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6 Ecovillages: Information Tools and Deeply Sustainable Living Lisa Nathan The things that owe their existence exclusively to men nevertheless constantly condition their human makers. —Hannah Arendt (1958, p. 11) Information Tools and Sustainability A slow drumbeat reverberates across the wooden floor, signaling the Council of All Beings to assemble. Bear, Vole, Earthworms, Flower and Weed, Red-Tailed Hawk, Owl, Prairie Grass, Pond, and the rest of the wildlife representatives gather, circling around the drummer. Behind paper masks decorated with feathers, grass, and leaves are community members in the midst of planning a new housing development. Their decisions will shape the dwellings, gardens, workshops, laundry facilities, and common house that will provide shelter, food, and creative space for their community. Today’s ceremony is an opportunity for community members to reflect on the influence that human development will have on the long-term future of the creatures with whom they share the land. Four participants remove their masks, move to the center of the circle, and sit on the floor with backs together. They face outward, looking into the masked faces that represent their nonhuman neighbors. The four in the center represent humanity preparing to build on the land. Today, they put aside their drafts, applications, and permits to listen compassionately to beings who share their land and will be affected by their choices. One by one, each of the beings in the outside ring gives voice to feelings of fear and depredation: “My young will have no long grass in which to hide”; “Your heavy machinery will destroy my burrow”; “Where will we go for food if you fence, pave, and build on what little land is left?” At regular intervals, the human representatives in the middle switch places with four from the outer circle. The ones leaving the inner circle don 174 Lisa Nathan their masks and resume their nonhuman roles. Those entering the inner circle “become human” and are tasked with the simple activity of listening . They are not to explain or defend their development plans, they just listen. Who are these middle-aged white folks sitting on the floor on a chilly winter morning, wearing construction paper masks, pretending to be creatures from the land, sea, and sky? As a group, they represent Brook Ecovillage,1 an intentional community formed in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. As individuals, they represent a variety of professional roles including educator, theater activist, pediatrician, facilitator, social worker, psychotherapist, politician, massage therapist, translator, human resources manager, secretary, architectural designer, technical writer, administrator, and building contractor. In community outreach materials, the villagers describe themselves as individuals who are deeply concerned about the future of planet earth and the creatures that inhabit it, including human beings. Why are they pretending to be nonhuman life forms? They are engaged in a ceremony developed by self-described ecophilosopher Joanna Macy, who states that The Council of All Beings is a communal ritual in which participants step aside from their human identity and speak on behalf of another life-form. A simple structure for spontaneous expression, it aims to heighten awareness of our interdependence in the living body of Earth, and to strengthen our commitment to defend it. The ritual serves to help us acknowledge and give voice to the suffering of our world. It also serves, in equal measure, to help us experience the beauty and power of our interconnectedness with all life. (Macy, 1998, p. 1) Members of the community identified Macy’s ceremony as a way to envision the influence that the development of their ecovillage might have on the life forms with whom they share their immediate environment. I too had a mask on during the Council of All Beings. My awkward paper beak kept slipping down my nose, a physical reminder of my challenge to keep up with my various roles in the community. In the role of Seagull, I asked the villagers to consider how the building materials they use would influence my ability to find a safe place to nest and to find toxin-free grubs for my young. Behind the mask, my other roles in the community included student, friend, and researcher. As a researcher, I was asking the villagers to help me understand whether their goal to develop a sustainable lifestyle influenced how they use tools to create, share, store, and search for information. What, if anything, can we learn from their practices? Are there hints that might help us, as a technological species, move...

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