The Renaissance Community, Massachusetts

Image Gallery The steel truss on this house behind a Renaissance garden is designed to support a free-form living room.

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The Renaissance Community located in the hills of the Connecticut River Valley is a spiritual community that began in a tree house in 1968. Some of us, however, would tell you that its actual beginning may have taken place centuries ago, in other lifetimes when the people here knew one another. It's certain that, in our present forms, we're putting much of our energy into getting back to the land.

In 1976 we bought 80 acres in Gill, Massachusetts, and named the place The 2001 Center. Two years later we started to put our labor, talents, and financial resources together to cultivate a self-sufficiency community. Today the land is dotted with new solar homes, greenhouses, orchards, gardens, animals, a windmill, and the 75 adults and 50 children who live here.

The systems we work with are a varied blend of high and low technology. Essentially, we use any means to provide food and energy ... so long as it works, it makes sense ecologically and financially, and someone is willing to follow through with it. For example, some people here prefer the old-time use of rainwater and candlelight, while others employ solar equipment.

When our community first began, it was set up in a backwoods, rustic way. Over the years, however, we've moved back into the mainstream of society in order to have outlets for our creative arts and to set up a stable financial system for ourselves ... i.e., businesses. At the present time these include a silk-screening company, a carpentry and excavating enterprise, a housecleaning business, and a bus company that serves the rock-and

roll industry. All are communally owned, but each one is managed by one person, who is responsible for focusing the group process on that enterprise. Each business controls its own cash accounts and salaries. At another level, though, the business managers and other department heads get together to guide the flow of profits into the various projects agreed upon by the community at large. Together as a family-we manage to cover our financial needs, not just through hard work but also through following the basic principle of sharing. We don't have to have an overseer tell us that we must share: We already know that when people share there's plenty for all and that true sharing makes life feel good. We leave it up to ourselves as individuals to take the initiative on how well we treat one another-and that applies to personal interactions as well as to distribution of material goods. Obviously, when everyone does his or her part, it feels great. (And, of course, the opposite is also true.)

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