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31 Mar 2024
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Description
Blessings! And thank you for coming to our profile! We are forming a Monastic Interfaith Christ-centered Intentional Community in Louisa, VA. That's a lot of words! I'll explain.
The vision for this community is creating a monastic intentional community where people can practice their faith through Sung Prayer, meditation and dialogue with fellow humans. We envision there being space for monks to practice their life-long commitment to God/The Source/Creator as well as space for any person who wants to be closer to their spirituality through the modalities listed above, while living in community. We envision openness for all types of residents, be it intentional community members, monks, volunteers or visitors and we are open to every type of person. Come as you are.
Our Pillars:
1)Radical Welcoming
2)Sung Prayer
3)Learning to Dialogue
4)Service
We participate in Sung Prayer, led by Brother Stefan (a Christian Monk) 3x a day, followed by a community meal and conversation (unless we are practicing silence). Brother Stefan is the founder and creator of this forming intentional community based off of the principles of the Taize Community in France, and we need help to grow it!
We are in the very beginning stages of growing this vision, so there is a lot of work to be done and a lot of space to practice your faith, silence, retreat, conversation, expression, whatever nurtures your relationship with the Self and the Source.
We have a beautiful property that is 260 acres of mostly wooded landscape along with gorgeous rolling hills, and several structures already built including the retreat center and a large pond.
Types of help and learning opportunities
Help with Eco Projects
Elderly Companionship
Gardening
DIY and building projects
Animal Care
Farmstay help
Creating/ Cooking family meals
Help around the house
General Maintenance
Help with Computers/ Internet
UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve
Cultural exchange and learning opportunities
You will be able to have the space to give yourself a retreat. You can join in on our Sung Prayer (led by a talented musician), meditation and have wonderful conversations with good people about how to be human in this world. You will have the opportunity to go deeper with your practice and deeper with your relationship to God. We have a very large property, so you are free to explore and commune with nature. We do not have a ton of projects at the very beginning, and we respect and value an even pace, so there is a lot of space for you to take in the stillness here. We hold retreats sometimes, so you will get to be a part of those as well!
Help
Roles to Fill:
KITCHEN GURU-
This person or persons will be responsible for growing out kitchen garden as well as taking the lead in the kitchen (keeping it organized, planning for meals, food preservation and so on). The area for our kitchen garden is very manageable for one person. We will use no-till farming practices. We can teach you everything you need to know but some experience is preferred (ex. knowing the difference between a weed and vegetables and knowing what vegetables look like as a plant). We intend to share meal preparation between all volunteers so the kitchen guru will not be responsible for cooking all meals, but we would like the person in this role to have an understanding of what we have available, seasonally, place orders for bulk foods and go grocery shopping (with help if needed). We are looking for someone who can understand seasonal growing and wants to make sure we are eating as much food that we grow as possible. This season we will start with garlic. Greenhouse space and low tunnels will be available for season extension.
LAND GURU-
This person should have carpentry skills and ability to operate chainsaws. We are looking for someone to manage the land which will include: taking down fences, possibly lead us in building a greenhouse, build trails, clearing fallen trees, finding uses for fallen trees (we do have books that can help with ideas), create a "resource yard" with recycled materials from the land and old structures, some gardening, and assistance on the farm as well.
Who We are Looking For:
We would like to bring on people who have building/carpentry skills. Although these tasks are simple for a carpenter, we need someone who knows how to work power tools and knows how to put things together! There are only 3 of us here so far, 2 are elders and 1 who doesn't know much about power tools but would like to learn! If you have these skills and especially if you work in alternative or natural building, we would love to have you! We need someone who will be able to take the lead and show us how its done!
We need people who can see what needs to be done to grow the vision, share their thoughts and make a plan to execute it. We are very open to ideas and would like to hear from you!
If you are looking for longer term residency, we have many future projects as well: renovating an old farm house, renovating a barn, building several retreat dwellings, starting a flower farm and kitchen garden- lots of things! We want people here who can grow the vision and especially if they have knowledge or skill of how to be in better harmony with the land through infrastructure and simple daily changes/upgrades/environmental hacks.
This could be a good place for you if you are interested in living in community, want to have a deeper connection to your spiritual practice through Sung Prayer, meditation and communing with other human beings and want to be out in nature.
Languages spoken
English: Fluent
Accommodation
Right now we have room for 2-3 people. We have bunk-bed style dorm rooms with one mostly private small room available in the dorms, one fully private room available (it is large so it would be nice for it to be shared with friends or a family/couple, if needed) and 2 semi-private rooms available in the dorms. Depending on how many people are here and their needs, we can try to accommodate for more privacy but a sure way of getting that for yourself is to bring a tent or van or RV. We will be putting up industrial canvas tents with furniture this fall for our future volunteers and will have more spaces (including private spaces) for the following year.
For food we give a stipend each week to the volunteers and expect the volunteers to coordinate to purchase food together, which should be fairly easy because we eat communally. We are a nonprofit with a very small budget, so if you are willing and able to contribute a donation to the food stipend, we would greatly appreciate it.
What else ...
We read from several sacred texts including the bible. We speak the names Jesus and God often and believe we can learn a great deal about how to create Peace on our Earth from their words. If this bothers you to a great extent, this might not be a great fit. If you are semi-closed to this but still somewhat open, this might be a good place for you. On the other hand we are interfaith and accept all people and have no dogma about who's going here or who's going there. We accept every person's personal relationship to their Higher Power.
We are in the middle of an intentional community mecca! There are several other intentional communities right in the area who are doing really great and interesting things. You can take tours of them and make friends as they often hold gatherings.
We are very rural so it would help if you had a car. We do have two bikes available and we go into town, which is about 15 minutes away, a couple times a week.
A little more information
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
Space for parking camper vans
We have 260 acres with some lovely meadow space for camper parking. No hookups
Can possibly accept pets
Peaceful dogs are welcome.
How many Workawayers can stay?
More than two
Hours expected
Maximum 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week
