Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage (Rutledge, Missouri) — Visitor Program Review

Update October 2021: several rabbits contributed thoughtful corrections and other perspectives on communal life that have now been incorporated into the text. Thanks!

Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage review: Visitor program, economy, governance, sustainability, zoning, power, water and sewer, building, relational culture and more

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Overall Summary and Conclusions

I attended 8 days out of a 2-week visitor program at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in late May 2021. I left early partly because I had some allergies, partly because I had other exciting things planned, but mostly because I was just “full”. They did an absolutely kick-ass job of educating us on the nature of village life (“drinking through a firehose”) and I liked the relational culture of the place, which includes their “holding” of the visitor program and its participants.

I am writing this review to help others who might be considering the DR visitor program or who are exploring moving to DR and/or living in an Ecovillage. In summary, my impression was almost 100% positive (this is unusual for me, btw, as I shared in our morning check-ins that I am a “glass half-empty” kind of person). There is very little not to like about the place. The main drawbacks from my perspective are the climate and the sustainability requirements which make wood heating almost obligatory. If you don’t like hot humid summers (my case) or wood heating, this is probably not a good match for you. Although you could use it as a 3-season residence, its possible depending on whether you want to flee the summer or winter.

My overall sense of the place is there is a great deal of “human and process density” (25 years of trial-and-error) in terms of the economics, sustainability, governance, and culture. Their relational dynamics have been very challenging in the last few years (see below), but this is typical in ecovillages, and I don’t think things are any worse here than other comparable places. To quote Diana Leafe Christian, the real purpose of intentional community is “friction”, and if you don’t like that, forget it. There are a lot of very smart and very committed people living here, and the people who ran the visitor program were very professional, not afraid of being vulnerable, and left an overall very positive impression. Don’t expect to be showered with love and attention when you land here btw, either as a visitor or even resident or member, they only do that in cults . It’s pretty much creative anarchy here (although within the so-called “covenants”). This, to my mind, signifies a successful ecovillage.

The economics of living here are attractive. There is no joining fee. One can lease a “warren” (land to build on) for as little as $25/mth. Add to that cost the monthly membership fee of $70 (common house) + $20 (humanure), plus municipal taxes, heating, and building maintenance. Altogether this could run as little $1500-$2000/yr, plus heating and municipal taxes. This is a low number as it does not include “co-op memberships”, heating or municipal taxes. There are a number of co-ops providing food, transportation (vehicle co-op), access to showers or common-house kitchen etc. Some members build houses that are just bedrooms and use the common house showers and kitchen (at additional cost). Members are also expected to contribute 2% of their income, on top of this.

It seems that the building and sustainability requirements have relaxed in the last few years and that now traditional construction within certain guidelines is allowed. More details on this below.

Recent history

DR has radically changed in the last 2 years. As of May 2021 the community is in a collective trauma (their description, not mine) from a double hitter: in February 2019 one of the pillars of the community was arrested for child sexual abuse. After many postponements and legal shenanigans, the prosecuting attorney declined to prosecute because the girls were too traumatized to testify and she thought a conviction would not be possible in those circumstances. The charges remain in effect (although subject to a statute of limitations), and the abuser and his family moved to Nicaragua, which has an extradition policy that is not enforced.. It tore  the community apart, and on top of that Covid hit in March 2020 and they could not agree on what to do about that, either.

As a result of the crisis some members left, and others moved on for others reasons. As of May 2021 the population is 57, compared to 72 before the crisis. Currently more women than men. This, we learned (people leaving), is the hardest part of living in community. Intentional Community is not necessarily intended as a “forever” environment and so people leaving should not be viewed as a failure (anymore than people moving around in traditional life should be a considered a failure — America is a very mobile culture). All DR founders have now left. Since the community was founded in 1997 (see DR history article), that makes it just under 25 years old. The longest-time members have been here 22 years (the couple that run the Mercantile, the B&B). My point is that people moving on is a fact of ecovillage life, just as it is a fact of life in the general population.

There are a lot of divorces or relationship breakups, which is another very common thing in ecovillages (one spouse leaves the community, or else polyamorous “family groups” breakup).

Alline (a long-time community resident) shares this perspective on sexual relationships at DR:

Polyamorous relationships are in the minority, although they do tend to add more than their fair share of drama to community dynamics. We have found that relationships either become enhanced and stronger after moving to DR, or immolate. Monogamy remains the norm. There are fewer distractions here, and more of an emphasis on personal responsibility and communication. Some relationships simply don’t survive without all of the outside distractions.

