If I was asked that question two or three years ago, the answer would have been quite different. Of course not unrecognizably so, but removed enough that one could be forgiven for thinking I was speaking of a different place. In a sense I was.... Atangard is no longer that attractive, exciting, intangible ideal that was developing in the fall of 2007 and is now a somewhat mundane reality. Not that it is boring; Oh by no means! Rather it is no longer cerebral, it has become very physical. To put it another way, for me in this past year Atangard has gone from almost completely philosophical to nearly entirely practical. Don't get me wrong, I would not change a moment of this reality to return to those days of imagining it, but I do miss those days.
I guess in order to describe accurately what Atangard means to me now, I must reconcile it with what it was to me in the past and what I want it to be in the future. I will try to do that in a single phrase but it will be at the expense of all the other ideas, actions and relationships that make up the essence of Atangard.
What Atangard was to me: A place where the current social trend of isolationism and individualism will be countered.
What Atangard is to me: A place where strangers become friends and we learn to love people despite our selfishness.
What I Want Atangard to be: A place where people's passions are shared by others in both thought and action.
Of course just because I was, doesn't mean it is that no longer nor just because I desire it for the future is it not here and now, yet this is where i feel the mindset of the majority lies right now and where I want it to go.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Revisit the Reasons
Over the past year, two years, three years, people have asked why are you doing this. I've always had an answer, it sometimes changes. Or maybe there are so many reasons that it seems my answer changes, but it is actually only part of the whole. But as of late it has come up again. It is something that Ron Dart and Father Michael emphasized, and in trying times it is something that I ask myself. Why am I doing this. It's good to revisit. It's good to be certain. So here are some of my reasons.
When I moved home from California, I didn't really have any friends. Maybe a few. When your that far removed, you don't even really know where to find some like-minded folk. I realized that the strongest relationships I had were with people I'd lived with. Vonnegut said it well. “What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.”
Reason #1. To create a place that can facilitate real and lasting relationships. Exposure to new and different people. A home to welcome others.
When I came home from traveling I hated how our lives were built around aquiring stuff, building our career, and independence.
Reason #2. To fight the American dream, the culture of independence and self-promotion. To be able to live for less to save money and time to be able to put into relationships, art, music, and other endeavors. To create a culture that is alive, people that take risks and try new things.
These are perhaps the main reasons. The "ideal" that I hold onto. I love it when I look over these things and recognize how different aspects of it are being fulfilled. There is always more room for growth and change.
For me personally. I have found some 'like-minded folk." Sometimes it seems like I may have found more non-like-minded folk, but that is okay. Thats the exposure to different people. I've met and gotten to know many wonderful people, be it residents, short term visitors, long term visitors and those in the neighborhood. And I've gotten to engage in different projects just for kicks, utilizing the talents and interests of many of these wonderful people. I am excited to see what else takes place in these next years.
When I moved home from California, I didn't really have any friends. Maybe a few. When your that far removed, you don't even really know where to find some like-minded folk. I realized that the strongest relationships I had were with people I'd lived with. Vonnegut said it well. “What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.”
Reason #1. To create a place that can facilitate real and lasting relationships. Exposure to new and different people. A home to welcome others.
When I came home from traveling I hated how our lives were built around aquiring stuff, building our career, and independence.
Reason #2. To fight the American dream, the culture of independence and self-promotion. To be able to live for less to save money and time to be able to put into relationships, art, music, and other endeavors. To create a culture that is alive, people that take risks and try new things.
These are perhaps the main reasons. The "ideal" that I hold onto. I love it when I look over these things and recognize how different aspects of it are being fulfilled. There is always more room for growth and change.
For me personally. I have found some 'like-minded folk." Sometimes it seems like I may have found more non-like-minded folk, but that is okay. Thats the exposure to different people. I've met and gotten to know many wonderful people, be it residents, short term visitors, long term visitors and those in the neighborhood. And I've gotten to engage in different projects just for kicks, utilizing the talents and interests of many of these wonderful people. I am excited to see what else takes place in these next years.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
fixed-gear community
Lately, I’ve realized that I may be one of the only residents here that doesn’t have a bicycle of some sort. I’ve been keeping an eye out for the bike that I will purchase and make my own, and thanks to a few of my roommates, I have a fairly good idea of what I am looking for.
