Doug and Barb's invite to our intentional community

[Douglas P Dolstad]

To our IIT June 2013 friends,

It is with pleasure and a keen sense of anticipation that we send this announcement to you with whom we have shared the road.  We will need all the good will such enterprises like this can muster yet we have a good foundation to this dream with NVC and Permaculture principles and practices as guides.  If you feel a strong pull, please contact us.  If you know a person who you believe is in just the right place in their lives to throw their lot in with ours, please feel free to forward this announcement to them. 

Blessings on all you Love,

Doug and Barb

BEGIN....

SHORT DESCRIPTION:

This is an invitation to consider joining us, Doug  Dolstad  and Barbara Larson, in living in an intentional community on our 8-acre farm holding on Vashon Island, WA, combining the principles and practices of NVC and Permaculture.

LONG DESCRIPTION:

That we are sending out this invitation to you marks the culmination of ten years of holding a vision, and seven years of working on it to the point where we’re ready to invite you to join us.

We want to begin with gratitude to all of you who have touched our lives with your love, encouragement and shared hopes of a transformed world.

Doug was born here on Vashon Island, a 4th generation Islander,,,and Barbara joined him seven years ago. From the beginning of our time together, we’ve held a vision of Doug’s family’s 26+ acre Farm property becoming a place where like-hearted people would live together in a living/learning community, supported by the common practices of NVC and Permaculture.

We’ve hosted NVC Family Camp here since 2007, and in doing that, have learned a lot of what it would take to co-create a learning community on this property. We’ve gradually brought together the physical and personal infrastructure that now provide the foundation to put out a clear and strong invitation to you to consider taking the next steps with us that will create a year-round community on this small farm where we learn to live our values as human beings who share a planet and to offer what we learn to the world.

We currently have a lease through 2021 on 8.5 of the 26 acre family property. The land has a large farmhouse, a 30’ yurt, a spring on a hill, a well, a century-old apple/nut orchard, mixed deciduous and fir woods, hayfields, deer fenced gardens, composting toilets and solar outdoor showers. We’ve been gifted a barn which we’ll soon be dismantling and moving to the land. The beach is a short walk away.

It takes twenty minutes to bicycle to the small town of Vashon, with its cafes and library,  farmer’s market, two grocery stores with a commitment to organics, two hardware stores, and a weekly community acupuncture clinic. A time bank is just getting started on the island, and there is a Truly Free Market held monthly in the summer months. Being an island, there is a strong spirit of community around us, with many neighbor-helping-neighbor support organizations and informal exchanges.

From the farmhouse it takes about 35 minutes to bicycle to the ferry terminal at the north end of Vashon. There are regular car ferries seven days a week, and a commuter ferry on weekdays that takes people and their bicycles right to downtown Seattle. Many people commute to “the mainland” (mostly Seattle) from here for work or school. Many more work from home or have found a way to make a living on the island. For being so close to a major metropolitan area, the whole island is remarkable for its connection with nature, peace, and silence.  Small organic farms are making a comeback and there is a vigorous Vashon Island Grower’s Association, a Fruit Club, a Saturday Farmers’ Market and many people doing interesting things.  

We’ve been growing much of the produce for Family Camp and the gentle, moist maritime weather is practically perfect for a nearly year-round garden.   Fishing in the nearby Salish Sea (aka: Puget Sound) offers up salmon and a variety of shellfish.

Currently, we’re creating another large, deer-fenced garden space for the people who join us in the farmhouse, so everyone who wishes to can have a garden plot, protected from the deer we share the farm with.  Osprey, Canada geese, towhee, swallows, and hummingbirds are commonly seen or heard, with Bald Eagles, Great Blue herons and killdeer seen more along the coast of the island. The Salish Sea surrounds us here. We can see it from the farmhouse common room and one of the upstairs bedrooms has a window seat with a view of the water, beyond the apple trees, hayfield, and forest.

We envision that the people who live in the farmhouse embody principles and practices of NVC and Permaculture, and have a strong desire to live more sustainably than most of the Western world. From this home we hope to offer to the world NVC and Permaculture skills as applied vital living practices. Our 30’ yurt is reserved as an open space for such activities.  

So far, we have one person who has joined us in our vision and who is helping us tremendously in moving from vision to reality: Diane Emerson. Diane joined us full time in July, after coming to Family Camp as a volunteer for the past two years. She’s the first one living in the farmhouse, and she’s been helping us get ready for others of like heart and mind to join us.