One of the interesting aspects of life in communally-owned organization is that the so-called “last man standing” owns the corporation. Note that this applies to the land, not the houses — houses have permanent owners, whether the owners reside on site or not. Of course the owner would have to continue paying the “warren” land-use fee. Houses are privately owned on land that is leased from the land trust. Since so many people have left (as of May 2021), there are currently a lot of houses for sale or rent. House asking prices range from about $10k to $70k, and rents are cheap. To buy a house you have to be a full member, which (obviously) restricts the market. It’s very difficult to get mortgages on land-trust houses by the way, you have to pay cash or build using cash. More below on building codes

Ownership and Legal, Economics, Zoning, Power, Heating, Cars, Water and Sewer, Building, and Food co-ops

Ownership and Legal

There are several legal organizations and I am not fully understanding (or even fully interested) in the details. But there are two main legal entities, the land trust and the village. The land trust owns and administers the land, whereas the village administers everything else, especially the common house.

There are two levels of membership (not including visitors), which are Residents (6 months to 2 years maximum) and full members. In either case you must pay the “village” fee (sorry I can’t remember the legal entity name) of $72/mth per adult and $20/mth for “sewer” (Humanure, see below), which includes partial use of the common house and the maintenance of all shared property, roads etc (something like a “condo fee”). Using the common house kitchen regularly would add another $50/mth or so. A warren lease (Zone 1, see below) is $0.01 per square foot x 2500 square feet average = $25/mth. Hence my number quoted above, $125/mth, plus municipal taxes, plus the cost of building your house, plus whatever co-ops you join represents the minimal cost for your accommodation (not including power etc). Plus, as mentioned if you are a member, you are supposed to give 2% of your income, which is not policed (something of a voluntary declaration).

Economics and Livelihood

Only a handful of people are employed full-time by the village or land trust. Most have remote jobs (municipal internet is very fast), commute to work to nearby towns, or are retired on a pension. There are only two (to my knowledge) commercial (meaning profit-making, selling to the public) agricultural projects on-site. One runs a dairy farm and sells eggs (its called the Critters) and the other is experimenting with a vineyard.

Here is Alline’s perspective:

Everyone here works at least full time, although it is not in the traditional 40-hour work week. Most often people have a number of different jobs; for example, one might work at the Milkweed Mercantile making pizza, serve on the Village Council, help with the Goat Co-op, and have an Etsy site. VERY few people “have money.” There are a couple of retired folks who have savings and Social Security, which may be where this impression comes from. Voluntary simplicity and anti-capitalism is an important component here at DR. There is a lot of bartering and trading going on, and our gift economy is alive and well. Only one person commutes to a job; she works as an EMT in a neighboring town and has worked it out so that all of her work hours are over the weekend, leaving her weeks free to be here at DR. Most people have large vegetable gardens. While this does not pay in $, the time it takes to produce food is compensated by the abundance of gorgeous produce and value-added products. (If you were here in the late summer/fall you would see LOTS of canning, fermenting, drying and pickling going on.)

Much of the land is under CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) under a category called “highly erodable”, which is a USDA program that pays money to NOT farm. This has been quite profitable and has paid off the original land acquisition. I personally think of this as quite a coup, justifying the choice of south eastern Missouri, a place that in other respects might not be especially desirable due to the climate and low soil quality

Zoning

The intention at DR is to gather the housing into a higher-density “village”, with building lots (“warrens”) of 2500 square feet per person (on average) — so for instance, the single-people houses (some of them are just bedrooms) are allocated 2500 square feet or less in Zone 1 @ $0.01 per square foot. In this scenario, a 2-story house of 1000 square feet total would occupy 500 square feet of the 2500 square foot lot. A 4-person family house might be allocated a 10,000 square feet lot. There is also Zone 2, gardens directly outside the village @ $0.001 per square foot and Zone 3 (agricultural area) further out still @ $0.0001 per square foot.

Note that this scheme is different from some “permaculture” type zoning where each house is surrounded by gardens and agricultural land (and this has caused some conflicts and people have left). The intention is a (relatively) densely-built “village” with the buildings closest to city center required to be 2 storeys (the DR equivalent of the center-city office skycraper 🙂 ). The village zoning includes small parks, walkways, and small gardens surrounding the houses.

