Making Decisions in Community

Although I helped create the decision making process used in the Rainforest Lab, I often felt alienated and uninspired in that task.  Since we’ve been utilizing the system for about 8 months now, and in the wake of the elections, I feel a pull to describe the system we designed. I now appreciate the impact an effective decision making process has had on our community, and hope to inspire the co- creation of new systems that can impact more and more people.

                I believe the binary thinking that’s part of my conditioning stifled my capacity to collaborate on creating a new way of making decisions. I’m turned off by domination hierarchies, because I’m into shared power, and I’m not so into consensus because I value efficiency. I know that there’s the possibility for consensus to be efficient and I know that it’s possible to share power even when systems are designed to separate and control. But what would it look like to design a system for both? We are certainly still playing with the design, but I think we are on to something with the system we have created. This system is inspired by Holacracy and the work of Frederic Laloux.

                A principle that seems essential to me for the system to work for us is responsibility to the Whole. In her recent blog entry, A Nation Divided with Liberty and Justice for Few, Miki Kashtan says this: We are expected to vote from a place of being passive spectators, without full engagement, certainly without getting to the needs we have and being able to make choice from them, and without connecting with others to forge collaborative and creative paths. This, and the idea of checks and balances, are both foundational elements of liberal democracies. They presume the very notion of human beings that is at the root of capitalism and classical economics: a self-interested, rational person, who could not possibly be thinking about the whole, only about their own interest. When all are doing that, with little mutual-influence or coordination, the result is supposed to yield wisdom, both economically and politically. It doesn’t.

                How are we systemically empowered by our decision making process to take responsibility for the whole in our community?

We frame our community as the Super Circle within which are sub- circles that are created as needed. They are, according to our constitution, “Microcosms of community engagement and collaboration.” A principle at play within these subcircles is dynamic steering. Our constitution says this about dynamic steering: Circles evolve dynamically as needed. Any circle can be created or dissolved at any time, or members can join or leave circles as new information arises. Present needs or tensions are what matter.

                Reading this principle I notice some amazement at how simple and effective this principle is at allowing us to meet each other in the present. This seems so different to me from experiences I’ve had with consensus and domination hierarchies. The difference is that the structure is designed for aliveness and responsiveness.

 I use our decision making process to tap into our collective wisdom for decisions in a multitude of areas. Should we switch the goats over to eating comfrey while we milk them, instead of alfalfa? How many volunteers are we available to host this month? At one level, the decisions are made through an advisement process, which means ultimately I do with the advice what I want. I decide to ask for advice, or move from another level of our decision making system based on the answers to these three questions: How is this choice connected to my personal and our collective purposes? Who or what might be impacted by my decision? What level of impact might this decision have?

 

 

If I find that the decision might have a medium or high impact on the community, I might utilize one of the other decision making processes we have created. If you are interested in learning more about these processes, please reach out!

                Ultimately, I’m happy to invite you to live the three questions I shared. I define leadership as caring for the Whole. I hope these questions support you in making decisions embodying this type of leadership.

 

Update on Prison Community

Dear friends of Rainforest Lab,

Last Tuesday marked the end of another class cycle at Clallam Bay Corrections Center where the members of Rainforest Lab have supported a community of incarcerated men with facilitation and teaching for the past year and a half. The community is centered around Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and mindfulness and is a branch of the Seattle based organization Freedom Project. For me the recent 15 week course on NVC and mindfulness was a sanctuary of nourishing connection and learning.

One value I see the community at CBCC embracing is shared power, which I believe is a critical component of NVC. I see this value embodied when incarcerated folks in the class step into leadership and teaching roles. I see members of the community who live in prison offering constructive feedback on the material and structure of class to those of us who do not live in prison. In those moments I believe roles and the integrated power- dynamics associated with them are challenged.  I imagine this requires so much courage on the part of the incarcerated.

Five members of the community at CBCC have been coming to the class cycles for the past year and a half. I’m so grateful for their modeling and teaching of NVC consciousness to us outside facilitators and to their peers. I’m deeply inspired by their capacity to practice this way of life under what I believe are such brutally dehumanizing conditions.

