Page 26 RAIN November/December 1985 ACCESS: Intentional Communities FROM: Builders of the Dawn Builders of the Dawn: Community Lifestyles in a Changing World, by Corrine McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson, 1985,372 pp., $12.95 from: Stillpoint Publishing PO Box 640 Meetinghouse Road Walpole, NH 03608 Seeds of Tomorrow: New Age Communities That Work, by Cris and Oliver Popenoe, 1984, 290 pp., $10.95 from; Harper and Row 1700 Montgomery Street San Francisco, CA 94111 Intentional communities—residential communities formed by people with a common vision or intention—are crucibles of social experimentation. During the last two decades many intentional communities have experimented with new forms of decision-making, business practices, sexual relationships, child rearing, property ownership, agricultural techniques, and energy technologies. Amidst all this experimentation, some things have worked and some things haven't. In accord with a natural selection process, those communities that tried many things that didn't work are no longer around. Conversely, the ones that have survived are those that managed to adapt to the various demands placed on such community living experiments. Among these communities, many things have been learned about living among small groups of people, providing for people's material needs in an ecologically benign manner, and providing for people's emotional and spiritual needs in a manner that helps realize human potential. Much of what has been learned in these various experiments has been gathered, sifted through, and recorded in a recent book called Builders of the Dawn: Community Lifestyles in a Changing World. The authors of Builders of the Dawn are former members of Findhorn Community in Scotland and founders of the Sirius Community in Massachussets. They wrote the book after visiting numerous communities across America. Experiences from various communities are presented to illustrate the diversity of approaches to common concerns. Separate chapters deal with the varieties of economic systems, decision-making systems, patterns of relationship and child rearing, methods of self-reliance and self-healing, and spiritual practices. Another chapter discusses how communities have come to FROM: Builders of the Dawn
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