Power

To get power at DR you must either be completely independent via solar, or else use their in-village hookup system which is a mixture of solar and municipal grid hookup, and pay the rate of $0.57 per KWh, which is 5 times the municipal rate. The intention of the grid hookup is to use the grid as a “battery”, meaning there would be at least equal consumption (power taken from the grid) and re-supply (feeding solar power back to the grid). The original intended ratio was 2:1 (i.e. twice as much power fed back to the grid as consumed) but this has been slipping and has some people concerned. DR was and still carries a very strong sustainability agenda. One of the consequences of this decision (including the forbidding of fossil fuels, although propane is allowed for stoves) is that electric heating can be very expensive, even heat-pumps which have a higher efficiency than baseboard electric.  Most houses are heated with wood. This poses other challenges which are mentioned below.

Cob (long-time resident who also hosts many of the visitors) shares his perspective on this:

Several buildings are heated & cooled with electricity, using air-source heat pumps. (Ground source heat pumps are even more efficient, but no one has installed one here yet). Small homes, built with energy efficiency in mind, well-insulated, etc. can be made very comfortable with minimal additional inputs…either wood or electric. This is WHY we have soft internal building codes…to encourage these behaviors.

Heating

Most houses, including the common house, are heated with wood (including wood-hot-water). These technologies are of various qualities. The cheaper of these technologies  pollute the external air. On some winter days there can be a cloud of smoke hanging above the village. The more advanced technologies and insulation systems (including the common house) use hot-water pipes in the floor in well-insulated buildings, and only need to be fired up every few days even in the winter. One member lives in a large commercially-made yurt (which costs only about $3k plus accessories like the stove) to which he has added bubble-wrap insulation. It looks super-comfortable and cozy and he says its fine in winter, although of course gets very cold over-night. Winters are very cold here.

Cob adds his perspective:

High-efficiency boilers (common house, Skyhouse, Thistledown) burn secondary gasses as well, eliminating particulate pollution. Building plans must include details on the heating source for a building and may not be approved if a stove is determined to be of insufficient quality. There are still a few older inefficient wood stoves that were grandfathered in, but even they have been getting upgraded over time. Occasionally in winter ON VERY STILL DAYS there can be a haze of woodsmoke…which some folks are more sensitive to than others. This happens maybe a half-dozen times in any given winter season.

There is a strong culture AGAINST gas-consuming motor vehicles (in fact only utility vehicles are allowed on the village streets). To a lesser degree there is also an unfavorable attitude towards RV’s, tiny homes and temporary structures.

Relating to RV’s and tiny homes, Cob adds:

pre-built/mobile structures…specifically tiny homes…ARE ALLOWED after going through the same warren siting process that all homebuilders must go through, subject to the same soft internal building codes. RVs and other directly motorized tiny homes (i.e. conversion vans) are NOT allowed.

I did not see any lawnmowers. Scything seems to be the popular way of cutting grass — I tried it and its quite fun although physically demanding. Small motor-powered appliances must go through an approval process, although I believe that gas chain-saws are allowed by default. 

I personally, don’t have enough information to judge the viability of wood heating, especially in terms of the time and attention required to feed the stove. It seems to be cheap enough with most houses using 2-3 cords of wood per winter @ roughly $120 per cord. Note that since originally writing this article, I am living in a (primarily) wood-heated RV and its great. However, I do have diesel heater backup which I run in the morning to heat the place prior to starting the stove, or on days that are warm enough that I don’t need wood heating. This would not be allowed at DR.

Cars, Motor Vehicles and Sustainability “lines in the sand”

One of the most divisive issues in the village (at least in the past) has to do with motor vehicle ownership. Full members are not allowed to park a privately owned motor vehicle within about 12 miles (the distance to the nearest car-rental place). Instead they are encouraged to use the car-pool system, which is quite efficient but a bit pricey (although arguably, cheaper than private vehicles especially for short trips. You pay by the mile). Note that Residents (which are like trial members) are excluded from this limitation (of needing to park their vehicles off-site), but you can only be a resident for 6-24 months before officially joining. Residents can own private vehicles but they can’t lease land or build houses, and they don’t have veto power over consensus decisions. Residents (and even long-term guests) are encouraged to participate in the consensus decision making process(es), but do not have BLOCKING power, nor can they initiate the recall process for a Village Council decision.

The reasons for this policy are historical. DR was a created with a very strong ecological orientation, especially with regards to fossil fuel consumption and carbon footprint (wood is considered a renewable resource, which not everyone in the world agrees on, btw). Private vehicle ownership, along with fossil fuels for heating houses, appears to be one of those “lines in the sand” that the community will not cross.

