Category: Uncategorized

Hey all!

I finally published my website – or, at least the outlines of it! If you go and visit it, you’ll see my contract and then an about the author page. There are options in the menu, but nothing in those options as of right now. I plan on adding some more to it tomorrow.

I don’t have much news on my front, as I’m still waiting to have another interview. While I wrote down the previous interview, I did not record it in any way. I hope to conduct the interview in a different way this time so that I can either record it or videotape it. Hopefully I will hear back from Quinn soon.

Since Dr. Schact and Dr. Schleef always ask us if we have or had any problems with WordPress, I’ll say that what I posted today included a learning process. Most of the work I did today was just messing with the options on WordPress and looking back at the website to see if I liked its appearance. There weren’t any problems, though I did have to make some notes (i.e. this button will do this). But I think WordPress is not as daunting now.

There’s still some things I don’t know how to do with WordPress (and inevitably, other things that I’ll have to learn), but I think I like the way my website looks right now.

See y’all Wednesday!

-Lane

One thing I wanted to talk about in this blog is the farming that Garden of Eden conducts. Although there are plenty of herbs and berries already on the land, they plant and irrigate much more. Their largest crop is their salad greens grown year round in raised beds.

Another part of the food production at Garden of Eden is their chickens. There are also two goats, five rabbits, and a couple of dozen chickens. A shelter was built a few years back to house all of the animals, made out of re-purposed pallets, with a billboard tarp serving as the roof. This can house 100 chickens, four goats and a dozen rabbits.

Like I said, they plant their own berries; however, there are often berries that have already grown on the land that they utilize. The video below shows Quinn Eaker, leader, tasting some berries on the land. He gives some information on the plant and describes how it tastes, etc. It’s interesting to watch.

Although it’s not a long video, this is a part of series that the community puts out once a week. This series talks about a variety of topics and happenings at the community to help outsiders up to date.

(Also: while this video is posted on Quinn’s personal YouTube account, there is also a YouTube account for Garden of Eden. Both accounts post frequently.)

 

I thought it was interesting that both articles looked at how the influence of religion could actually lead to the success of a community. I liked that they pointed out that the right amount of pressure would lead to success, but with too much pressure on a community, it would eventually lead to the failure of said community.

I particularly liked Kanter’s article, as that article mentioned Freud. It said that leaders were like fathers, and that some communities would even refer to their leaders as fathers, and that the community members were children.

That article also talked about slow periods of building, which I thought was particularly important. It mentioned that some communities started as groups, then moved to a slightly larger group, and then formed as a community and turned out successful. It was interesting in that it compared that success to communities that formed quickly and failed.

Out of both articles, I liked the idea that religious guidelines (like morality, perseverance, etc) with or without the presence of religion, will lead to the success of the community.

I think that’s something that Reece hinted at, especially with the Shakers, as they had a prolonged success. However, I like that the articles stated that was one of the chief reasons communities succeeded and/or failed, or succeeded and then failed.

Out of  the communities we have read about in Utopia Drive, I would say that my favorite was Warren’s idea of the Equity Store, or my time for your time. I think this was my favorite because the others – especially the Shakers – seemed like a great opportunity for a community as long as everyone agreed and continued to believe in those ideas.

For me, however, I could see myself losing that drive and passion that I had originally joined the community with. With the Equity Store – and similarly, with the equity village – I didn’t think that it was something I would particularly lose interest in. In my opinion, it seemed easier than the other communities we have read about that seemed to ask for much more of the person. In the equity village, all you had to do was trade your time for someone else’s labor (and time.) It seemed like a perfect idea.

Similarly, Warren seemed the most sound to me. With Mother Ann Lee, I thought some of her ideas were… a little off. I think – after reading about some of the other communities – that you have to be that way to start a movement like Mother Ann Lee and Robert Owen did. But in terms of a community or movement that I would want to join, I thought Warren perfectly embodied a community that would work together and prosper together.

With these thoughts in mind, I thought the equity village was perfectly equitable, a quality that Warren was precisely looking for.

I also liked our discussions about the communities mentioned in Utopia Drive. In Reece’s novel, there is plenty of information, but to discuss the ideals at hand makes it easier to understand the communities and their founders. The book is interesting also in that Reece continually references the communities. He will talk of another community and say, “Just like…” and revert back to a community we had previously talked about. It’s interesting to see just how many similarities these very different communities have.

For my COPLAC Into the Woods project, I am going to be studying the Garden of Eden in Arlington, Texas.

Because I am working on this project on my own, it was at first difficult to get a grasp on what type of community I wanted to study and how to locate a community like that nearby.  However, by searching in and around Wichita Falls, I got some results.

During my search, I decided to look at the Garden of Eden, and it was quite literally a Garden of Eden.  The community has achieved so much even though they have only been active for seven years.  There was just a wealth of information present and I was incredibly excited to learn more.

I would like to study the Garden of Eden, and more specifically, I would like to look at the “Garden of Eden 2.0,” which the group hopes to create soon. I would also like to travel to the Garden of Eden and take my own photographs to put up on the blog later.

I think a more involved look at their lifestyle and community would give not only me but others a better look at the Garden of Eden.  That’s why I hope to talk to several different members and get a complete view of the community. At least – that’s my hope for right now.

I’ve learned so far that I really like the idea of a community, and I especially like all the things that a community can achieve. Like at the Garden of Eden, those who live in the community have saved 350,000 pounds of trash from the landfill annually and the cost of living is under $1 a day per person. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Successful communities are just that – successful – but it’s amazing to look at how much work they have put into being just that. I’ve learned that’s why there’s only so many thriving communities today. It takes a lot of work.

I look forward to learning more about the Garden of Eden and the fantastic lifestyle the community members lead. I feel like I’ll be more and more awestruck as the semester progresses – and probably find myself wanting to join a community more and more.

-Lane