issue 15: The Sovereign Power of TruthWelcome to 2026. The future has arrived. According to various astrological references, this year will be a time of greater authenticity, integrity and a collective movement towards genuine service to others. We are likely to see increasing autonomy—both on the individual and collective level—through a rise in personal/group accountability and collaborative action. Soon we will be entering the Chinese New Year of the Fire Horse representing courageousness and passionate determination supporting actions guided by virtue and clear intentions. I get the sense we’ll be experiencing some profoundly positive shifts in the collective ethos as ever-increasing numbers of individuals and like-hearted groups get in touch with their our own authenticity and purpose. Could this lead to an increasing departure from centralized control in favor of more intentional communities and employee-owned organizations? I do hope so. Despite some of the more foreboding signs and dramas playing out on the world stage, we the people of the world can be the antidote to the chaos and hegemony. The future is now and we are the ones we’ve been waiting for! ____________________________________________ One of the lesser known new year traditions is the choosing of a WOTY or Word Of The Year. As an alternative to a list of specific intentions, a WOTY a single word that reflects specific traits or values we wish to embody rather than goals we wish to achieve and serves to guide our decisions and actions for the coming year. Have you chosen your WOTY? Mine is Aletheia. It is a classic Greek word or embodiment of a concept that means Truth. More specifically, it is the Truth that arises through a process of ‘un-concealment’ or ‘disclosure’, of bringing to light as in light of conscious awareness. In Greek mythology, ‘Lethe’ is one of the rivers of Hades. It is the river of forgetting from which all souls must drink before reincarnating on Earth. ‘A’, in Greek, indicates the negation. So, Aletheia is not just a revealing, it is a process of unforgetting, a remembering of who we really are and why we are here. This is the main theme I’ve chosen to build this CG offering from. Truth goes hand-in-in with Sovereignty which I also hope to honor in this issue. ____________________________________________ As we are now on the other side of Winter Solstice, slowly making our way from darker toward more light-filled days, each issue of the Community Garden will bring us another step closer to the fuller revealing of the GWCC to include its origin story, how and why it was established back in ‘23, my original “Community Unity” proposal and “Blueprint for Community Renovation” which is a guide to transitioning from hierarchal structures and a community management template based on what I call a “Circles within Circles” approach. Because it is such a large and multilayered cake, I feel it’s best we take in on just a few bites at a time. Let's first get acquainted with the Why, Who and How of the proposal. Why?… the GWCC was originally conceived as a way to foster a more amicable and constructive approach to sorting through the community’s trash pile so we could not only build something much better from it all, but multiply the benefits of our progress by sharing our journey and proven models for successful community management with others as an extended offering. After all, what could be more appropriate for a community of beautiful and functional homes that support greater autonomy and which happen to be built from refuse the world so abundantly provides us? Who?… the basic structure and resources I’ve proposed are intended to support and invite all our diverse community members into collaborative participation, including part-time residents, tenants and those utilizing their properties as investment. With different areas of the websites available to 3 main access tiers, part of those resources (such as a publicly-facing web shop, local events or places to visit and emergency alerts) are completely available to anyone and would be a good resource for nightly visitors as no special access is required. Other access areas would be specifically for all property owning residents and another for project managers (team leads for specific “Circles”/committees) to organize, manage and make visible all progress and updates on specific projects. How?… through the processes I suggest, we essentially transmute or ‘compost’ our issues into more ‘upleved’ solutions. It’s a process of acknowledging a problem, identifying the challenges, brainstorming creative solutions and exploring/testing the viability of those potential solutions in order to realize the original problem in its higher form (see Landfill Harmonic for a truly inspiring example). In essence, the approach is a form of community alchemy whereby a potentially worthless/toxic base material/situation is put through a specific process of breaking it down and reforming it to not only neutralize its ill effects but transmute it into something beautiful and incorruptible which, in alchemy, is symbolized by gold, the most incorruptible substance on earth. It’s based also on the Law of Conservation of Energy, a fundamental physics concept which states that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only transformed from one form into another. So, the question is not how to “get rid of” of someone or something deemed problematic but how we may work with the situations at hand to transform them for the better. Additionally, as the alchemist does the good work on the material, the good work is done on the alchemist. This is succinctly expressed on the main page of the GWCC website : “As each community member brings their unique skills, experience, talents, insights, interests and resources to the table, we’re not only upleveling our community, we’re upleveling ourselves in the process.