Plugging in

At a function the other night I met a woman who recently had moved to Nanaimo. She invited me to meet her for coffee. She told me she was trying to get to know local people. She said, "You know what it's like when you move to a new place and don't know anyone."

Yes, from previous relocations, I knew what she meant. But that reminded me how different my move to Nanaimo had been. When I'd arrived here in September 2008, I'd hit the ground running. I plugged in so quickly, it would have made your head spin.

That was entirely owing to the fact that I'd joined Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community. Even before I'd moved to Nanaimo, while I still was packing up in Calgary, my fellow cohos already were e-mailing me and telling me about upcoming events in Nanaimo and activities I could join.

Very soon after getting here, I knew heaps of people, had a full calendar, and felt as if I'd lived here for years.

When I scanned my calendar to find a free slot in which to meet this lovely new acquaintance for coffee or lunch two weeks out, I did not want to sound like a poser. But the fact was that I had to pick through several activities to find some openings.

On almost a daily basis I am reminded of my gratitude for having found and joined a cohousing community.

Irresistible Nanaimo

Our lunch with our American visitor, whom I mentioned in my previous couple of posts, was illustrative of why Nanaimo is such a neat place to live.

We took him to the Thirsty Camel which, as the name suggests, serves Middle Eastern cuisine, and is my absolute fave in Nanaimo.

The restaurant was packed, and the five of us were occupying a table that could seat six. A woman came along and asked us if she could sit at the end of our table, since there was no other space for her. She promised to do her own thing and not disturb us. We said, "Sure. Go for it."

While she was sitting there, she was stuffing and addressing envelopes. We just carried on with our conversation. Each of us told our visitor what had drawn us to cohousing. As Sharon said, each of our reasons was quite complex, and these were concepts that were not that easy to convey in a short sound bite, on a website, or anything like that.

Some time after the woman who had shared our table had left, Susana noticed that there was a piece of paper at the woman's place. Susana thought it was something that the woman had forgotten, and almost felt embarrassed about reading it, but she did.

Then Susana said, "Hey, guys. Look at this." On the piece of paper, the woman had written, "Key words that I heard were .......," and she went on to list what she considered to be the most important nuggets from our conversation. Then she'd written, "For information about community, contact Dr. So And So at Such And Such University."

We said to our visitor, "This is one of the reasons we love living in Nanaimo. The people here are so awesome."

Our visitor, who was in discussions about the formation of a cohousing community back in his own city, said, "I want to tell folks back home what people here are like. Can I take that piece of paper to show them what I mean?"

A friend indeed

Yup, yesterday's visit was what I hoped it would be and more.

To say that we cohos and our out-of-town guest were kindred spirits really doesn't go far enough.

It was a very meaningful day for me.

A friend I have yet to meet

Today some of my fellow cohos and I will be showing a visitor around Nanaimo, I'll have him over to my house for supper, and then one of our other cohos will be billeting him at her house tonight.

Our visitor lives in the United States, but is in Vancouver on a short-term work assignment. His family has a long history of involvement with intentional communities. So, when he was preparing to come up to this area, he put out his feelers to find out what sorts of intentional communities there were around here. I guess his Google search must have brought up Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community, because he contacted us.

It just goes to show what a useful tool the Internet is.

But the Internet takes you only so far. It can serve as an introduction to people in distant places. Yet the Internet cannot meet your ferry, chat with you, take you on a walking tour along the harbour and through downtown, feed you, and so on.

The cool thing about being involved with intentional communities is that it gives you so much in common with folks in the movement. You pretty much know, in advance, that you will be kindred spirits.

Or at least that's my theory. I am off to test it right now and to find out if, indeed, a stranger is just a friend whom I have yet to meet.

I'll let you know tomorrow how it went.

My sacred body

As I created a title for a new blog post, I chuckled when I noticed that I'd transposed the letters, and had typed My scared body.

That typo probably says it all. I used to be afraid.

As I have settled into supportive communities in Nanaimo, love, peace and joy have flowed in and replaced fear.

One of the developments I have noticed is how much I have been drawn to physical activity and how much I have been enjoying my body.

Last week I moved to a house from which I can walk to most amenities that I need. It has been a tremendous pleasure to walk. I enjoy the sensation of walking. I'm grateful for my comfortable shoes and for a body that is healthy enough to walk. When I walk, I notice so many things about my neighbourhood that would not be visible from a car.

Recently I joined a Tai Chi class, and have been enjoying the slow, gentle, but surprisingly demanding, movements.

Yesterday, Everybody Sings resumed after the Christmas and New Year break. It was delightful to participate once again in the lively singing, clapping and dancing. Shirley said it reminded her of kindergarten, and Ian said it reminded him of summer camp when he'd been a teenager. It sure is fun to be transported back to kindergarten or summer camp as an adult, or to experience them for the first time if you missed out as a kid.

