Community comes from community

Alternative Routes
Blog posting #5
BriarpatchMagazine.com

by Shayna Stock, with photography by Dominique Fenton

I knew for sure that Newfoundland was a unique place when the man at the next picnic table began talking to us. We were sitting in a small park in Corner Brook, Newfoundland, filling up on french fries from the Rips Chips truck stationed next to the park.

Through a Newfoundland accent that was thicker than the fog that welcomed us at Port-aux-Basques, we were able to decipher the main message: he feels his community is disintegrating, and he is concerned.

He talked of high levels of unemployment in Corner Brook, and its consequences: kids getting into trouble, or leaving to find work in Alberta, and elderly people left behind to fill in the gaps.

As proof, the backdrop to our lunch in the park was “the Majestic,” an old movie theatre that we thought might be abandoned. Someone told us later that it is still open for business; they just don’t put posters up because the kids will tear them down.

There seem to be two contradictory perspectives regarding community in Newfoundland. One is this sense of decay of community, as expressed by the man in Corner Brook. On the other hand, however, his sentiments seem to grow out of a pervasive tradition of strong and close-knit community in this province.

Herald, an Ontario-born man who recently moved to St. John’s, spoke of an “immediate understanding that if you don’t take care of people — even people that aren’t your friends — your community is going to be worse off.” He sees this as a major difference between Newfoundland and Ontario.

For some reason, there don’t seem to be a lot of communities in Newfoundland that identify as “intentional”, or formed with some kind of collective purpose. We thought it might have something to do with the already existing communities that perhaps provide people with the type of support that those who create intentional communities are seeking.

Intentional communities tend to be born out of a desire for alternatives to the alienation of our institutionalized society. Perhaps, we thought, where communities are smaller, and people generally more supportive of one another, the need to create alternatives is lessened.

However, there are a few people in and around St. John’s beginning to form intentional communities in that area. One group we heard about, though unfortunately did not get the chance to meet, is Tree of Life. Though still in its initial stages, the founders are working to develop the project into a self-sufficient community of like-minded people. Their vision includes alternative energy, organic gardening, and a retreat space based on sacred geometry (Tree of Life, or Kabbalah).

We also talked to a young couple, Herald and Amy, who want to start up a community centered on conscious living in St. John’s. It would be associated with Tree of Life, but in an urban setting.

So I guess some people in Newfoundland do perceive a need for alternative living arrangements. From the perspective of Herald, a philosophy student, it makes sense to base an intentional community in Newfoundland, where the sense of community is strong. He explained to us that community comes from community; you can’t create community in the absence of community.

So, while intentional communities can be seen as responses to a pervasive decay in unity and cooperation in our society, they can not be formed from nothing; those who found intentional communities must have some knowledge of, or experience with, community.

Something to ponder, as we make our way west…

Shayna and Dominique are traveling across Canada in search of community, and sharing what they find with Briarpatch readers. Read their introduction to the project here.