N-Street Co-Housing, which began way back in 1986, is probably the best known and most inspiring example of what might be called “retrofit co-housing,” transforming an existing grid-dominated infrastructure into a land-based intentional community. The key? Look to the inner landscape. What’s inside your square block? Take down the fences. Create paths, gardens, chicken coops, places to play, dream, sit and talk. N-Street started with only two houses. That’s still the stage we’re in here now at GANE (Green Acres Neighborhood Ecovillage). But look at how far N-Street has come since then!
And given that it’s been done already, the template exists; it won’t take so much time for the rest of us to catch up. The rising price of food that is transported an average of 2000 miles, plus GMO contamination, bankster hijinks, the escalating crises in “jobs” and “debt” and so much else! — is inculcating a growing sense that The (old) American Dream is just so much baloney and needs to be radically revised.
And yet, we’re still dreamers! The astrological U.S.A. chart. features Neptune, the planet of visions and dreams and spirituality as the most elevated planet, ignited by Mars, and powered by Pluto. By harnessing the subtle, but strong atmosphere of Neptune we chart the way foward. Will that way remain escapist and addicted? These are traps Neptunians can fall into, doomed efforts to ignore the ongoing Uranus/Pluto quaking in our inner cores. Or, will we harness our nation’s legacy, and dream big. Really big. Like N-Street did and does. By communicating, connecting, and ultimately transforming our local landscapes, everywhere.