My personal belief here (for all its worth) is that the primary purpose of eco-villages should be education, given that there is zero chance that the whole world would move into eco-villages and hence solve the climate change problem. As such I find the “obsession” with carbon footprint at DR… slightly obsessive. And yet there is nothing fundamentally that I can disagree with in terms of an experimental project, and also the limits don’t make living here impossible. You WOULD need to heat with wood to live here, or else use a highly insulated building and a heat-pump. A heat-pump would also allow air-conditioning — its all possible but probably expensive due to high cost of electricity.

All IC’s, by the way, must have “filters” in place to attract members they want to attract, and repel those who are not a fit. There is no “one size fits all” intentional community.

There is more information about this (how IC’s erect barriers to entry) in the fascinating article “We Do This at Dancing Rabbit”: Recruitment and Collective Identity Processes in the Ecovillage. Unfortunately you would need to subscribe to the academic journal in question (Sage Journals) to read fully. The basic idea, as already stated, is that IC’s preserve their culture through a combination of attraction and repulsion. Interestingly, there have been 4-5 academic research studies on DR already, which are quoted in the footnotes of this article by Zach Rubin, who is currently a professor of intentional community in Greenwood, SC (who knew such positions existed, especially in South Carolina 🙂 )

Sewer and “Humanure”

I finally get to this, despite the fact that it’s THE deal-killer for a lot of people. DR doesn’t have flush toilets, instead you defecate (and urinate, especially if you are female) into a bucket. When the bucket is full, this bucket goes into a collection area and from there is transported into the compost area, with a 3-year rotation (you pay $20/mth for this service). Every 3 years the last “humanure” area is dug up and used as fertilizer. As per USDA regulations (which occurs as stupid from my perspective) the 3 year old human compost is not allowed in commercial gardens or agriculture — although it is used here for tree planting. There is no escape from the humanure system other than a few more traditional “composting toilets” that are used (for instance) at Mercantile for the B&B guests.

Meaning that: there is no black-water disposal system at DR. The more expensive houses have running water pulled from cisterns (see below) and “grey water” sewage systems. “Grey water” is showers and dish-washing effluent (you must use non-phosphate soap and shampoo) which flow into the irrigation pond. This pond grows a lot of algae and is used for garden irrigation. You would not want to swim in it. Apparently the plants like grey-water as it contains nitrogen. The irrigation pond DOES dry up sometimes, and/or gets too dense to pump (the gardens are adjacent). Not sure what they do about irrigation when this happens.

Water

The soil is too dense (too clay) for economically viable wells here. However the climate here is very wet (except for the winter). The houses that are just “glorified bedrooms” use the common house for water and showers. The more expensive houses typically use 1200-3000 gallon holding tanks (or cisterns) fed by roof rain-water, supplemented by (as need be) municipal water hookup. The municipal water supply is limited as DR is considered as ONE home-stead, but so far, this does not appear to be a problem. The cost of municipal water (if my memory serves me) is just $1 per 100 gallons (i.e. very little). Once they get to 500-1000 population, which is their stated intention, it remains to be seen whether this will work.

As such, the more expensive houses have good heating and hot-water systems (albeit with needing to be fired up with wood every few days), running water fed by holding tanks, and hot showers. They might look like “normal” houses other than the humanure system (i.e. no black-water disposal) and big wood stoves / hot water systems that need to be fired-up periodically.

Alline says more (in response to my comment that having a bathtub could be expensive):

There is a bathtub in the Mercantile, one in the Common House, and one in the Milkweed Cottage. All one needs to have a bathtub is a cistern and a way to heat the water. It is not complicated, nor is it expensive. The Mercantile has a 7,000 cistern built of concrete blocks, and in the Milkweed Cottage there is a 3,000 gallon poured concrete cistern. Water for cisterns is rainwater collected off of roofs. Because it is a commercial building, the Mercantile was required to build a lagoon for its wastewater (even though it is all “grey” water and not “black” water). It is approximately 30’ in diameter (the smallest legally allowable size) and located several hundred yards from the Mercantile. The Mercantile installed a standpipe that anyone building on the east side of the village is welcome to tap into to dispose of their greywater.

Also Cob’s perspective on hot water:

None of these things are cheap in traditional housing/construction either. Plumbing and electrical systems in the average US house runs roughly 1/3 total cost of construction. The benefit of DR’s systems is that you don’t need your own personal bathtub…you just use the one in the Common House. Plenty of hot water to go around too. All included in that base monthly fee.

