A Collective Blooming: The Rise Of The Mutual Aid Community

Some examples of other systems that can be collectively trained in include Non Violent Communication practices and Authentic Relating exercises.

As the trauma specialist Bessel Van Der Kolk surmises ‘being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.’35

A Sense Of Connection - Having regular interaction with a distinct group of people with whom we share the same values. A Sense Of Belonging - Feeling seen, understood, accepted and celebrated for the many aspects that make us who we are.

At some point in our headlong rush towards ‘progress’, we cut ourselves off from the communal crucible of close human connection that nurtured our species for hundreds of thousands of years. Since we first settled into agricultural civilisation we’ve engineered a series of socio-economic systems that have incentivised us to consistently exploit one

if we wish to see change in the world we need to start rewriting our cultural script, to begin constructing transformational new narratives that appeal to our noblest selves and encourage us to keep our more selfish desires in check. As Terrence McKenna put it, ‘if you’re not the hero of your own novel, then what kind of novel is it? You need to do

‘You cannot take away someones story without giving them a new one. It is not enough to challenge an old narrative, however discredited and outdated it may be. Change happens only when you replace it with another. When we develop the right story and learn how to tell it, it will infect the minds of people across the political spectrum. Those who te

As Richard Bartlett explores in his series of articles on Microsolidarity,40 becoming a Community Creature involves finding harmony between the many aspects that compose our inner ’community of one’, but also includes improving our ability to maintain highly cohesive relationships at the one to one level, ’Pod’ level (3-6 people) and ‘Collective’ l

the stories we’ve been culturally indoctrinating ourselves with are in urgent need of upgrading.

forming Collectives gives us an opportunity to do exactly that, to create small pockets of the kind of futures we wish to inhabit, right here in the world today. But rather than going it alone, or with just a couple of close friends, we get to run the experiment with up to two hundred other people who all share our same values and dreams.