Last night I tried Sacred Circle Dancing for the first time. I found it peaceful, meditative and grounding. I especially liked the fact that there was very little talking, and we dancers just gave ourselves over to the soft music and flowing movement.

Our Sacred Circle Dance teacher, Maureen Wild, said that dancing helped us to be conscious of our bodies, to feel connected to the planet and nature, and to experience ourselves as something other than "a head on a stick."

Food has taken on a new dimension for me too. I have just taken a break from typing and eaten a perfectly ripe tomato. As I sank my teeth into its juicy, red flesh, I reveled in the delicious taste. I was conscious of the earth, water, air and sunlight that had poured themselves into the tomato plant. I appreciated the tomato for giving up its life to sustain mine.

I am experiencing myself as a sacred being, sharing my life with other sacred beings, in a sacred time and space.

My scared self, in the meantime, seems to have kicked off her shoes and joined the dance.

Flourish or stagnate

Less than a year ago, I was not a happy camper. If I had been Goldilocks, I would have been whining because the porridge was too cold, the chair was too hard, and the bed was too soft.

But it wasn't really about the porridge, the chair or the bed. In hindsight, I believe I was frustrated because I had yet to identify my life's purpose and figure out how to live in alignment with it.

The psychologist, Erik Erikson, identified eight stages of life. According to Erikson, each stage involved a task. If you completed the task demanded of the relevant stage, you would be rewarded with a benefit that you would enjoy for the rest of your life. But, if you failed to accomplish a task, you would suffer from a disadvantage.

The good news, though, is that it is possible to catch up later. For example, if you did not acquire basic trust in the world as an infant, it is possible (if challenging) to do the necessary work and establish basic trust later in life.

The stage in which I personally am most interested is the one in which I am at the moment -- middle age. According to Erikson, the accomplishment of this stage is what he called generativity.

What Erikson meant by generativity was a contribution that had the potential to last beyond your own lifetime. The contribution does not have to be spectacular or impressive. The main requirement is that it is meaningful to you.

For example, you might teach a hobby, such as photography, to a child. You might create a garden. You might act as a mentor to a younger member of your profession.

Failure results in stagnation. If you do not give something of yourself to the world, you become stale.

That's how I felt in Calgary, before I bought into Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community and moved to Nanaimo. I felt dull, to the point of suffocation.

My membership of a cohousing community has given me many opportunities to contribute, directly to the cohousing community itself and to the wider community, with which my fellow cohos and I have lots of connections.

Linking this back to my previous couple of posts, I suspect this is one of the greatest losses that hunters experience when they are robbed of their habitat. Older men are denied the opportunity to mentor younger men and boys.

In Iron John, Robert Bly goes on at length about the importance of the role that older men play in the lives of younger men and boys. He also describes how meaningful it is to older men to play a useful part in the lives of younger men and boys.

All the way from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego, hunting-gathering societies implicitly understood this. They all incorporated sophisticated initiation rituals and ceremonies into their customs.

Returning to me, since I have found a renewed sense of purpose, porridge, chairs and beds have ceased to be issues. Those kinds of things have just fallen into place.

Making peace with men

It was serendipitous that my visit to the Royal British Columbia Museum took place at a time when I was re-reading a marvelous book, Iron John by Robert Bly.

Although the museum collection caused me to recall the suffering to which "progress" and "development" have subjected hunter-gatherers, our modern way of life has created challenges for contemporary men too.

As Bly states, the relationship that has been most severely damaged by the Industrial Revolution is the one between father and son. During our hunting-gathering days and even during our agricultural days, fathers and sons used to work alongside each other. Think of the farmers, blacksmiths and carpenters who passed on their skills to their sons.

In an agricultural society, fathers work close to home. They return to their houses for lunch. Their wives and children understand what they do for a living and interact with them a lot.

But that changed for us when men went off to work in distant factories and mines, and later in offices. Their work became specialized, their family members no longer understood what they did for a living, and their wives and children saw much less of them.

Some men, who were forced to work punishing hours, were exhausted, and behaved like jerks.

Women resented being less powerful, but let off steam by disparaging men. One of the rhymes that I remember my mother reciting was:

Girls are made of sugar and spice and all things nice.
Boys are made of snips and snails and puppy dogs' tails.

Once we were both middle aged, I told one of my brothers that I felt uncomfortable about having been elevated at his expense. I asked him how he had felt when he had heard those words. He said, "Like a piece of shit." I felt so sad when he shared that with me.

We see variations on this theme all over the place. For example, television ads invariably portray the dad as the resident idiot who doesn't have the first clue about cold medicine. Then the mom rolls her eyes before revealing the magic elixir that will fix everything.

I am sorry to report that there was a time when I was that smug mom. But I like to think that I have outgrown that attitude.

I know, from first hand experience, that some men behave badly. Yet, with that having been said, I am finding it deeply rewarding to be gaining a new recognition of the gifts that men have to offer the world.

The society that I want to nurture is one that is supportive towards men, women, children and, indeed, our planet. My membership of Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community is central to that commitment.