Last Saturday, a friend and I made our way to a local antique hotspot in search of my future two-wheeled beauty. We found an old grey twelve speed that had potential if I could get it for the right price. The right price, however, was low, since I would have had to spend a lot of money making it into want I really wanted: it was an old, heavy, twelve speed rather than a freshly painted, light, fixed gear. I took the fully functioning bike to its owner and asked how much he wanted for it. As it was, he wanted quite a lot more than I was willing to pay. Our disagreement over the value of the bike was very obvious. I saw the bike as one that would require a significant post-purchase investment, and he saw the bike as is, being in perfectly good operational shape. Neither of us was right or wrong, it’s just that we had very different opinions about what the future of the bike should be, which in turn affected our opinion about the bikes current worth.
Recently, my thoughts regarding community living have occupied a sizable amount of mental real estate. I’ve been wondering what, in a practical sense, community living should look like. Further, I’ve tried to remember what people had initially hoped living here would be like and then attempted to compare those initial expectations with, after a years time, what we now experience. It seems, especially after the last house meeting, that we have been struggling in many ways as a community. Let me suggest two possible ways to deal with this unrest:
With only a slight change in operational structuring, we could, if desired, just settle and become an edgy little dormitory. By this I mean that we could ditch the community ideal almost completely and settle for just enough involvement with each other to keep the communal spaces clean and people comfortable.
OR
As some have suggested, we could work towards reviving the very personal, intimate, loving, honest, and sometimes painful pursuit of living and actively engaging each other.
What we have to do is decide whether or not this community is one that is currently fulfilling its purpose or if we each need to invest more, or perhaps in different ways, to pursue something beyond Atangards current culture.
I left empty handed and bike-less last weekend, refusing to compromise my understanding of its worth and my vision for it. I still need to find that bike, the one that is fit to purchase and pursue. For us residents, we live here, in downtown Abbotsford, on the second floor of the Fraser Valley Inn. Fortunately, we’ve already found a community that we value and have justified our involvement in. Do we choose to keep this place as is, discontinue any significant investment and ride it out until its broken; or do we continue the pursuit to change it into something beautiful, a shared vision of community in which we all equally partake?
This decision, or the like, each one of us will have to make and continually pursue.
Hopefully we can do so in unity.
Love,
jordan
Last Saturday, a friend and I made our way to a local antique hotspot in search of my future two-wheeled beauty. We found an old grey twelve speed that had potential if I could get it for the right price. The right price, however, was low, since I would have had to spend a lot of money making it into want I really wanted: it was an old, heavy, twelve speed rather than a freshly painted, light, fixed gear. I took the fully functioning bike to its owner and asked how much he wanted for it. As it was, he wanted quite a lot more than I was willing to pay. Our disagreement over the value of the bike was very obvious. I saw the bike as one that would require a significant post-purchase investment, and he saw the bike as is, being in perfectly good operational shape. Neither of us was right or wrong, it’s just that we had very different opinions about what the future of the bike should be, which in turn affected our opinion about the bikes current worth.
Recently, my thoughts regarding community living have occupied a sizable amount of mental real estate. I’ve been wondering what, in a practical sense, community living should look like. Further, I’ve tried to remember what people had initially hoped living here would be like and then attempted to compare those initial expectations with, after a years time, what we now experience. It seems, especially after the last house meeting, that we have been struggling in many ways as a community. Let me suggest two possible ways to deal with this unrest:
With only a slight change in operational structuring, we could, if desired, just settle and become an edgy little dormitory. By this I mean that we could ditch the community ideal almost completely and settle for just enough involvement with each other to keep the communal spaces clean and people comfortable.
OR
As some have suggested, we could work towards reviving the very personal, intimate, loving, honest, and sometimes painful pursuit of living and actively engaging each other.
What we have to do is decide whether or not this community is one that is currently fulfilling its purpose or if we each need to invest more, or perhaps in different ways, to pursue something beyond Atangards current culture.
I left empty handed and bike-less last weekend, refusing to compromise my understanding of its worth and my vision for it. I still need to find that bike, the one that is fit to purchase and pursue. For us residents, we live here, in downtown Abbotsford, on the second floor of the Fraser Valley Inn. Fortunately, we’ve already found a community that we value and have justified our involvement in. Do we choose to keep this place as is, discontinue any significant investment and ride it out until its broken; or do we continue the pursuit to change it into something beautiful, a shared vision of community in which we all equally partake?
