The Journey

Our Story.

The Greater World community is a subdivision of off-grid housing based on the premise of a more sustainable and ecologically sound way of living. While our homes represent and do demonstrate a number of ways humans can live more autonomously and closer with Nature, our governance represents anything but that. For decades now, the community has been plagued and divided by the hierarchical structure of a traditional HOA that was never agreed to but imposed upon the community by its founder/developer. Like most hierarchical structures, the power granted to this organization of his making has been abused through favoring the interests of a few while punishing those who’ve challenged the GW HOA (and the developer specifically) with liens against their homes along with various other forms of harassment and intimidation.

Our Challenge(s).

The GW HOA has been perennially challenged over the years by some very educated, informed and diligent members of the community. It has also been protected and buffered from any accountability through a policy of evasion, deflection and a general lack of accessibility to its members. When it comes to requests for straight answers regarding fulfillment of agreements, operations, record-keeping and general compliance, these enquiries are most often minimized by our HOA board members and those aligned with the HOA or put off indefinitely. The constantly frustrated pursuit for clarity and resolution on a number of critical topics has worn down most of us while many committed and kind community members who’ve invested much in time and finances toward the bettering of their community have ultimately chosen to leave out of frustration and self-preservation.

Due to a lack of cohesive aims and willingness to collaborate, any efforts among the remaining and new members has led to various forms of division and confusion among community members in general, especially to those wide-eyed newly arrived neighbors (as we all were). The appearance of a nature-loving whimsy, spirit of innovation, freedom from centralized control and practical self-reliance is a great appeal to those who do invest in our GW earthship neighborhood though any who arrived here with much hope and optimism—perhaps for a like-minded tribe, a fundamentally cohesive group, a functioning community, fulfillment of promises and honoring of handshake agreements—have experienced their high spirits soon challenged and eroding over time. Those who do try to get involved in offering real solutions may find themselves strangely attacked, dispirited and disenchanted. Add to this, we have a number of duplicitous characters among us whose use of subterfuge further adds to the existing discord and confusion.

As it currently stands, the GW HOA remains our governing structure regardless of its many infractions, discrepancies and lack of full compliance with NM State HOA law. After numerous attempts to attain justice through the legal system or bring in other experts to make clear determinations or authorities to intercede, it’s been made clear that the legal system at the local nor state levels will not solve anything for us nor will anyone come to our rescue. After extensive research, hours of conversations with neighbors, reviews of legal documents, reaching out to local and state officials, local indigenous peoples, shamans, dousers, time in meditation, consideration of alternatives and much forethought… I (the author of this website, imagineer and developer the GWCC) can say with certainty that a fresh start—based on a foundation of integrity and reflective of a consensus of core values—is very much needed.

Our Pursuit.

Most fundamentally, we wish to be fulfilled in our labors, supported by others and at ease in our environments. To achieve this, we must first have a vested interest in our own well-being so we may leverage our personal empowerment to assist others in theirs. At the most basic level, it is up to us—as individuals, organizations and members of small communities—to clearly define our aims and pursue those aims alongside others who value the same.

In the words of anti-apartheid activist June Jordan, “we are the ones we've been waiting for”. It seems almost too obvious, the ones who desire self-empowering change must pursue it for themselves.

In reality, change for the betterment of the collective is a daunting task. Because real, positive and sustainable change requires personal responsibility and focused effort on a group level, it seems utterly impractical if not impossible. It is not a great challenge to indoctrinate those of a more pliable mind and loose values into a cult mindset, but aligning more independent thinkers—despite their shared core values—is a greater challenge. Many will retreat, retaliate and even renegotiate their core values if they feel it will achieve their more immediate personal ends. So, how do we overcome our own cognitive dissonance, self-serving tendencies and self-sabotage when confronting such a task in order to forge a better way together?

Our Reality.

Cohesiveness through consent-based governance is our aim. But where it comes to our shared values, goals and priorities, the community is very mixed. Many of the properties in our subdivision are owned purely as investment and for nightly rental income. A fair number are rented out to employees of the founder or owned by his current or past employees and affiliates, and about 12-14% of the properties are currently owned by the founder/developer whose influence we are challenging. As such, we can estimate that half (if not more) of the inhabitants and property owners here do not share the same interests and commitment to the community as those who truly call this place home. This presents the added challenge of identifying priority goals and shared values while offering improvements for the betterment of all.

Our Inspiration.

Considering our unique obstacles and the many challenges we face, whatever we achieve here in the Greater World community with genuine aims of building a more unified and socially sustainable governance model will be a demonstration of what is possible for others. We embrace these challenges as the perfect amount of tension that will help catapult us into a more “upleved” version of what we already have, one that is more creatively accommodating, sustainable on all levels and to the degree that we as a collective are willing to investing and commit to. The road may long and winding, but it is a journey worth embarking on not as a means to an end but as an adventure that lends to the forging of new paths all may benefit from.

So, what is the GWCC?

The GWCC is a grand and noble experiment, just like the Earthship concept that evolved into the structures we now live in. Like the Earthship model made available to the world, the GWCC website is a resource and reference guide for building and supporting our transition to a more sustainable, balanced and harmonious small community based on a Living Systems approach inspired by the genius of Nature. Through this modality we offer possibilities more conducive to a healthy and thriving human ecology, one that even the most rag tag and motliest of crews (like us) can achieve.

The Winding Road Journey is our story. It represents our history and our many attempts to navigate that better way forward. We are not well-seasoned community builders equipped with exceptional skills in self-governance nor clear instructions or proven templates. We are simply following the impetus for change that is speaking to so many right now in these times of great transition. As with any journey, there are successes and failures along the way, many obstacles peppered with promising breakthroughs. We honor and embrace it all knowing that every bit of commonly rejected material (ie the trash and waste most prefer to relegate to the landfill of our collective conscious) is the very material with which we can build our better way. This is not just a story of one community, it is the story of every contributing member and every other small community, group and organization with similar aims. We embrace the challenge of our own transformation process knowing, hoping and trusting that what we achieve here in the Greater World community will not only better sustain and support us as a small collective but positively impact the greater world at large!

“You thought I knew where the road was and you followed me.
But no. I didn’t know where the road was.
We had to make the road together.
And that is what we did.
That’s how we got where we wanted to be.
We made the road. It wasn’t there.”

—Subcomandante Marcos, Zapatista Army of National Liberation