[second in a 2 part]

A student wrote us recently and asked "Is Twin Oaks a Utopia?" Everyone's reply was the same "No. Certainly no", but it is not our objective here either. In some ways, our little village of 100 people is similar to many in he world, there is a robust gossip network and there is a strong sense of separation of where we live and the "outside" world.

In fact, it was the distance from the rest of the world which blocked me from living here for a dozen years. I felt the community was too focused on itself and i wanted to do activism and organizing work - this is city stuff mostly. There is a movement support budget with several thousand dollars and many hundreds of labor hours in i, but it would not be possible (or fair) for me alone to consume all of these hours and even if i did it would not really approach what i had been doing in the Czech Republic and Eastern Europe. So i have made a trade off, i spend more time building our warehouse, than doing activism, tho i still do over a dozen hours a week. This is the trade off many people have to make "earning incomes versus working on there dreams and ideals". I should say Twin Oaks is unusually supportive of people trying to continue this kind of work - besides the movement support budgets which i can draw from and the regular positive feedback one gets from most of the community for this kind of work - it is also the case that almost all our income work is pretty flexible in terms of self scheduling.

Our principle "export" is hammocks. We weave them, cut and drill the stretchers for them, package them, ship them and sell them in numerous ways. So it is possible, if i desire to go weave hammocks for several hours in the middle of the night. While the original hammocks we made were from rope made of petroleum products - we have expanded our line to include recycled materials and cotton hammocks. We also make hanging chairs, tofu and soy products, index books, wind rope and have a number of specialty arts and crafts products. We will probably start and Internet Service Company in the next 6 months and we are hosting east European anti-nuclear activists for training programs as well.

But we also spend perhaps half of our total internal hours on more internal activities - we have a large organic garden, a dairy barn which makes milk, cheese, eggs, yogurt and meat. We maintain our own vehicles, operate our own sewage treatment plant, build our own building, raise 15 kids, cook and clean collectively, put on social and cultural events and on and on.

But it is not utopia - not even close. But it is a conscious effort to build community - to develop and institutionalize a value set which is not principally money driven. To start from a place of trusting people and in absence of compelling proof otherwise to stay in that place [i am currently quite sick. A friend from outside of the community "What is the sick leave policy?", i replied "There is no limit to how much sick time you can take and you decide for yourself", often our policies sound so obvious and reasonable - tho not always certainly.]

We have no police or any real justice system - our most severe punishment is we ask people to leave (this happens perhaps once per year). Sometimes we ask people to go to counciling. I have been to 50 countries on 5 continents and the US is one of my least favorite places (with Panama and Singapore). But this island, this comfortable village seems a place separate unto itself. And for a while at least i am happy to call it home.