This decision, or the like, each one of us will have to make and continually pursue.
Hopefully we can do so in unity.
Love,
jordan
Monday, August 23, 2010
The eye of the storm
It seems that conflict and controversy have visited us at long last. It has in my opinion been long overdue. We have had one fairly sleepy, fairly easy year. I have no grid by which to measure our journey, and sometimes I think of more common life's examples, though they are quite different. I have heard the first year of marriage is the hardest. I expected this year to be harder. It is interesting that things arise exactly to date on the one year anniversary of this place. Once again I feel that a point of celebration is being downplayed by the arising of another challenge.
So conflict, though our enemy, and a point of discomfort, is not necessarily a bad thing. It is through these things which we will allow to either destroy us, or make us stronger. I hope that we choose to honor one another over ourselves. That we choose to deal with root issues and not push things below the surface. That we will be honest and vulnerable with one another.
An easy relationship carries no depth or solidarity. It is meaningless. It is only based on convenience.
This is a point where we choose what we want, and what is important to us. My friends, lets think about this.
I hope for myself that I can find the strength, humility, and wisdom to help navigate us through this storm. One year in and I feel my energy fading. I do not know how to make this lifestyle sustainable. I used to consider myself a fairly level-headed even keel person. I never understood how some people could live their lives in a constant state of drama. It seems as of late that I am consistently bouncing between one emotionally induced state to another. I don't know if I have become hyper-sensitive, or if I am placed in an emotional epicenter.
I will leave us with this. It is our action that will change things - not overprocessing. Time will tell the outcome.
Happy One Year.
Sophia
So conflict, though our enemy, and a point of discomfort, is not necessarily a bad thing. It is through these things which we will allow to either destroy us, or make us stronger. I hope that we choose to honor one another over ourselves. That we choose to deal with root issues and not push things below the surface. That we will be honest and vulnerable with one another.
An easy relationship carries no depth or solidarity. It is meaningless. It is only based on convenience.
This is a point where we choose what we want, and what is important to us. My friends, lets think about this.
I hope for myself that I can find the strength, humility, and wisdom to help navigate us through this storm. One year in and I feel my energy fading. I do not know how to make this lifestyle sustainable. I used to consider myself a fairly level-headed even keel person. I never understood how some people could live their lives in a constant state of drama. It seems as of late that I am consistently bouncing between one emotionally induced state to another. I don't know if I have become hyper-sensitive, or if I am placed in an emotional epicenter.
I will leave us with this. It is our action that will change things - not overprocessing. Time will tell the outcome.
Happy One Year.
Sophia
Monday, July 26, 2010
Jimmying.
It has been too much time between the genesis of this thought and my writing it down to trace it to its origin. Whatever it was that spurred it - perhaps my endless perusing of home blogs in search of room inspiration and fascination with space or flipping through a magazine or walking down the street - I was struck.
The thought: here, at Atangard, we have an "ours". The birth of this realization must have begun while looking at someone's else's home, with the beginning of envy or longing for their "ours". Mid step, it was halted by what is in front of me daily. The wooden floors I know so well - these days it always my bare feet which walk down the hallways, bringing a more intimate acquaintance than winter's woolen socked barrier. Fingertips brushing textured walls, doors which need a little jimmying and the tens upon tens of quirks that our top floor roost holds.
When you inhabit a place, it is hard to see clearly how you have marked it and it you. However, when someone unknown enters, the sense of home and comfort dwelling along with all our sweaty bodies is palpable. It is also a place to return to - from Vancouver, Southeast Asia, or a season of treeplanting. It took some time, but after the bustle of coming and going, the quiet summer I anticipated has come to rest on Atangard. I cherish it. Yet, I am nearly ready for the return of so many gone, for the marks they have left here to be accompanied once again by their beating hearts and wild laughter.
This "ours" is a gift. Not one of ownership, but of refuge.
The wiser I become, the more grateful I become. I have been attempting to be diligent in recording on film this time, this place, these people. It is a time to be lived deeply. Presently. Joyfully. Here are some shots of our home.
