A Vision for Deep Community

We are here.

We are curious, moving slowly.

We are calling in community here at Ardea once again.

We do not claim to know how this unfolds. Creating space for a deeper experience of human connection is not something we come into this world knowing. And it is not something the dominant culture upholds or teaches to its people. Still, the song of togetherness has not stopped singing to us.

So here we are, bearing witness to a longing, and doing the best we can to tend it moving forward.

Group foraging during a workshop at Ardea (2016).

Deep community

We can begin by talking about community, particularly deep community. How do we differentiate deep community from community in general?

Deep community is what it sounds like. It seeks to go deeper than surface level to explore the power of human connection in whatever ways are accessible to each of us. Deep community is soulful and is held with an understanding that there is personal and collective healing to be done, and that this work is a crucial step in establishing healthy and meaningful human connection. Stepping into deep community includes a willingness to be curious, to listen deeply, to explore the hedgerows that live within our bodies and minds.

As we see it, deep community requires multiple generations. That is, people of all ages working and playing together. Particularly relevant here are the youngest and the oldest of us, as well as those aspiring to be guiding Elder figures. So often the dominant culture facilitates the separation of us by age, breaking a web of relation that is important to understanding what it means to be human. Deep community finds a foundation in intergenerational relationships, while learning from the ways these relationships are woven.

Deep community is also a calling to embrace each other’s unique experience of the world. As such, we intend to help create and work within a community that does not exist in a bubble of ideals and cultural isolation. Diversity is a wondrous force of nature, absolutely essential to the experience of deep community. As such, we stand as allies with diverse groups of people including: BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, women, those experiencing physical and mental challenges, and other marginalized communities. We expect that those who participate in community with us will relate to other human beings – and the creatures and spirits of the earth - with respect and curiosity.

There is much more for us to learn when it comes to knowing deep community. We see the building of community as a process that wants to unfold organically, requiring a specific finesse: a strong will with gentle hands. As the collective vision changes and grows we expect to use this space for better comprehending how deep community exists for us.

Foraging Fundamentals workshop at Ardea (2018)

Community, Covid, and crisis

For us, the greater community crisis of Covid was sandwiched between two very personal crises. Circumstances allowed us to embrace the inwardness that Covid was calling in, and we did so. In our inwardness we were allowed a means of reconciliation. We were also allowed to cultivate a greater sense of our belonging in the world, and were given space to reshape how this exists.

Prior to Covid, we grew food and medicine for ourselves and the larger community, vended at the local farmers’ market, led and hosted earth skills classes on a wide range of topics, hosted apprentices and landmates, worked diligently at creating perennial gardens and food forests, facilitated community gatherings such as the monthly Village Council fire circle, and tended several different species of homestead animal. All of this was orchestrated by two people who also held part-time work.

Hearts cast out into the world with soulful passion and desire does not allow freedom from burnout and crises. Along with the birth of our daughter Meissa came a message: we cannot haul the weight of our passions and desires alone, no matter how heart-felt our intentions.

Moving forward we would like to create the abundance once held here in partnership with our community. And so we are here to begin feeling out what this looks like.

Meissa helping out around the homestead.

Exploring community and collaboration

One of our most clear and immediate needs for our own family’s wellness on the land includes a community that will support our daughter (age 4) along her self-directed learning journey. We do have a vision of Ardea potentially hosting a nature-based agile learning center, or put another way, an experiential and child-led forest school. At present we see this being a cooperative that tends to the learning journey of a group of mixed-age children. Stacey currently facilitates a local facebook group (unaffiliated with Ardea) titled Foothills Self-Directed Learning to begin making these connections and pooling our energy with other families on a similar path.

We also have a long term vision of transforming some of the buildings onsite into functional community spaces. This could take many forms and we will be seeking partnerships over the next 3 - 5 years to begin preserving and utilizing these spaces.

Beyond these larger goals we are also open to conversations regarding sharing land for dwelling, gardening, and more. We recognize our privilege as landowners and want to embrace shared land use when compatibility arises.

In the coming months and years we will be finding refreshing ways to engage our broader and more intimate communities.

If what you see here resonates with you, we welcome connection and conversation.

We are moving slowly. We are listening deeply.

Thank you for being here.