​Recipe for a Healthy Community

​Serves a Multitude
​
 by Margi Ault-Duell
​

​​Please note: amounts listed in this recipe are approximations.  Each batch will turn out differently.

1 group mixed individuals (should include variety of identities - species, age, gender, ideology, ethnicity, physicality, sexuality)

2 cups private space

4 cups public space

1 T trust

5 T individuality (a.k.a. freedom to be unique)

1 ¾ T respect

3 cups love

1 cup accountability

2 T spirituality

3 oz. conflict resolution

3 cups relationship with land and/or place

2 cups awareness of and care for larger world

2 T laughter

1 tsp music

2 tsp grief

3 tsp pain

Equal parts of the following:

·         Challenging work
·         Leisure
·         Celebration
·         Mental Stimulation
·         Physical Stimulation

Spread private & public space evenly on baking surface, making sure there is plenty of both.  Place all individuals randomly in pan (don’t drop or lose any – the dish loses flavor that way!).  In large bowl, blend trust, individuality, respect, love, accountability, and spirituality with a whisk or fork until well mixed.  Mix dry ingredients in separate bowl: Work, leisure, celebration, and mental & physical stimulation.  Stir in laughter, music, grief, and pain until evenly blended, then add to the first bowl and stir rapidly for 5 minutes or until mixture is smooth.  Pour batter into baking pan, covering all individuals so that none will burn.  Gently sprinkle the remaining ingredients – conflict resolution, relationship with land/place, and care for larger world – over the whole surface, letting them soak into the batter for a few minutes before baking. Place on lowest oven rack and bake for 1 hour at 250 degrees (Fahrenheit).  Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before serving.  Serves a multitude.

Take "the Other" to Lunch

Six Dimensions of Creative Localization
​

1. Energy:  Generating power locally from renewable sources such as solar, wind and hydrogen, and where possible, using technology created and stored locally.
2. Food:  Growing food locally or regionally using regenerative agriculture techniques that work cooperatively with nature and the earth.
3. Housing:  Developing affordable housing in blended neighborhoods that encourage mutual support.
4. Education:  Engaging all individuals in a life-long process of discovery to contribute creatively and meaningfully to society with values rooted in humanity, community and ecology, and to live joyously in harmony with diversity.
5. Culture:  Developing a culture that values balance, sufficiency, human freedom and creative expression, rather than acquisition, consumption and servitude.
6. Economics:  Pursuing economic policies that maximize the happiness of all and the ecological sustainability of the planet.

          Michael Witmer and Lynn De Jonghe,, the Cobb Institute: A Community of Process and Practice

​

​ Example #1 of Creative Localization:
​
​The Transition Network

​​"In Transition 2.0 is an inspirational immersion in the Transition movement, gathering stories from around the world of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. You'll hear about communities printing their own money, growing food, localising their economies and setting up community power stations. It's an idea that has gone viral, a social experiment that is about responding to uncertain times with solutions and optimism. In a world of increasing uncertainty, here is a story of hope, ingenuity and the power of growing vegetables in unexpected places"

--  The Transition Network

---

Trailer for the Movie

An Example from Italy

The Grocer and Baker

One Minute Economics

---

​ Example #2 of Creative Localization:

Center for a New American Dream

---

​ Example #3 of ​Creative Localization:
​
The Compassionate City Movement

Process Philosophy:

An Outlook on Life supportive
of Creative Localization

Local communities in different parts of the world are making a constructive difference in responding to a plethora of crises: global climate change, political authoritarianism, economic disparities, poverty, war and the threat of nuclear war, consumerism, and a general sense of meaninglness.  

Interestingly, these communities are having a good bit of fun along the way. Some of them are part of the transition network described above.  Sparked by the creativity of their own ordinary citizens, these communities are inspired by the ideas of local livelihoods, local training, local food, local energy, and local currencies.  They are interested in inner transformation as well as outer transformation.  They are resilient.

