I’ve recently purchased a 13 acre horse ranch in Arvada, Colorado. We’re converting the ranch into a modern village called Wild Life Ranch. It’s a space for 30-50 humans to live together in a way that is communal, in touch with nature and allows every one of us to go after living the life they truly want.
Over the last years as I’ve been dreaming and brainstorming about Wild Life, I wrote down 3 vision images I’d like to share with you to see how they resonate with you:
Every day life
We live in simple tiny houses surrounded by a shared, large community building. We spend most of our time outdoors, have access to delicious and plentiful food from our farms, fruit trees and other naturally growing herbs, seeds and spices. We live among animals that we take care of and honor and also acknowledge that they serve us with their meat, wool, eggs, backs to ride and company
Connection
We open our doors for visitors to spend time with us and learn how to live in simple, conscious and alive community. Our gatherings are fun, lightweight and impactful to transfer the ancient knowledge about human life that lives in all of our bodies over to everyone who comes, waking up that ancient knowledge inside of them. We laugh together, cry together, process together, get drunk together and live in peace with each other most of the time.
Passion and Purpose
Everyone is going after what they really love, caring for horses, farming the land, working on laptops, caring for animals and babies and humans, yoga, moving their bodies, teaching, swimming, building buildings, cooking, singing, dancing, there is something for everyone and in the end it is a beautiful work of art we have all created together.
Loving and hating each other!
The most important pillar of Wild Life is active conflict resolution for me. All of the intentional communities I’ve lived in have fallen or thrived on whether they were able to make conflict resolution work. My dream is that we make space for regular times to resent each other for having violated our expectations of the world, feel all the feelings underneath and be able to come back to a space of centeredness and connection. So, bring your hate, bring your love and everything in between, it’s all welcome!
In my time of living in community one of the big making or breaking points I witnessed is the group’s ability to deal with conflict and differing opinions as well as the wide range of human emotions. To facilitate being with these aspects of our humanity, I’d like to share with you these agreements and values for becoming a part of WLR:
My word is my bond
I do as I say and I say as I intend to do. I live aligned with my word. I’m able to change my mind and previously made agreements and I will let people know about it. I acknowledge if I slip up and recommit to my agreement.
Revealing my reality
I like to and commit to reveal the reality about my body sensations, thoughts and emotions, in particular my moments of tension, as well as appreciation in relationship to other community members. When I notice I’ve withheld something, I go and reveal it as soon as I become aware of my withhold.
Alignment with nature
I live in alignment with nature and honest necessity and abundance. I neither deprive myself nor indulge in experiences that I long for.
Asking for what I want:
I take responsibility for my needs, reveal my wishes and ask for what I want. I commit to framing my asks as requests that can be received with a yes or no.
Sustainability:
My endeavors are self-sustaining and don’t require charity or capital outside of their own circular nature.
Abundance:
We have enough money and resources to do all that we want and are prepared for downturns and always have a little extra to help us get through hard times.
In my time of living in community one of the big making or breaking points I witnessed is the group’s ability to deal with conflict and differing opinions as well as the wide range of human emotions. To facilitate being with these aspects of our humanity, I’d like to share with you these agreements and values for becoming a part of WLR:
My word is my bond
I do as I say and I say as I intend to do. I live aligned with my word. I’m able to change my mind and previously made agreements and I will let people know about it. I acknowledge if I slip up and recommit to my agreement.
Revealing my reality
I like to and commit to reveal the reality about my body sensations, thoughts and emotions, in particular my moments of tension, as well as appreciation in relationship to other community members. When I notice I’ve withheld something, I go and reveal it as soon as I become aware of my withhold.
Alignment with nature
I live in alignment with nature and honest necessity and abundance. I neither deprive myself nor indulge in experiences that I long for.
Asking for what I want:
I take responsibility for my needs, reveal my wishes and ask for what I want. I commit to framing my asks as requests that can be received with a yes or no.
Sustainability:
My endeavors are self-sustaining and don’t require charity or capital outside of their own circular nature.
Abundance:
We have enough money and resources to do all that we want and are prepared for downturns and always have a little extra to help us get through hard times.
My experience of living in community is that it is similar to finding a romantic partner – it takes time, getting to know each other is a delicate and often anxiety-inducing process and then there’s still no guarantee that it’ll work out!
To honor this, I’d like to make everything as transparent as possible and explain the steps of becoming a member of WLR:
Step: Application through website or other written or verbal voicing of interest with details about what attracts you to Wild Life – you can click the form below to get started.
Step: Meeting and conversation and or Zoom call to get to know you, talk about your and our desires.
Step: Visa – 14 Day trial living process with check-in 1 a week on how it’s going
Step: Green Card – Decision on extension of living trial to 3-6 months.
Step: Citizenship – Decision on becoming a full Wild Life Member, becoming an official member of the organization, taking up roles, receiving voting rights and usage rights of the space for 3 years with regular conflict resolution along the way.
Please check out the website at wildliferanch.co and if it resonates, send me an email to [email protected]
A few people (not elected by the broader community) make the major decisions.
Organized in circles or domains with distributed authority.
Members maintain separate personal finances with minimal sharing.
Join fee: $10000
Monthly fees/dues: $1250
Labor required: 3 hours/week
Members with pre-existing debt: Yes (some debt)
Common House, Garden(s), Workshop, Hot tub or hot springs, Large Scale Kitchen, Internet
Smaller municipalities with local services but rural character.
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