I just spent 5 days at Circle Dance Camp Cape Cod.\u00a0 I had a GREAT time.\u00a0 Lots of dancing, visiting with old friends and new, good food.\u00a0 We really took\u00a0 care of each other, too.\u00a0 If someone\u2019s knee was hurting someone else would offer Reiki or arnica cream.\u00a0 I would happily give up most of my \u201cluxuries\u201d like car, and refrigerator, washer\/dryer, and even my biggish house (2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom) to be able to live in a community where I could spend lots of time dancing, singing, storytelling, in exchange for some work for the community.\u00a0 I would happily wash dishes, clean bathrooms, weed gardens, chop vegetables, to be able to spend more time with friends doing things that feed the soul, like dancing, ceremony, storytelling, etc.\u00a0 I think, knowing something about the leisure time available to foraging tribes, that it would be about 4 hours a day I\u2019d have to spend in such work, and even that would be with friends.<\/p>\n
See Wikipedia on “Original Affluent Society”<\/a> This is what made me think about community and what I value.\u00a0 Elisabet Sahtouris<\/a> wrote this piece.\u00a0 “Sarah James, enduring the heat of Brazil, was beating her huge caribou-skin drum to punctuate her own words as she told us about her Gwich\u2019in Indian culture in the northernmost inhabited village of Alaska. I\u2019d met her in Oregon the year before; this time she had made the trip to Rio de Janeiro for the Earth Summit of 1992. She described her people\u2019s lives before contact with the white man. Their relationship with the caribou was sacred and they were endlessly grateful for this wonderful animal that gave them everything they needed and wanted: food, bone and skin houses, boats, snowshoes, utensils, tools, clothing, drums, flutes. Their lives were rich\u2013 rich with family and community, warm homes and clothing, plentiful food, much time for ceremony, music, dance, story telling and laughter, much reason for celebration and thanksgiving for their bounty. But when the white man came to them, he saw people living in 40-deg.-below-zero weather with only caribou to provide for their meager sustenance. He called them poor ‘savages.’ Sarah beat her caribou skin drum, sang her welcoming skin hut dance song, and smiled broadly as she shouted, ‘Well, then let\u2019s keep Alaska savage!'”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I just spent 5 days at Circle Dance Camp Cape Cod.\u00a0 I had a GREAT time.\u00a0 Lots of dancing, visiting with old friends and new, good food.\u00a0 We really took\u00a0 care of each other, too.\u00a0 If someone\u2019s knee was hurting … Continue reading
\nand the Economist on Noble or Savage<\/a><\/p>\n