East Wind, Missouri

Image Gallery East Wind's Lick Creek.

By Kathy Bennett

It's 8:00 and already getting dark ... too soon for the day to end. Maureen has just finished milking; the children are shouting as they play in the grounded canoes; the sound of piano music wafts on the wind. James and Damien walk by on their way to the shower house. Louise is going up to the industrial building to weave hammocks. I'm just sitting, watching the sun set behind the trees, purpling the clouds and the mist that lies on the valley.

My community is called East Wind. What is it? It's land, buildings, people, values, and the ideal of "community" that all of us here are sometimes filled with. It's not utopia or paradise, but it's a way of life that we have some control over, that we can create and keep creating to fill our needs, desires, and dreams. It's a living, changing organism that grows—sometimes intentionally, sometimes in confusion. It stubs its toe and cries, celebrates, gets distracted, and occasionally has to redecide where it's going. Community, you see, is not a finished product but a process.

East Wind is located on 160 acres in the Missouri Ozarks near the Arkansas border. We lease an additional 200 acres to grow hay and grain for our beef and dairy herds. We are self-sufficient in dairy products, supply many of the eggs we need, and have a one-and-a-halfacre garden.

We also market hammocks (from our own rope products industry), "Pendulum" chairs, and "Utopian" sandals. In 1981 another enterprise was started: providing nut butters-peanut , almond, and cashew—and sesame tahini to food co-op warehouses across the country.

There are now about 50 of us, including four children, and three babies are on the way. Our long-term plan is to grow to 750 ... but slowly enough to be economically and ecologically sound. We're striving to be a planned and fully integrated community that deals with the complexities of life in as sane, logical, caring, and equitable a fashion as possible. To help realize that goal, we have a labor system which insures that work gets done when, where, and how we desire. We provide health care for our members, from delivering babies to caring for our sick. We have a program of Montessori education and 24-hour child care. We provide lunch and dinner for everyone every day (as well as a short-order breakfast two days a week), and we routinely take part in such activities as trash collection and vehicle maintenance.