the Minnesota Ecovillage Project is a spiritually-grounded science-backed experiment in creating the conditions for homo sapiens to live meaningful, ethical, sustainable lives in harmony with the earth by the power of the sun and the rhythms of the moon.
It began with a simple question: how do we thrive?
We each felt in our bones that there must be a better way of being human -- some way of living that would make life worthwhile, a system of sustainability that wasn't built on fragile supply chains or the oppression of other people.
Our search for ethical, interconnected, meaningful existence has led us to each other, and to the woods of north-central Minnesota. It is here that we intend to put into practice combined decades of research, practice, experimentation, and exploration.
We believe in the power of human creativity and the necessity of interdependence. Together, we can make a world where we can thrive.
The Minnesota Ecovillage Project combines four essential elements necessary for human thriving: science, spirituality, community, and ecology. Together these four elements create an interlocking and interdependent seed for a new way of being human.
ECOLOGY
Ecology is the story of our relationship to the interconnected web of all Being, our role in the bio-spiritual ecosystem(s) within which our human organisms evolved, our place in the family of things. We understand our fundamental interdependence on the Sun, the Earth, and the many biological organisms with which we share the breath of Life. We believe that a life of thriving begins with an intimate, humble relationship with the ground beneath our feet -- the source of our food, our energy, our orientation, and our existential meaning. The ecological relationships in which we live and move and have our being are the foundation from which a meaningful life may emerge.
COMMUNITY
Human beings evolved in small, interdependent, complex communities of people united by common goals, values, stories, and song. Modern Western Industrialized society is constituted of isolated individuals whose ego identities are limited to self and nuclear family, with little sense of belonging or responsibility to tribe or village. This shift to the individual has been a well-documented disaster of unforeseen proportions for human well-being. This fact is attested by ancient wisdom, indigenous spirituality, and scientific sociological research alike. If we want to thrive, we must rebuild the human technology of interdependent community, and with it reclaim all the smaller technologies that make interdependent community possible -- nonviolent communication, nonhierarchical self-governance, conscious informed consent, community rituals, singing and dancing and eating together.
SCIENCE
Science is how we align our stories about the world with the Reality that underlies all existence. The scientific method is an essential means of aligning our fallible, finite understandings with infinite Reality. We affirm that science keeps us accountable to a reality larger than ourselves, larger than our individual stories, and larger than even our limited anthropocentric perspectives.
SPIRITUALITY
Spirituality is the essential nature of human experience wherein we experience ourselves to something greater than ourselves -- the Universe, the Mystery, the Divine. We understand that spirituality transcends dogmatic categories and religious institutions, and that it is essential for human thriving. We intend to practice nature-oriented spirituality in a posture of humility, experimentation, and play -- bringing the best of our own spiritual traditions and creating the conditions for alchemy to bring forth something new.