Ever wonder how a person comes to live in an ecovillage?
I want to tell you my story about how I came to live at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. Hang on to your hat; my story has twists and turns and some serendipitous coincidences…
About 30 years ago I came across a book called Ecotopia.
Ernest Callenbach wrote Ecotopia in the late ‘70s, about California, Oregon, and Washington states seceding from the rest of the US and forming a country called Ecotopia. The story follows a US reporter who visits Ecotopia 20 years after secession. At first he finds the customs and lifestyles of the Ecotopians quite strange, but as his visit goes on, he finds himself drawn more and more to the place and the people, until finally, well, you can read the book to find out how it ends…
Callenbach lived in Berkeley, California, at the time he wrote Ecotopia. Berkeley in those days was described as “a seedbed of innovation and radical thinking.” Fast forward to the nineties, when I bought my home in Berkeley. Berkeley’s first recycling program in the US was already 20 years old, and the culture in Berkeley had changed to stressed out people trying to survive high rent and housing prices, streets jammed with traffic, and “spare the air” days when asthmatics like me would have to stay indoors, away from increased air pollution or wildfire smoke. People locked their doors at night, and everyone struggled for time to connect with friends and family.
Read the rest at The Hub Collective
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