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 demonstrate a number of ways that humans can live more sustainably and closer to Nature while free from reliance on centralized control grids, 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. Like most hierarchical structures (and many if not most HOAs), the power granted to this organization has been abused through favoring the influence and interests of a few while dismissing those who offer alternatives (while also appropriating their ideas to serve and bolster the toxic organization and toxic personalities within) and even punishing those who’ve challenged the structure with liens against their homes and various other forms of harassment and intimidation.

Our Challenge(s).

Our HOA has been perennially challenged over the years by some very 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 facts regarding operations, record-keeping and general compliance, these enquiries are simply ignored by our HOA board members. The constantly frustrated pursuit for clarity and resolution on a number of critical topics has worn down many of our community members and many good people who’ve invested much in their homes and their community have ultimately chosen to move away. Persistence of the remaining few has led to various forms of division and confusion among community members in general. Many who arrived here with much hope and optimism—perhaps for a like-minded tribe, a fundamentally cohesive group, a functioning community—have experienced their high spirits eroding over time. Those who do try to get involved find themselves dispirited and disenchanted if not apathetic out of exhaustion and basic self-preservation. Add to this, we have a number of duplicitous folks (“agents of discord”) who serve to fuel confusion and divisiveness among community members as a kind of sport. 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, it’s been made clear that the legal systems at both local and state levels will not solve anything for us nor will anyone come to our rescue.

Our Pursuit.

We want to be happy. We wish to feel fulfilled in our labors, supported by others and at ease in our environments. We, as individuals, must have a vested interest in our own well-being so we may leverage our own personal empowerment to assist others in theirs.

In the words of anti-apartheid activist June Jordan, “we are the ones we've been waiting for”. It seems almost too obvious, that the ones who desire change must pursue it for themselves. In reality, change is a daunting task. Because change requires personal responsibility and focused effort (all the more challenging to arrive at by consensus), it seems utterly impractical if not impossible. So, how do we overcome our own cognitive dissonance and self-sabotage in order to forge a better way together?

And yet, we habitually defer to others to guide the way, to set the trend and to give us permission. How do we most effectively convey this core message to our community members? If the people of our community are divided—out of confusion, perceived conflicts of interest or pure pettiness—how can we establish a base of cohesiveness to provide the basic footing for us to move forward?

The community’s pursuit for a more equitable and sustainable way representative of our shared interest has been all the more frustrated by divisiveness along with a lack of a sustained and committed interest. Like a body struggling with an autoimmune disease, our community has within itself various forms of hindrance and self-sabotage. This arises from an environment of mistrust, desire for control and petty competition brought on by an influential few. As we see anywhere, much of this is the byproduct of ego games while some is born simply as the result of confusion and misunderstandings that comes of a reliance on bad information and deferring to the opinions of those with personal agendas.

Our Reality.

Cohesiveness through Dynamic 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 short-term 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 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 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, our 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 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, little breakthroughs and many obstacles. 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