Welcome!

Hey everyone,

Welcome to the new blog!

I can't believe I've been here for a month already!  It's been a busy month.  We're now fully immersed in the main part of the program: classes, reading, writing, work shifts, etc.  I'm working in the gardens twice a week and the rest of the time is mostly devoted to classes and class-related activities.  Everyone in my program is taking the same four class: worldviews and consciousness, applied sustainability, group dynamics, and a class that combines "creative expression through the arts" and a service-learning project.  It's a constantly changing program (which is why creativity and service learning are part of the same class at the moment), but everything relates in some way back to sustainability, so it doesn't matter that much what gets taught where.

My favorite class is group dynamics, because so far it has been the most "hands-on" in the sense that we're actually practicing what we're learning.  Last week, part of the class was to hold a discussion on the aspects of the program that we think could be improved, and there was a class-wide agreement that the program as a whole could be much more hands-on than it has been so far.  Right now, we're in the process of coming up with ideas to do something about this for the rest of the semester.  It remains to be seen what will happen, but I think just the fact that we have the opportunity to adjust the program to suit us better says a lot about the program.  In this sense, it is a "living education" in that student feedback continually shapes how the program is run.  I'll post more about this as the situation develops.

I'm also excited about our service learning project, which will be to renovate an old semi-underground bunker left over from when the ecovillage was part of the neighboring Royal Air Force base.  It's a pretty small space, and we'll be able to enlist help from the rest of the community, so we should be able to do something nice with it.  Two of the main ideas we have for it so far are as a place to grow organic mushrooms (if we can find someone who knows what they're doing in the community who can take it over once we leave) or to turn it into an anger/stress release sanctuary - basically a soundproof space to go and scream.  (Findhorn isn't by any means an "angry" place, but it couldn't hurt to have a safe place to let out some stress when community living, research papers, or the crappy exchange rate between the dollar and the pound get to bee too much ;)

I've also noticed an interesting disconnect between the spiritual side of the community and the "eco" side.  Some people are here because it's a spiritual community and others are here because it's an ecovillage.  The underlying theme of the whole place is "awareness" - either spiritual awareness, or ecological/environmental awareness, but both halves don't always seem that aware of the other.  It's ironic, because the two types of awareness have the potential to support each other (a spiritual sense of interconnectedness with the world supporting a sense of environmental responsibility, and an environmental awareness supporting that spiritual awareness).  A lot of people here do understand this, but it doesn't always play out so nicely in daily life.  (As an example, there are people who will drive their cars the three blocks to the community center for dinner when it's raining).  Like our program, the ecovillage is a work in progress.

But overall, everything is going well.  I've put more pictures up since my last email:  http://gallery.mac.com/colinkeegan#gallery  and will post some more soon.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Colin