“ Also expressed on the website is one of the GWCC’s core tenants: “present no problem without offering a potential solution”. The is meant to engage our capacity for creative and proactive thinking as a basic orientation when confronting any issue. I’ve had fun working with many of our community’s issues and have shared those solutions with others along the way. A “Proposals” section allows us to present issues and potential solutions in a basic template form that teams may then organize around and work on together. This is the first step to organizing a “Circle” of like-minded, like-hearted and interested community members, integral to the “Circles within Circles” approach. It utilizes a simple project management platform that may be fully or partially made visible to anyone on that team or all registered members of the GWCC, at the discretion of the team lead. To fund the cost of these platforms and as many community improvement projects as possible, I suggest a two-pronged approach. Firstly, the immediate formation of a non-profit would help us to clearly define our purpose and allow us to begin seeking grants and other sources of funding. Donations may be accepted through the website without nonprofit status and all sales of goods and services (minus related service fees and administrative costs) will go straight into the Community Fund to augment basic dues. The full proposal includes multiple income-generating possibilities such as a potential electric vehicle charging station at a potential tea house/community meet and hangout space, an outward-facing web shop, a GW General Store for anything from community-made artisan goods such as soaps, candles, teas, stained glass and ceramics to repackaged bulk dry foods (nuts, beans, rice, pasta, oil, tinned foods…), eco-supplies and off-grid living products… all of which GW members can purchase at a significant discount. Features like “Yard Sale” is a community-only access web shop with other possible options such as special order (ie rocket stove) or service (ie cistern cleaning) for those within our community. The community webshop includes “Free Bin” where items can be posted with instructions for pickup or delivery. “Tool Shop” is another feature that would ideally rely on a functional community space, part of my Community Lands Proposal which details my recommendations and potential uses for the community land including my recommendations for best utilizing the significant land recess as water catchment to support a greenhouse above it, gathering our architects to draft a blueprint precisely laying out what the community wants so MR may fulfill his agreement regarding the Community Lands (as well as some other important legal considerations prior to accepting the transfer such as a $50/day fee for each day past the transfer date the agreement remains unfulfilled/incomplete with an alternative option to provide the community a lump sum or structured settlement so we may fund and manage the complete project on our own). The “Community Garden” periodical (that you’re now reading) was established to cultivate more collaboration and creative engagement among community members through topics like earthship living tips, sky watch events, history/land appreciation, off-grid technologies, upcoming local events and whatever non-divisive topics community members felt inclined to share. The CG’s core intent was/is to generally uplift, encourage curiosity, stimulate awe & wonder and simply provide a little weekly reset for readers. As there was not much interest in collaborating on this particular project, I decided to have fun with it on my own through addressing more universal topics relevant to the broader CG readership beyond the GW community and others who may come upon it in the future. As for the Community Garden’s What, Why and How, the Community Garden Statement of Intent can be found here. The more complete “Big Mama” proposal contains many facets and micro-details related more to the basic structures, processes, procedures… other tedium and fun asides. If there is interest among community members, I suggest we establish a basic structure and define basic values and a unifying purpose then get to the business of forming teams/”Circles” so we may further build as we go. The GWCC is a big picture proposal with great potential to expand and serve others of similar values, interests and goals beyond our local community. To be clear, the formation of an auxiliary project management organization I’ve dubbed the GWCC (Greater World Community Collaborative) is not intended to challenge or overturn the current acting HOA but proposes a way to accomplish even more with a unified collective while fostering greater harmony among all our community stakeholders so we may also be shareholders. By working together in tandem as a governing structure (GW HOA) and a community-led management structure (GWCC), we not only work to support our HOA volunteers in their original intent, we give ourselves a chance to see how viable each organization truly is and if it may later make sense to incorporate both into a single nonprofit organization. Considerations for these options are included in my “Blueprint for Community Renovation” meant to empower not only the GW community but any small community that desires more autonomy and seeks to move from hierarchical structures (namely traditional HOA) towards a more organic structure based in core principles of Sociocracy. Sociocracy is applicable to all organizations and is not a strict template but a theoretical basis from which we can tailor fit and evolve our own structure of governance and complementary structure of community management to suit the wants and needs of the majority and participatory collective. Lastly, the “Winding Road Journey” I refer to on the GWCC website was established as a chronicle of our progress on the path towards greater autonomy and empowerment as a small community. This ongoing blog section was originally made available to the initial GW members I had met with who appeared to share at least similar ultimate goals and also had far more experience and knowledge than myself as a relatively new resident. The blog space nor other site features I offered—such as polling, communication and post topic comments—had been utilized so, at this point it serves more as my own documentation of my independent exploration along with my personal journey privately inviting various community members into the project and details as to how that’s gone so far. The story of “The Winding Road Journey” is not over though, and it’s not my story alone. As members of the GW community, it’s your story as well. Having reference to verifiable facts, access to accurate historical information, relevant records and, of course, our own ability to consider it all with discernment is a most integral part of knowing where we stand today so we may proceed along our “Winding Road Journey” together with more clarity of intention and purpose. Whether in direct participation or not, we are all contributing to that story in some way. So, as we stand at the threshold of a new year, I wonder, what story will we be writing as we journey onward? In Truth, Beauty and Goodness, B. Monique ……………………………………………………………………………… ✺This newsletter is intended to be a collaborative project so if you would like to make a contribution to any upcoming newsletters, please don’t hesitate to reach out! All archived back issues of The Community Garden may be found here.
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