Food co-ops

Many people choose to eat in food co-ops (or Cooking co-ops). With 5-6 people you would cook and clean-up once a week and eat 5-6 times. From an economic (or efficiency) point of view, this occurs as a no-brainer. Of course you would need to like the other members of your cooking co-op and also their food. The “cooking houses” are typically the more expensive houses (i.e. the ones with running water), however not all cooking houses are expensive. The Critters cooking house is outdoors and shuts down in winter and early spring. Critters cook at home by themselves in the winter (if my understanding is correct).

There is also a very well-stocked self-serve food “store”, which has luxuries such as chocolate-covered almonds and frozen meats, in addition to a large selection of grains, spices and more. The way this works is, you weigh your produce, enter it into a ledger, and get billed each month. The prices were reasonable (and frankly, even if you are paying 20% for the convenience, its worth it and you are supporting your village mate, in this case Cob the store owner). You can also bill your alcoholic drinks and coffee at Mercantile. There is something (to me) very friendly and “old-timey” about the credit system at DR. They even used to have their own currency, which was (reportedly) running close to a million dollars a year in transactions at one point, but government regulations forced them to shut-down.

Internet

Internet here is fast, and getting even faster with fiber-optic. This is a big advantage of living here, as not all rural communities have usable internet, which is especially important for remote workers. The common house has fast internet included in the obligatory membership, and spaces that can rented as office space. Wifi line-of-sight “beamer” technologies are now fast and cheap up to 1 mile or more, so you could get your internet (theoretically) from a friendly neighbor even if you did not have a commercial hook-up.

Building Codes & Sustainability Requirements (“Covenants”)

When DR was founded, building codes were very strict. They required either “natural” building techniques (typically cob, straw bale, of earth-bag), or reclaimed lumber. This has now been adapted. My understanding is that any kind of “reasonable” construction technique is allowed, including lumber that is certified as sustainably-grown. This hugely opens up housing possibilities for more conventional construction, with the limitation that the local electric grid is required (at 5x the municipal electric rate), or else house solar; and there is no black-water sewage system, i.e. no flush toilets. The humanure system is obligatory.

Cob says:

“Natural” building techniques have never been “required”. The only real change (and I’d argue it’s brought ease, but doesn’t seem deeply significant from a sustainability standpoint) is allowing certified dimensional lumber.

Alline adds:

It’s true that fewer “hand crafted” homes built of strawbales and/or cob are being built now. This kind of construction is enormously labor intensive, and without the dozens of interns that used to summer at Dancing Rabbit it is challenging to build this way. In the past we used primarily reclaimed lumber in our buildings because it was difficult to obtain FSC lumber. Our main goal is to be sustainable (i.e. to use fewer resources) so conventional “green” construction, where buildings are highly insulative and efficient fits well. It is also much faster to build with conventional methods using “green” materials, making the buildings more economically sustainable. Like all things here, there is very little black and white. “Sustainability” is a moving target, and available resources are always changing. BTW, the only “rule” regarding construction is the fifth covenant: “Lumber used for construction at Dancing Rabbit shall be either reused/reclaimed, locally harvested, or certified as sustainably harvested.” For the rest it is hoped that common sense prevails, and choices such as blown cellulose or reclaimed denim insulation is used instead of fiberglass, etc.

Governance and Membership Process

This, once again, has significantly evolved. It used to be all decision were taken in community meetings. Now it’s a village council of 5 people, on a 2-year term with 1-year rotations (i.e. half the council rotates each year, if my understanding is correct). The process to choose the village council is intense and requires everyone’s obligatory input, although “declining to participate” is a viable option. There is a job whose name I forget, whose role is convincing people to run for council, and “harassing” people who fail to respond to the obligatory survey. The upside of this job, is that you aren’t allowed to run for village council yourself. There is a quite complicated process for choosing village council, and even more complicated process what the power of village council decisions are and the appeal process. Like I say, there is significant “density” here in terms of governance and legislative power, which has evolved over 25+ years of success and failure in decision-making process.

The pathway from visitor to resident to member is as follows. Anyone can become a visitor by finding a host, and there is a list of people who are looking for hosts. Hosts may reach out to you, if you join this list, which was my experience Standard fee to hosts is $40/day (negotiable), plus food which is typically $10/day. Some people consider this high. I find it very reasonable in terms of the work involved in hosting and orienting people to the community.

Cob adds:

The host list is simply folks who are MAYBE willing to volunteer to host someone who cannot otherwise attend a viz program IF they judge the applicant to be interesting enough, or values aligned enough, AND the timing works out.

