless of whether people show up or not. I believe I am already doing it.

Since everything visible comes here from the invisible, the first expression of anything is the idea. This is followed by a blue print which is followed by the actual process of making it and then there is the thing itself. Let’s consider a bed. First there is the idea of lying down. This is followed by all the types of beds that the imagination brings forth; all the designs and prototypes. Then comes the tools and the industry that manufactures the bed. Then comes the bed itself and then comes you lying on it. You can apply this to anything. It all gets here the same way.

We already have a virtual community and that may be enough. We live inside each others heads and we inspire each other whether we are aware of it or not. As for this virtual community, I would say that we are mostly aware of it. The wide range of talents and awareness that we find here is formidable. I suspect we could do most anything, provided we were motivated to and the good thing about it is that we are generally motivated toward the higher range of our possibilities.

I’m just tossing this out here because it’s been moving through my mind lately and it might be something to think about. We don’t know where the future may find us when it turns into the present.

The power of minds unified in single purpose is something that has been known since antiquity. It is the same power that is manipulated by those whose intention is to shape the world according to their own ends. It is what makes certain cultures stand out among the competition; if only for awhile. It is the ideals that are commonly agreed upon that provide the environment for their appearance as palpable realities. We are what we think we are as much as we are defined by what we think of others. It can be wonderful during those periods of time before the lawyers and the bankers start having their late night dinners with the robber barons and the war criminals.

The beauty of a smaller community is that you can defend against these things.

As far as America goes, its downfall was written into its genesis. Any time you want to grant a greater liberty you open the door for a following tyranny. Things tend to turn into their opposite given the inherent corruption of mortal ambitions upon the public at large.

I’m not saying I know what the solutions are. I’m saying I have some idea about the dangers and once there is a common understanding about the dangers you can set your guidelines based on them.

These dangers are no less present in the virtual than they are in the physical and it is desirable to arrest and treat with them in the virtual prior to having to deal with them once they’ve taken on a manifest appearance. Our phsical being is an enormous landscape of cultures and warring entities and you don’t see many people succeeding at that. It would be naïve to assume you would have any better success dealing with elements you can’t control inside yourself.

Something to think about.

Visible sings: ♫ You Remind Them of Me ♫
'You Remind Them of Me' is track no. 6 of 13 on Visible's 2007 album
'The Sacred and The Profane'