Pele Aina Review

Our stay at the community called "Pele Aina" was very enriching. We had two weeks at this 10 acre farm, with 12 members. The land is owned by Jeffrey, who welcomes guest/volunteers to his land to work with him. Over the past 22 years he has built a few structures, with the main focus being on a large community room with the shared kitchen, appliances, bathroom, yoga silks, musical instruments, and lots of space to relax and share time together as a family and community. Jeffrey has also planted many fruit trees like bananas, avocado, passion fruit, citrus, rombutons, jackfruit, and more! We always had plenty of food from the Aina (or land).

With the intention of work trading, we took part in a few projects for improving the garden which was pretty impressive. There is plenty of kale, tomatoes, carrots, fennel, watermelon, aloe, lemon grass, wild celery, and more.

The feeling of community was very strong here, and every night we would gather with the Pele Aina family to share dinner together. Several people would cook a portion of the meal, usually with their own supplies or food harvested from the land. Each meal opened with an intentional circle where we shared our thoughts and gratitude, encouraged healthful activities, and planned future projects (such as building, gardening, and art work). Always ending with a fun syllable to OM and then an "inversion", putting our hearts over our head. That ceremony was particularly entertaining - seeing 12 people attempting a headstand, back bend, or any other variation!

Beyond the nuclear community meals, every Wednesday we hosted an "Activation Potluck" at Pele Aina. This was an inspiring event that was successful every week! Everyone is invited to come share with us and encouraged to bring a vegetarian meal to share. There was always an abundance of healthy food and an incredible variety. This event also had the intentional circle, syllable and inversion - and the rest of the night was a celebration with accoustical music, singing, dancing, stretching, massage, yoga, and other "activations".

Though the property was plugged into the county grid for electricity, a there was constant awareness to maintain low energy consumption. The water is collected in rain catchment and supplies all of the faucets (always boil rain catchment water before drinking). A passive solar system heats the water on sunny days, and works almost too well!

The work structure for the community is very loose, and it is encouraged to only do work that you want to do. Though this can lead to a lot of "hanging around", there never seemed to be a lack of available hands when a focused project was presented. There was no record for work hours, other than a small garden log - mostly to know what work had already been done.

Jeffrey has plans to sell this farm, in hopes to create a healing arts center set up on another plot of land he owns. (If anyone is interested in more information on purchasing this 10 acre farm in Kurtistown Hawaii, selling for $600,000 - contact us!). The other residents of the farm have individual businesses centered around art - for example:

• Saera is an incredible seamstress that makes clothing to order, with focused intention and love (feel free to explore some of her work at www.whymz.net)
• Jairus Dreaming and his band Peace Tribe is constantly evolving and playing beautiful music all over the island, and has just released their album for download (link coming soon).

~Dani

Hedonisia - Week 3 (Final Week)

Aloha!

This past week was our last at Hedonisia Eco-Hostel as work-exchange volunteers. The whole experience was absolutely incredible and packed full of education. Though the work we partook in was primarily more chopping, weeding, and cleaning - we are always observing and learning.

I'd say that we took in a lot of information about coming together on common goals, organizing projects and project leaders, and the benefits of a solid structure for guests and volunteers. Though the idea of having rules and structure can sometimes be a restrictive, we have learned that the proper amount of structure accompanied by fair rules leads to a much more effective living and working environment. This also allows for the boundaries of guests, volunteers, and residents to be respected - which is of utmost importance.

With the quick coming of our last days at Hedo, we had to pour on the steam to complete the Earth Charter Assessment (EC-Asses). Earth Charter is another educational non-profit that has been in operation since 1999, that offers free educational material to those interested in improving sustainability. Their EC-Asses is a subjective evaluation of any entity (individual, group, organization, company, government, etc) attempting to quantify their level of sustainability. The assessment evaluates on Social, Ecological, and Democratic levels and invites these entities to create a campaign for change.

It has been one of the goals of the Hawaiian Research Project to offer this assessment. It's intensive, but very enriching. So, during the last week at Hedo we completed the assessment and are eager to set up a later appointment to review the results as well as the other observations while there.

Our next move is to recollect ourselves at the house of a beautiful friend and former manager of Hedonisia for a few days. Then we plan to take on the next community!

~Dani

It's official - We're Incorporated!

We have been non-stop in our preparation for the trip to Hawaii and the Hawaiian Research Project. With the aid of the Nolo "How to Form a Non-Profit in California", we have finally finished both our State and Federal Tax Exempt Applications!

The State Application was sent out immediately once we received our Officially Filed Articles of Incorporation back from the Secretary of State! After one missed and one successful filing attempt, we celebrate being an official organization as of July 6th, 2010. Therefore, we are now waiting for the response back about our State Tax Exempt Status. There were no fees for filing, unlike the $400 it will take to file the Federal Application. (That will have to wait until after our Hawaii adventure, to see if it is in our budget)

We are confident that everything will go smoothly in the evaluation process and we will hear back from the State within a couple of months.