In the class we are all learning to speak our truth and name what we perceive as unbalanced power dynamics, just as we are learning to cultivate empathy that allows us to be free of enemies. I consider this work to be central to the development of nonviolent leadership that I hope is part of grassroots prison abolition over time.

I celebrate the support of the incarcerated practitioners who have been with us since the beginning of this journey at Clallam Bay, and the open hearts and minds of those who just finished their first class cycle. The container we have created every week has been fueled by our bonds of empathy and commitment to transformation. I hope that the work we are doing together is a part of a larger movement of nonviolence that I see the Freedom Project as a part of. I hope that we are all learning and building connections that will support us in a collaborative and nonviolent dismantling of the Prison Industrial Complex, and the creation of a world where we are all free.

Love and Solidarity,

Morning Munk

  

Testimonials from Rainforest Retreat for Revolution

Dear friends,
Here are two reviews from a retreat held at our community at the end of October. May they offer inspiration and hope.

Maddie's reflections:

Weeks after my time with the sweet and fierce humans at the Rainforest Lab, my heart is still speaking in the potent tongue that it found in the warm embrace of conversations and interactions over the four-day retreat.

 My friend and I first arrived to the farm when the sun had set and were immediately welcomed with a savory soup made from the body of Little Foot, a goat who had recently crossed over, in a sweet two-story home where the communal kitchen lived. We were told that this home, as well as every land structure on the farm, was hand-built by various members and that we were very off-grid, meaning no electricity whatsoever. I swayed along with the flicker of the candle, fulfilled by the remembrance of a time before bright lights after the sun had set. My friend and I were guided to the wigwam where we set up sleeping bags on a ginormous mattress and dozed off to the rain and the spiders and the gratitude of nourished stomaches.

 We began each morning in circle, learning about one another’s needs as we expressed ways in which we feel respected and safe and trusting. This exercise made me feel seen and understood. It also offered the chance to practice empathy (a big learning curve for me!) and become conscious of my words and actions so that I could honor the ways that these humans felt respected and safe and trusting. We finished every evening with a mourning and celebration circle, honoring and being seen for the grief and joy dancing within all of us.

 Throughout the days, we focused on individual and shared relationships to broken systems in our world. We were able to get very honest and raw with our hurt and fury about the current state of these systems and hold one another as we dove deep into our individual and collective trauma. I had the opportunity to participate in an exercise with one of the members, Natalie, which included walking through my current trauma and linking it back to the child version of myself and embracing that child. In another exercise, I sat in circle with three other humans and we went around and shared our dreams for the future and held one another in the vulnerability of that. We finished the retreat with a ritual where half the participants acted as the seventh generation and the other half acted as the current generation. The dialogue that occurred affirmed our decisions as members of the retreat to carve out a radical and compassionate existence and gave strength to create human and natural resources to continue on paths that dismantle and disrupt the status quo. The takeaway from this retreat is that the community of Rainforest Lab is passionate about creating a revolutionary world, one that practices non-violent communication and co-existing with the natural rhythms of the earth. This is a community of humans who are so self-aware and present for one another and the animals of the land and only want to offer their wisdom and courage to anyone and everyone. I am so grateful for the walks through the woods, collecting willow branches to weave, singing songs in feral voices over meed and candlelight, for the delicious goat milk with cups of tea, and for bravery to reveal the truth about unjust systems. I’m so grateful for the introduction to non-violent communication and for the gift to express my feelings and needs clearly as I venture onward into a life of healing and helping and loving and learning. I’ve heard rumors about a Permaculture class offered on the land next summer and I am there with bells on to the next Rainforest Lab retreat. 

 Thank you, Morning! Thank you, Natalie! Thank you, Squirrel! Thank you, Kevin! I love you all! You were wonderful hosts and co-collaborators!

From Kristina:

The four days on the Bogachiel during the retreat inspired all of the beauty and rawness of radical aliveness. I found myself feeling so supported in getting touch with my authenticity and all of the associated pain and purpose.

