Statement of Intent.

“What is your Why?”

The "Community Garden" Journal

What? The Community Garden is a bi-weekly periodical meant to inform and engage our community members on completely neutral ground in a creative and collaborative way. Each issue of the newsletter is issue-free (that is, free of hot-button issues) and free to all members of our community to contribute as they feel inspired. The CG provides a space for sharing uplifting and inspiring ideas, off-grid living tips, skywatch news, local culture and history, land and nature appreciation, indigenous wisdom, mythopoetic entertainment, music, art and wholesome humor… all manner of enrichment community members of the GWCC—both here and beyond—may also appreciate and benefit from.

Why? The CG was born of a desire to cultivate a richer community soil/soul to better nourish the diverse human garden that is our GW community. It was originally offered in response to a trend of behaviors and attitudes in our local Greater World that were clearly detrimental to the collective ethos. Our community ‘soil’ was in need of some amending and our community’s relationships were in need of mending.

How? Like The Christmas Truce, engaging one another on neutral ground can help us get in touch with our common humanity and transcend artificially-imposed divisions. Each issue of the CG establishes a central theme(s) with supporting content meant to not only expand our minds and stimulate our spirit of curiosity but also 'compost' some of the social detritus within our local GW community as it would arise. As such, the CG is one way of creatively working with globally-relevant challenges that come up in many communities, not just our own.

In summary… The CG Journal was established as a way of engaging with one another—and engaging with information in general—in a healthier and more nourishing way. In a world already so full of digital "content" and local “information” (most often in the form of neighborhood gossip and HOA-approved narratives), the CG offers an alternative form of connection as it invites readers into a more light-hearted “bird’s eye” perspective of our world and greater appreciation for what is already so good and full of potential all around us.

As my personal labor of love, it has been my deep desire and hope that the Community Garden Journal might remind readers of our truer humanity, that it might elicit a greater sense of awe and wonder we can all share in, perhaps expand our personal and even collective perceptions of what amazing things are truly possible in this world, and ultimately help to inspire a collective flourishing for not only our local GW culture, but for many others beyond, like ripples on a pond.