But they are not resilient in a static or homogenized way. They embrace cultural, religious, and philosophical diversity; and they do not hide from enriching tensions. Even as they have their roots in the bonds of local affiliation, they have wings to fly. They are creatively and adventurously resilient.  

Depth and Breadth

In the spirit of such resilience, they are hopeful but not naively optimistic. They encourage us to accept the hard parts of life, to be honest about suffering, to be serious about the challenges faced by a world that seems bent upon its own destruction; but also to plant ourselves in beauty, to embrace a spacious and gracious simplicity of living with less "stuff," cultivating what one of our columnists, Patricia Adams Farmer, calls "fat souls."   

A fat soul is someone who can live in an open-minded and open-hearted way, filled with a sense of respect and care for the community of life.  A fat soul has roots and wings.

Relational Power

Moreover, the people in these communities are committed to what another of our columnists, the philosopher C. Robert Mesle, calls "relational power." Relational power is the power to receive and absorb influences from others in a generous way, and then to respond with creative generosity, guided by the hope of mutual well-being.  Relational power seeks win-win solutions, not win-lose solutions.

Indeed, in a Multi-Polar World, another of our columnists, Les Muray, points out that this kind of power also applies to international relations and hopes for the world.  An appreciation of relational power entails a critique of colonizing and imperial rule --political, corporate, consumerist, or capitalist -- and, in local settings, a welcoming of consensus thinking over conflict thinking. Relational power does not hide from conflict, but it also knows that, in the last analysis, persuasion not coercion is the most lasting kind of power.

Improvising and the Open Future

In these and other ways relational philosophies have an important role to play to play in encouraging transitions to a post-petroleum world.  Such philosophies emphasize that we humans dwell within, not apart from, the network of felt relations, human and ecological, that shape our lives; and that we have possibilities for living creatively and compassionately amid these relations.  These philosophies see the future is influenced by the past, sometimes in deeply damaging ways, but believe that, in the present itself, there is a kernel creativity that can help create a different kind of future.

Thus, these philosophies are not mechanistic or deterministic.  They see the universe as a whole, not only as a web of interconnected events, but also as a journey, a pilgrimage through time and space that creates time and space within the pilgrimage.  The future doesn't exist until the universe creates it.

A Divine Lure toward Creative Transformation

There's a religious side to all of this.  Some among these philosophies -- Whitehead's version, for example -- speak of a divine lure toward creative transformation, present in the cosmos and present in life on earth.  The Whiteheadian version of relational thinking sees the transition movement itself as one way of responding to this lure.  God calls toward peace among people and peace with the earth, toward creative frugality and adventurous living.

This does not mean that all participants in the transition movement are, or need to be, religious.  Nor does it mean that they need belong to a single religion.  From the Whiteheadian perspective the diversity of cultures and faiths in our world makes the whole of life, and the whole of the divine life, richer.  Even God takes satisfaction in the multiplicity and is nourished by it.

Multi-Faith Communities

This means that transition communities can be, and need to be, multi-faith communities and the inter-religious dialogue can have a practical aim: namely to draw from resources within and beyond religions toward the creation of what Martin Luther King, Jr. called beloved communities.  Each religion has something to offer, and no religion has all the answers.

Perhaps it is ideas such as these -- wide souls, relational power, a creative universe in which all things are connected -- which can provide philosophical support for transition communities.  In Five Foundations for a New Civilization and Ten Ideas for Saving the Planet, John B. Cobb. Jr. offers more particular ideas that deepen what has been said above.  There is a need for hospitable urban design, for sustainable economics, for a revitalization of rural life, for wise and responsive governance that moves in the direction of biocracy.

But it all begins with a combination of creative and experimental practice, guided by good intentions and courage of soul.  It is the business of the future to be dangerous, says Whitehead.  He adds that, with fortitude and spunk, creativity and resilience, the future can be beautiful, too.

-- Jay McDaniel. January 2020

Combining Theory and Practice
​in a new kind of Economics
​