Residency Gatherette Report

September 12-14, 2008

Pixie Harlots by Ves Pitts 6/2/2008

Jump to the Gist of things.

This weekend's work/residency gatherette was a notable step.  We made huge progress both on the physical building and on the initial brainstorms building toward Destiny's Mission Statement goal of having folks live on the land year-round.  We remained true to our ideals of preserving openness in our decision-making process, while we reached a turning point in the construction of our kitchen by the final closing-off of all exposed straw in the structure!  Unless something unforeseen occurs, none of us will ever again see the straw that will protect us and those who follow us for generations.

Balance was a theme I noticed running through our discussions and our work this weekend, notably with the question “How can we balance the needs of everybody who wants to be part of this project.”

In all, we were 12-14 folks at any given time.  We held residency discussions on Saturday evening around the old kitchen fire and on Sunday morning before lunch and work on the building proceeded around those discussions.  We who gathered agreed that I would write this report on the weekend and that it would be published upon consensus of those present.

On Friday I arrived on the land to a sparkling kitchen, kept clean by Zennia's tireless efforts.  Both Zennia and Wave were at the old kitchen, completing work on the back wall of the new kitchen and the window sills, which are huge shelves.  Before supper, Wave got the shower walled in and those shelves completed.  I stood in the shower area and had visions of all the cleaning (and other activities) that will be taking place in that spot for decades to come.   Later, Autumn, then Bambi arrived, followed by Peter, who was returning home at long last home to Destiny from a work stint in Maine. We six (Autumn, Bambi, Michel, Peter, Wave and Zennia) sat down to share delicious food topped with a dessert of Zennia's fresh Zucchini bread.  After supper, we talked a bit and went to bed fairly early, knowing that Daisy and Joshua would arrive around midnight, which they did.

On Saturday, Matt, Endora & Mr. Lanier arrived and took to sealing the windows with mud, along with Daisy and Zennia, while Matt began planning the framing of the clerestory windows above the porch and gave me lessons in section study.  Bambi and I took a field trip to the home of our foresters, Don and Nina Huffer to discuss our forestry plan and receive from their over-abundant garden, and home-baked chocolate chip cookies made by their son, Ethan.  They are truly generous friends to Destiny in the local community.  I baked bread, which Autumn used in the making of lunch and the afternoon work continued straight on until supper.

Just before dark we opened our Residency Discussion with a grounding exercise, then settled into a brainstorm sharing of our various ideas on residency, what it might look like, what those of us as potential full-time residents might need from other residents and how the unfolding of this aspect of Destiny's Mission might look like over time.

In all, 14 folks responded to the call by coming to the gatherette (Autumn, Bambi, Daisy, Endora, Jade, Joshua, Matt, Michel, Mr. Lanier, Peter, Wave, Zennia and later Jason S., and Drew).  That first night, 12 of us covered what we as individuals envisioned for ourselves in terms of residency at Destiny.  It was notable that of the 12 folks present, there were 12 very different concepts of what that residency looked like.  Many who were not present and who have no desire to reside full-time had sent feedback about their support, concerns and their own specific visions.  I noticed to myself how this discussion is typical - the broad concepts become much clearer before the specific details come into focus.  We clearly have some work to do to merge these visions into reality!

Well after dark, and just as the very middle of Endora's giant home-made, but frozen, lasagna was hot enough to eat and Autumn's Ratatouille was ready to serve, we sat down to share supper and more brainstorming.  After supper, more free-form discussions flowed, though a bit more subdued thanks to all those carbohydrates and Bambi's chocolate chip cookies.  Around 11:30 Matt pulled out his guitar, Daisy got out his auto-harp and the music began – with "Baby in the Night Air," an improv by Jade, Autumn and Matt.  I made my way back to my tent and at midnight drifted off to the soothing heart-beat sounds of the drum.

On Sunday morning, it rained steadily for the better part of the early morning hours and fog covered the land.  As usual, a coffee klatch formed in the old kitchen, as folks drifted in for their morning fast-breaking.  We motivated ourselves eventually to circle for about two hours on the issues of residency.  This circle was more about concrete next steps and how to best create an effective, transparent process.

There were several key ideas that seemed to resonate with the group.