 The sources of support were two-fold as well as interconnected. There was the unique container of the retreat, which facilitated participants in imagining how our gifts may be applied towards social transformation, specifically in rethinking the systems that we see as not working towards collective wellbeing. A potent piece for me in this transformation were the conversations that gave me a sense of shared reality in critically viewing oppressive systems; the healing that can be accessed through actively not consenting to systemic violence and collaborating on how to live in more life-serving ways.

 By the end of the retreat, I had such a strong feeling of revitalization and inspiration for steps going forward. I've come away with a clearer understanding of how I'd like to show up in the world and actionable steps towards connecting with this purpose. I attribute much of this to the intentional container held during the retreat, but the connected piece is the inspiration I receive from the mere existence of this community in the rainforest. The world feels like a safer, more connective place knowing that this community is existing in it doing the work that they do. With every visit, I am inspired by what I see as a fierce commitment to living out values of non-violence, sustainability, and connection. To me, there is immense beauty in a group of people gathering in support of each other's healing and then taking those inner resources and touching so deeply anyone who could benefit from that restorative touch as I have.

Rainforest Trailer Sessions

I'm feeling proud! I enjoy what's expressed in these songs and would love your appreciation and constructive feedback to support my learning and growth!

These songs were recorded a few days ago in a little trailer that Tim lives in, on our off grid homestead. Tim acquired the solar panels, microphone, and recording program that makes it possible for this music to be accessible to you in this way. I (some of you know me as Morning and some as Megan) created the melodies on all the songs, the lyrics on all but "Rumi's Field", which is a translation of a poem by Rumi. Sqwrl, a fellow member of the transformation learning community, Rainforest Lab, plays guitar on part II of Bare Song, and I play guitar on Change the (Belief) System.

 https://soundcloud.com/megan-munk/sets/rainforest-trailer-sessions

The Dance of Attunement

I’m one of the co-founders of the intentional community currently called the Rainforest Lab. I’ve lived on these 5 acres for 5 years.  Last year we began the sometimes beautiful and sometimes tense process of co-creating systems to support us in embodying a radically nonviolent consciousness and lifestyle. The constitution documenting these systems contains a set of principles each member of the community can use as a compass in decision-making.

Our constitution says this on the principle of Attunement:

Life is bigger than ourselves, and we want to see the way life flows clearly in everything we do.

•We view the community as having a soul and purpose of its own, which is cultivated from our collective purpose

•We have a commitment to ourselves and to the community to inquire into our personal calling to see if and how it resonates with the collective purpose

The consciousness and culture of how we live is the primary “product” we are offering to the world

This principle of attunement seems to be asking me to enjoy and value the inquiry into my purpose and the collective purpose. I find myself wondering, “Why am I here? Why am I alive? Why on this land? Why this community? Why are we here together?”

In a community where we hold a commitment to this type of inquiry I find that attunement is a sort of improvisational group dance taking place on many levels.  Perhaps our community’s purpose is this dance.  I’m in this dance when I surrender to the possibility that we will fail to fulfill, or even clarify, our individual and collective purpose, and then still try.

Having just read part of a journal I was writing when I first moved out here at the age of 22, I’m feeling tender. I’m appreciating my younger self’s inquiry into their personal calling, even though I doubt they would have named it that.  Seeing how many of their dreams from that time have not come to fruition, I’m appreciating their resilience.

That appreciation expands when I think about the changes over the years in this community’s mission, vision, name, and composition of members. There’s a sense for me that we have been practicing the dance of attunement since before we consciously chose it as a principle. If we were unconsciously practicing it on these 5 acres, I wonder if we have been unconsciously practicing it as a species or a planet for a long, long time. I wonder if that’s our purpose.

Wicker House, Y'all!

Hi all!  Here is a blog to share updates on life at Rainforest Lab for Cultural Transformation. One big project we've been working on this Summer that is continuing into the Fall is a new house!  It's a stick-frame house with waddle and daub walls and an earthen floor.  It's going to be Squirrel's little sanctuary, which they've been calling the Wicker House.