There are 5 furnished bedrooms in the farmhouse. Four good sized bedrooms are currently available, with rent from $500 to $650 per month, plus a share of the electricity and fire wood.  Wireless internet, water and recycling are provided. We enjoy the wildlife on the farm, and will probably be having chickens, ducks and possibly other farm animals at some point, so have decided to start out with having the house and property pet free.

If you’re interest is perked in being part of this community, if you resonate with our vision, and think you might enjoy living in the farmhouse with others who share the values of  NVC and Permaculture, we would love to hear from you. If you know others who might be interested, please pass this along to them.  We’re happy to answer any questions people have about the vision and the opportunity to live here.

We look forward to hearing from you or others who might like to know more.

With love and gratitude,

Barbara and Doug

Doug and Barb

Vashon Island, Cascadia Bioregion

[Jenny Goodwine]

WOW.

Inspiring... I'm considering where I am in my life and seeing if it aligns. Would be amazing, and is something I will keep in my mind.

I find it generous of you both to share the invite with us. If I were a bit more ready to settle down,  I would seriously consider this. Lovely opportunity. A dream!

Looooooove and possibilities abound!

Jenny

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[Douglas P Dolstad]

Hi Jenny,    How good to see your name appear recently on this list, to be reminded that you are out and about in the world.   Heartened too to receive your sense of 'Yes" about this community.   That you find "it generous" of us is in itself, generous and full.  A good mirror eh?

Douglas

Douglas P Dolstad

Vashon Island, Cascadia Bioregion

[Bruce Campbell]

Dear Doug,

I am feeling such admiration for your foray into this intentional community.  The realization of a dream and at the same time probably a bit scary. We wish you a wonderful and rewarding experience.

Bruce and Sophia

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[Douglas P Dolstad]

Thank you Bruce.  You're right on the mark!   Excitement and anticipation of who might arrive with what passions they are ready to move into the world within the context of what we are offering.   Scary,....   Yes, a species of fear lurks in the corners - at least in my mind.  Fear often being:  False Evidence Appearing Real.   Inner work to apply to that one.  And, there are tangibles like taxes and zoning codes and such, let alone the delightful messiness of being humans...

We've a good start.   Things are moving toward realization and many things being realized every moment.  Taking that in too. 

Warmly,

Douglas and Barbara

Douglas P Dolstad

Vashon Island, Cascadia Bioregion

[Katherine Winter-Sellery]

Dear Doug,

Your excitement is bubbling over the internet!  Congratulations!! All the years of dreaming, planning, working that's gotten you here, making magic.  I lived in an intentional community in my late 20's, in fact that is where I met my husband(!) --- I was there about 8 months and he was there about 10 years.  It was a spiritual community, who knows what force drew us all there, it was certainly not denominational or religious, those gathered came from every imaginable background, it transcended all that.  The experience was transformational, and yes the human component to our divinity got to play out in all sorts of ways.  My personal experience was that living in intentional community was a lot like living in a cauldron, what needs to burn away anyway certainly got hot a lot faster!  Maybe one day the door will open for us to join you on this adventure.  I'm bubbling with enthusiasm for your adventure in the meantime.  Will you still run the summer camp?  I am wondering if it may fit for my family this summer.

Love hearing your voice

Katherine 

[Douglas P Dolstad]

Hello Katherine and All,

Thank you so much for your expressions of enthusiasm for this endeavor! And the thought of you & yours being part of the circle.... well... Meow!    We're aiming pretty high and are hopeful of a place that contributes to the inner question of how we each can live the love we want to experience relative to ourselves, each other and the planet.   NVC being such a wonderful support in that living.... Hoping the passions of those who choose to join in contribute to a place of extraordinary vitality.  An NVC & Permaculture hotbed of activity. 

An update:  we're getting some serious inquiries and enjoying the process of refining the essential question of "what's important"  

I'd love to hear more about your experience of intentional community.  Maybe over a cuppa by and by? 

Speaking of, yes, we'll be running Family Camp again.  And you think there might even be a chance of you and yours being there?    Wheee.  What a fun thought.    Keep in touch if it looks favorable.  First week in August.  And, plans are afoot for an NVC gathering around the time of FC.  Probably after.  Mid August?  

Blessings to you and All you Love,

Douglas

Douglas P Dolstad

Vashon Island, Cascadia Bioregion