1. 1.  Residency at Destiny will seem to exist in three different forms.  Many folks wish to reside at Destiny for various weekends, some for weeks or months each year and others full-time.  We acknowledge that everybody has a stake in Destiny being some kind of home to them, and all three forms of residency need to be accommodating so that the entire project is strengthened.
2. 2. We all agreed that more long-term residents are crucial to Destiny's ability to be sustainable now that there is so much more work needed to maintain what we have created and to make the land open to visitors during the summer.  While much work needs to be done on determining what responsibilities residents would have, it was widely shared that at this point, Destiny needs residents in order to move forward on all the parts of our mission statement.   We've seen over the last three years with the presence of folks on the land regularly a dramatic increase in the number of folks who come to the land.  The quality of our shared meals has also increased, folks new to Destiny have increased, the quality (and quantity!) of our drag has increased.  Sweats, rituals, fire circles – have all increased sharply over the last three years. This means that as we continue to balance our needs and provide everybody with those comforts and necessities that make being on the land possible more often, more folks will benefit from a Sanctuary whose front gate spends less time closed and more time wide open.
3. 3.  We as a community need to figure out how to provide equitably for the needs of those three approaches to Residency and how to determine the responsibilities of each to the circle and the land, so that the Sanctuary stays safely open to all.
4. 4. We recognized that there is already a plan as to where tent platforms should be built, and currently, anybody with the desire to do so can make their periods of residence more comfortable by building 10x10 tent platforms within the approved development zone.  (Contact Land Use:  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )
5. 5.  We discussed how best to recognize the difference economic and physical abilities the members of our communities have and the need to do our best to BALANCE moving forward in the near future with the need to be vigilant about class and inclusion.  One powerful suggestion was that we raise money for the milling or purchasing of communal wood explicitly so folks can build tent platforms regardless of individual means. 
6. 6.  One very intriguing idea was the possibility of building tent platforms that have hard roofs and even cloth (non-permanent) walls that are more heat-retaining, dry and tall enough for even the tallest among us to stand up.  Such tents are not prohibitively expensive, fit within our permitting, and would immediately allow residents of various lengths more comfort and sustainability on the land. 
7. 7.  We also discussed balancing building cabins that are bunkhouses with cabins that include more long-term residences.  In combination with these tents, it would be possible to move the three various approaches to residency forward together, instead of framing it as a competition for limited resources. 
8. 8.  It is important that the larger circle needs to retain its involvement and primary responsibility for creating and facilitating gatherings.  There was concern that the larger 'gathering' community might begin to rely on residents to do that work and this could lead to a sort of hierarchy of 'staff' and 'consumers' , as well as reduce the very successful level of input and 'buy-in' we now have.
9.  9.  Our discussion circle concluded with a proposal that a Comet would form at the More than Annual Meeting to move forward these ideas about residency, getting input from the community and returning to future meetings for consensus, much as the Kitchen Comet did.  We also agreed that we would report on the weekend's events to share with those who were not present.

Only one decision was made by this group: To propose the formation of a specialized Comet at our next business meeting, the MTAM:  (To offer feedback about this meeting date/location see:  http://www.faeriecampdestiny.org/joomla/content/view/154/1.)

The proposal, as it currently exists is: 

“Following the successful model of the Design Comet, the Residency Gatherette proposes the formation of a Comet to:
    1. Explore the integration of the all ready consented mission of residency and gatherings (http://www.faeriecampdestiny.org/joomla/content/view/141/155/).
    2. Explore the needs, responsibilities and parameters of gatherers, short-term residents, and long-term residents at FCD.

If consented to, this comet will enter orbit at the 2008 More Than Annual Meeting and complete first orbit by Governance 2009, with possible continuing orbits with the intention of gathering and integrating feedback and information. However, we do not plan to fly into the Sun.

The Comet would be available for boarding from More Than Annual Meeting 2008 to New Year's 2009.”

Since Destiny's Mission Statement (http://www.faeriecampdestiny.org/joomla/content/view/113/37/) guides this entire project, we also thought it could be useful to make it more accessible to folks.  The mission statement will be published to the homepage of the website soon and will be included also in this report.

At about 12:30 we closed the Residency Gatherette talks with a visioning lead by Daisy, seeing in our mind's eye a kitchen busy with four or five joyful cooks, several folks sitting at the counter bar sharing a silly joke, sipping tea, with the sounds of conversations wafting inside from the covered, screened-in porch where some are playing cards and others are knitting.  The smell of home-made food fills the air while the sound of laughter weaves it all together.

Afterwards we broke for a casual lunch, said so long to Endora, Mr Lanier, Peter and Jason and continued work on the old Kitchen.  Interestingly, a stranger had found himself on our road during our lunch house as Jason was preparing to Shelburne Falls.  We at the kitchen had seen him walking past those of us hanging out the old kitchen.  Jason encountered him up at the new kitchen and made attempts to welcome him, but the stranger made homophobic remarks to Jason at which point Jason suggested he leave the property.  On his way out, the stranger passed me on the road.  I greeted his dog cheerfully, at which point the stranger said "Don't talk to me, you fucking faerie."  I stood by a bit stunned as he walked on by.  The stranger left without making eye contact, passing Zennia on the driveway who was returning form a hardware store run.  Jade followed the stranger out the gate and Jason called the State Police to register the incident.  My energetic read of the guy was that he was completely caught off guard by our presence on the land (locals often times walk around up there when we're not even around.) and was merely reacting poorly to his surprise, but had I been alone on the property the interaction would have felt entirely different and since Vermont's hate crime laws clearly protect sexual orientation and gender expression, the police document each interaction that is reported to them.

We processed our experience and got back to work:  Wave and Drew built the seat benches out of full 3-4 inch-thick slabs of whole trees that were milled from our own land.  They look fabulous and promise to be amazingly comfortable.  Matt and I came to a stopping point in the planning for the Clerestory windows and so we moved on to dry-walling over the last bits of exposed straw inside the building in the area just under the clerestory, while Bambi goaded all of us onward and as Daisy finished putting the second coat of mud on the south-east corner of the building (the one by the font entrance).

We broke at around 6:30 to a super supper of spiced bean stew and rice prepared by Jade and Zennia's delicious watermelon, tomato, basil and feta cheese salad.  Daisy got a jump on dishes before heading out with Joshua.  We said so long to Matt, Jade, Daisy and Joshua all at the same time and suddenly the land was quiet again, as Bambi, Zennia, Wave, Drew and I sat together under a thick blanket of amazingly balmy fog and shared bouts of laughter over things entirely unimportant.  ~~ Michel