Beyond finding a host and visiting in that way (it’s not allowed to just show up), the 2-week visitor program is pretty much obligatory if you want to be a member. I myself tried to “get through the back door” by finding a host, and was told this would not fly if my intention was to be a member. I was and am very grateful for the feedback as the visitor program was a home-run for me. The visitor program currently costs $500 for one week and $700 for 2 weeks. Once again, some people consider this high, but I did not. I found it an amazing value in terms of the quality of education, food and group facilitation (quality of accommodation might be another story, varies greatly and would be extra money if you don’t want to camp); and lower rates for the visitor program are negotiable, on request.

Once past the visitor program, and you are still interested, you apply to be a resident. A questionnaire goes out to the community asking anyone who has had any contact with you what they think. Short of any deal-breakers, which would be rare, you are from there approved to become a resident for 6 months. Resident status can be extended up to 2 years, but not beyond. It seems to me, to be to people’s advantage to extend the resident period because you don’t have to deal with vehicle restrictions; but as a down-side, a resident can’t lease a warren or build a house.

Your options as a resident are either to rent a room (or whole house), or else camp on one of the tenting platforms, which obviously won’t work in winter. As of June 2021, there is a great selection of cheap rentals, including the top-end which would be the Mercantile for about $350/mth for a room (less, perhaps, if you agree to feed their wood-stove or whatever). Some of the houses, such as Woodhenge which is currently for sale, are more suitable for 2 or more people living together, so you may want to find a room-mate.

Relational Culture and Relational Technologies Used

Non-Violent Communication (NVC) is widely used at DR and there are very relationally-savvy people in leadership. To name a few (not comprehensive list) Danielle, Nathan, Allison, Prairie, Christina and Cob. There DOES appear to be collective buy-in to NVC as a relational technology, but a lot of people appear to be (as of June 2021) still in burnout. The turnout at a village meeting that I attended was quite low. The visitors in this meeting outnumbered the “rabbits” by a large margin. Even so, the process was interesting and well led, and based on NVC.

I will speak now about my experience bringing Authentic Relating (A/R) to Dancing Rabbit. The challenges I am about to describe would be true anywhere, and also reflect my relative lack of experience in this area (bringing A/R to existing communities, i.e. communities that have pre-existing relationships and pre-existing history with other relationship modalities, experiences which may or may not have been successful)

I led 4 Authentic Relating circles while I was there. One of them was a shit-show and three of them were glorious. This btw is “par for the course” in terms of A/R circles, at least ones that I lead, although my usual success ratio is better than 4 to 1. To note, however, that the purpose of Authentic Relating is to make mistakes, be you a leader or participant, and so “shit-show” isn’t quite accurate either. I prefer the term “successful failure” and in fact in the end, this particular circle made me much closer to the participant in question, and we became good friends after I later apologized to him. The participation was small, usually 3-4 people (out of a visitor group of 12 and larger community of 60).

The challenge with enrolling people in  A/R circles (I am now calling this “Circling within the Authentic Relating tradition” in order to distinguish it from other “circle technologies”) is threefold. First, its hard to describe the real depth and power of the modality, and if I told them the truth of what I really think is possible here in terms of transformation, I would sound like an idiot, or maybe delusional; second, most people are terrified of real intimacy, as they should be (real intimacy is scary. Paradoxically, this is what makes it so interesting and exciting); and third, all descriptions fall short, as the only way to get a real understanding of an A/R circle is to participate in one — and even then, it can take a while to really “grok” the modality. A/R circling is a very deep and fundamental paradigm shift from traditional ways of relating. Not everyone is attracted to it or ready for it, and of course people’s developmental trauma is very active here, as it is everywhere.

My experience is that there was limited interest in A/R circling within the visitor group and very little real interest in the larger community. This is not really surprising given the limitations I have described, but those who came to my circles tended to have big experiences, and so it was very worth it for me to run these groups despite low turnout (you don’t need a big turnout to have a good time in A/R circling, in fact its best in my experience to limit groups to 6 people plus the leader). Also there was one person in the larger “rabbit” community who was totally interested and engaged. All this btw I did not take personally, as it also reflects the pace of life at DR. Most people are very busy and the visitor program was pretty much full-on, all the time. As such it was a bit of work to convince anyone, visitors or residents, to do anything “extra curricular”.

Any thoughts?

Any thoughts? Then please share your feedback here with a comment!