-Elizabeth Ashton
The thought: here, at Atangard, we have an "ours". The birth of this realization must have begun while looking at someone's else's home, with the beginning of envy or longing for their "ours". Mid step, it was halted by what is in front of me daily. The wooden floors I know so well - these days it always my bare feet which walk down the hallways, bringing a more intimate acquaintance than winter's woolen socked barrier. Fingertips brushing textured walls, doors which need a little jimmying and the tens upon tens of quirks that our top floor roost holds.
When you inhabit a place, it is hard to see clearly how you have marked it and it you. However, when someone unknown enters, the sense of home and comfort dwelling along with all our sweaty bodies is palpable. It is also a place to return to - from Vancouver, Southeast Asia, or a season of treeplanting. It took some time, but after the bustle of coming and going, the quiet summer I anticipated has come to rest on Atangard. I cherish it. Yet, I am nearly ready for the return of so many gone, for the marks they have left here to be accompanied once again by their beating hearts and wild laughter.
This "ours" is a gift. Not one of ownership, but of refuge.
The wiser I become, the more grateful I become. I have been attempting to be diligent in recording on film this time, this place, these people. It is a time to be lived deeply. Presently. Joyfully. Here are some shots of our home.
-Elizabeth Ashton
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Atanetizer
It’s been just over a month since I wrote my first cheque for $450 made out to the “Atangard Community Project”. I am now in Prince George planting trees for the next 3 months, with the taste of community still lingering, enticing me to focus on the post-season main course: 9 more months living in downtown Abby.
I felt like my leaving home was a celebration of past reflection and anticipation. Around this time, several of us are going our separate ways - many are leaving to traipse around the world, others are seasonal workers, and those who are staying will have a unique experience of there own – though what we all share is our excitement for the last month of summer, when we all return to share our dog days.
My month long community hors d'oeuvre has been a unique and enlivening experience. It has been warm, loving, and best of all [in my opinion] it has been shared. That being said, it hasn’t all been fairytales and farts. Living with so many people, so many personalities; it has been occasionally quite a balancing act trying to acquaint myself with everyone’s habits, values, and humour. Fortunately, living in community has proven to be rather forgiving, which is great for someone like myself who can be frustratingly stubborn in adapting to others.
Of course, a community in a city the size of Abbotsford doesn’t consist of only 20 or so people. It is worth mentioning how friends and family have been involved and how they have blessed the people who live here. On behalf of my own experience, I appreciate my friends and family who have chosen to spend time with me and my housemates. All of you who invest in our lives here are the icing on the community cake, and are deeply loved. I can’t wait to return home and spend time with all of you!
However, before this happens I have a summer in the bush to get through. Over the past few days I have been reunited with dear friends who I have known every summer for over a half a decade. I am looking forward to my summer friends, my planting camp: my seasonal community mistress. As I fondly think of all of my ‘roommates’ soon to be scattered all over the world, and those who are staying home holding down the fort, I continue to live life in reflection and anticipation of the community I currently find myself in, as well as the one that I will return to.
Love,
~jordan
I felt like my leaving home was a celebration of past reflection and anticipation. Around this time, several of us are going our separate ways - many are leaving to traipse around the world, others are seasonal workers, and those who are staying will have a unique experience of there own – though what we all share is our excitement for the last month of summer, when we all return to share our dog days.
My month long community hors d'oeuvre has been a unique and enlivening experience. It has been warm, loving, and best of all [in my opinion] it has been shared. That being said, it hasn’t all been fairytales and farts. Living with so many people, so many personalities; it has been occasionally quite a balancing act trying to acquaint myself with everyone’s habits, values, and humour. Fortunately, living in community has proven to be rather forgiving, which is great for someone like myself who can be frustratingly stubborn in adapting to others.
Of course, a community in a city the size of Abbotsford doesn’t consist of only 20 or so people. It is worth mentioning how friends and family have been involved and how they have blessed the people who live here. On behalf of my own experience, I appreciate my friends and family who have chosen to spend time with me and my housemates. All of you who invest in our lives here are the icing on the community cake, and are deeply loved. I can’t wait to return home and spend time with all of you!
However, before this happens I have a summer in the bush to get through. Over the past few days I have been reunited with dear friends who I have known every summer for over a half a decade. I am looking forward to my summer friends, my planting camp: my seasonal community mistress. As I fondly think of all of my ‘roommates’ soon to be scattered all over the world, and those who are staying home holding down the fort, I continue to live life in reflection and anticipation of the community I currently find myself in, as well as the one that I will return to.
Love,
~jordan
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