Community
Ecological Plant Community... According to Kricher and Morrison, in A Field Guide to Eastern Forests North America, "A forest [community] is an assemblage of plants and animals coexisting and interacting." Community makeup is decided by factors including climate, geology, soil, fire, biotic interactions, and human influence (Kricher and Morrison). Examples of plant communities are savannahs, beech-maple forests, mixed Appalachian forests, heath balds, etc. I think of a plant community as a community that is defined by the plants that make up that community. Certain plants, microorganisms, and animals are not able to survive unless they are co-existing.
Global Community... Often, people think of a global community as the worldwide community of humans, of all ethnicities and nationalities. I think of a global community in an even broader, ecological sense, including people, as well as all biotic and abiotic beings and processes. The global community to me is dynamic, interconnected and circular.
Herbaceous... According to Allan Armitage, Horticulture professor at the University of Georgia, an herbaceous plant is one "having no persistent, woody tissue above the ground." Usually we think of herbaceous plants as those that die back to the ground in the winter in northern climates. Examples of herbaceous plants are vegetables, lilies, petunias, hollyhocks, etc. The other major category of plant type would be woody plants. These are trees, shrubs or vines that do have woody persistent growth above ground through the year.
Intentional Community... Intentional communities can be conceived as "hippyish" or "cultish" or "commune-like." I'm sure this is true for some intentional communities, but these qualifiers can be stereotypical and myth-laden. I would define my intentional community as one where we were trying to live purposefully as a community. We tried to make decisions based on the greater good of the commons. We shared chores, funds for food, and our lives. It wasn't like we were 5 people sharing space in a house and pitching in for rent.
Consensus... The method we used to make decisions was this: If we had an issue with anything (house affairs, finances, conflicts, chores, etc.) we would write it down on a piece of paper and put it in a jar. Then we would have meetings (which started out weekly, moved to every other week, and then monthly later on) where we would discuss the things in the jar. Our meetings were timed for an hour apiece. So we would prioritize the issues as a group and then attempt to come up with a solution. To do this, suggestions were made as to how we could handle the issue. Then, we would "vote" on the suggestions. Each person would give their own rating from 1 - 5, 1 meaning they strongly disagreed with the proposal, 5 being they completely agreed, and so on. If one person threw out a 1 and four people threw out 5s, we would continue to try to come up with an amenable solution. So, we could only move on if everyone threw out at least a 3 or a 4. I cannot even begin to explain how utterly frustrating this process was.
My housemates and I did not know each other before we moved in, and we did not choose the people that we wanted in our intentional community. We were of different social, religious, gender and age bents. What was crucial to one was not even on the radar of another. Some members would kick their heels into the mud and not budge on an issue. I am a peacemaker, an in-betweener, a pleaser. So when it comes to things like dishes, I can do them if you want them done, but I also don't care if they sit there for a while. I have my opinions, but I also respect the opinions of others and am willing to compromise.
Compromise, however, is not consensus. Compromise means that you have to be willing to sacrifice in order to receive, a kind of swap. Consensus means that everyone has to be willing to come to mutual agreement.
I am a laid back person, and would go so far as saying that I am even patient. But I loathed those meetings. Unfortunately, I was turned off by consensus decison-making in my community because I was invested in it, hopeful that it would work smoothly, willing to make changes in myself, and respectful of others, but not everyone else felt the same way.
Although community living was challenging when we had to make consensus decisions, I think it was ultimately satisfying and worthwhile because the world isn’t made up of people who are all thinking along the same lines. In order for there to be equity and consensus among people, hard work is involved.
Sources:
Armitage, Allan M. Herbaceous Perennial Plants 2nd edition, p.1099. 1989, Stipes publishing, Champaign, Illinois.
Kricher, John and Morrison, Gordon. A Field Guide to Eastern Forests, North America: A Field Guide to Birds, Mammals, Trees, Flowers, and More. 1998, Houghton Mifflin, New York, New York.
Global Community... Often, people think of a global community as the worldwide community of humans, of all ethnicities and nationalities. I think of a global community in an even broader, ecological sense, including people, as well as all biotic and abiotic beings and processes. The global community to me is dynamic, interconnected and circular.
Herbaceous... According to Allan Armitage, Horticulture professor at the University of Georgia, an herbaceous plant is one "having no persistent, woody tissue above the ground." Usually we think of herbaceous plants as those that die back to the ground in the winter in northern climates. Examples of herbaceous plants are vegetables, lilies, petunias, hollyhocks, etc. The other major category of plant type would be woody plants. These are trees, shrubs or vines that do have woody persistent growth above ground through the year.
Intentional Community... Intentional communities can be conceived as "hippyish" or "cultish" or "commune-like." I'm sure this is true for some intentional communities, but these qualifiers can be stereotypical and myth-laden. I would define my intentional community as one where we were trying to live purposefully as a community. We tried to make decisions based on the greater good of the commons. We shared chores, funds for food, and our lives. It wasn't like we were 5 people sharing space in a house and pitching in for rent.
Consensus... The method we used to make decisions was this: If we had an issue with anything (house affairs, finances, conflicts, chores, etc.) we would write it down on a piece of paper and put it in a jar. Then we would have meetings (which started out weekly, moved to every other week, and then monthly later on) where we would discuss the things in the jar. Our meetings were timed for an hour apiece. So we would prioritize the issues as a group and then attempt to come up with a solution. To do this, suggestions were made as to how we could handle the issue. Then, we would "vote" on the suggestions. Each person would give their own rating from 1 - 5, 1 meaning they strongly disagreed with the proposal, 5 being they completely agreed, and so on. If one person threw out a 1 and four people threw out 5s, we would continue to try to come up with an amenable solution. So, we could only move on if everyone threw out at least a 3 or a 4. I cannot even begin to explain how utterly frustrating this process was.
My housemates and I did not know each other before we moved in, and we did not choose the people that we wanted in our intentional community. We were of different social, religious, gender and age bents. What was crucial to one was not even on the radar of another. Some members would kick their heels into the mud and not budge on an issue. I am a peacemaker, an in-betweener, a pleaser. So when it comes to things like dishes, I can do them if you want them done, but I also don't care if they sit there for a while. I have my opinions, but I also respect the opinions of others and am willing to compromise.
Compromise, however, is not consensus. Compromise means that you have to be willing to sacrifice in order to receive, a kind of swap. Consensus means that everyone has to be willing to come to mutual agreement.
I am a laid back person, and would go so far as saying that I am even patient. But I loathed those meetings. Unfortunately, I was turned off by consensus decison-making in my community because I was invested in it, hopeful that it would work smoothly, willing to make changes in myself, and respectful of others, but not everyone else felt the same way.
Although community living was challenging when we had to make consensus decisions, I think it was ultimately satisfying and worthwhile because the world isn’t made up of people who are all thinking along the same lines. In order for there to be equity and consensus among people, hard work is involved.
Sources:
Armitage, Allan M. Herbaceous Perennial Plants 2nd edition, p.1099. 1989, Stipes publishing, Champaign, Illinois.
Kricher, John and Morrison, Gordon. A Field Guide to Eastern Forests, North America: A Field Guide to Birds, Mammals, Trees, Flowers, and More. 1998, Houghton Mifflin, New York, New York.
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